The best part of any cosy game is getting to decorate your own space. Whether that’s a single house, a shopfront, or an entire town, getting to customise your area is what makes these games so relaxing. The odds of you decorating in the same way as the next person are incredibly slim, which makes it feel a lot more personal, and strips away any sense of competition. It’s just you, and whatever furniture and decor you’ve picked up.
Twinkleby takes this satisfaction of bringing life to empty spaces and creates an entire game out of it. When I first played the demo in May, I shared how I was getting to a point where I felt exhausted with decorating in games because of a little voice telling me it needed to be picture-perfect. After spending about half an hour with the demo, I was reminded that the visual appeal doesn’t matter as long as you’re having fun. Having now played hours of the full game, I’m pleased to announce this feeling never fizzles out and once you’re past the first couple of islands.
The entire premise of the game is incredibly straightforward. You’re given a floating island to place houses on and decorate wherever you fancy. After a short while, people will arrive at the dock via flying boat (because of course they would) and move in. They’ll throw their bags in a crate, which you’ll be able to pick up and plonk in any house you think is suitable. To start, these characters are happy to just live wherever. But, the more islands you decorate and the more items you unlock, they start developing preferences and needs which adds a little more challenge for you to consider.
These requirements are not difficult to understand. A little icon underneath their name indicates what exactly they want, such as a potted plant for more greenery, or a knife and fork for some food. Fulfilling these needs fills the happiness bar of the island as a whole, and when it has reached its max level, your islanders will get together to sing you a song and present you with a map fragment which you can then use to visit more challenging islands.
For me, this guidance is what sets Twinkleby above other cosy games so reliant on decorating. A lot of the time, you’re given the chance to customise a space for your own satisfaction. Now, you are given limited space to work with and a list of needs to meet, but this never stunts your progression and you can still sail to other islands.
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It’s only the particularly challenging ones that are locked behind these map fragments, so you’ll still get to experience that laid-back atmosphere. As I mentioned in my impressions of the demo, a lack of similar structure like this is what made me feel so tired of other decorating games. Even though I appreciate the freedom, sometimes it’s nice to be given a vague set of instructions to work with rather than work toward.
Each island is entirely different in shape too, which adds a puzzle-solving element to the game. If you can see that four people want to move in, as indicated by the villager number in the bottom left corner, then you know you need four houses. However, some islands have been terraformed in a way where you have to add bridges across rivers for people to reach each house or give you more challenging areas to navigate like, especially small patches of land that don’t quite fit a home. Finding solutions to these more complex islands made me feel like I’d completed a hard day of work by the time islanders started moving in, and that’s before I even started fulfilling their needs.
If you don’t like a villager or you feel like you can’t meet their requirements, getting rid of them is just as easy as welcoming them. You take their bag which they threw down at the dock and simply throw it off the side of the island. Taking this as their cue to leave, they’ll produce an umbrella and throw themselves off the side ready for the next islander. I think games like Animal Crossing could take a leaf out of this book, since bullying your villagers until they leave feels morally wrong and it just makes your life that little bit easier if you’re not quite ready to add more difficulty to a game that’s meant to help you chill out. I can’t say evicting anyone feels good though.
Even though Twinkleby doesn’t have a story to follow, or even any dialogue, it doesn’t need it. The satisfaction of making little dollhouses for tiny villagers that will sing to you if they’re happy is more than enough to keep you playing. Though saying that, when I eventually move onto another decorating-based game, or even a game where customisation plays a significant role, it won’t feel like a job well done until someone is singing me a song of thanks.
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