ranzware
The developers of the emotional animal parent Shelter games have just announced their next project and although it’s definitely still what I’d call “cozy,” it’s pretty different from the studio’s past work. Twinkleby, announced today for release in 2025, is a “relaxing decoration game” about a floating archipelago of islands.
“In Twinkleby, you will furnish your Victorian dollhouses and the gardens with an ever-expanding collection of decoration pieces,” Might and Delight says. “As you play, flying boats arrive to drop off new residents who make themselves at home on your islands. These quirky characters will interact with your creations and each other. They all have personalities of their own, and you need to figure out how to make them happy, because they’ll make sure to reward you for it.”
Twinkleby looks like it’s cozying up to the trend of little decorating games like Tiny Glade or Summerhouse, referencing the control you have over its “diorama” environment and that it has no fail state. You’ll decorate tiny dollhouses to attract new residents to the archipelago and collect shooting stars to spend on even more items at Molligan’s Antiques while setting the weather and seasons in your village however you like at will.
It’s nice to see Might and Delight announcing a new game after Book of Travels (which I rather liked) didn’t do so hot sales-wise in 2021 and led to layoffs at the studio in the same year. It is a shame that the studio’s signature art style—beautiful abstract textures on low-poly models—didn’t survive, though. Whether that’s a result of the team cuts or a creative decision made for other reasons, I don’t know.
Instead, Twinkleby has the bright colors, small rotund characters, and bubbly interface that will likely get compared to Animal Crossing. It does look pretty darn cute, even if it isn’t what I expected to come out of a Might and Delight announcement and I am, as ever, a fan of decorating games.
Twinkleby does not have a set release date, but is planned to launch sometime in 2025 on Steam. I wish them well as they venture into the tiny and twee side of cozy games.
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Kurt Indovina
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