I love this game so, so much. Clearly one of my favorites of this year. It’s been a huge comfort during hard times, so it has a special place in my heart.
Despite the multiple cuts to the story (some aspects have been changed multiple time during development), this game is the closest I’ve ever played to scratch that Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and Happy Home Paradise itch. In short, there isn’t much story, nor the amount of clients or requests like in ACHHD/HHP, but this is exactly the same gameplay loop: responding to a house decoration request based on a theme, with a couple of mandatory elements to include in the room design; with a mystery twist that’s unfortunately quite… underwhelming.
Despite the lack of story, I love the game for the creative freedom it offers. For a lil’ indie game, the decoration content is HUGE! As I pixel art/sprite lover, I’m over the moon a game like this finally exists (yeah, there have been games like Habbo Hotel and other similar cash grabs, but here you’ve got a full game for a small price with no cosmetic DLCs or anything).

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3558232551

• Gorgeous pixel art.
  
• Lots of decorative content: furniture, wall decoration, little props… there’s like thousands of them! For an indie game, it’s enormous! Especially in pixel sprites, which takes more time to do than 3D assets.
  
• Like in Animal Crossing, several items are interactive and/or animated.
  
• Some of the main characters you do requests for are linked to each other; there’s a follow-up.
  
• You’d think you’re done with a place, but coming back to it may show there’s more, new things there to do.
  
• No pressure at all. In-game time is passing without consequences.
  
• Globally, super chill ambiance. The music loops, but it’s as chill as the gameplay.
  
• This is the kind of game you feel the love the devs have poured into, and that’s the kind of devs I want to support!
  
• Works perfectly on MacOS. Thanks devs for thinking about us… heretics!

• Not that you see it much, but you can’t customize your playable character’s looks.
  
• Some items are frustratingly not customizable (colors) or can’t be rotated in 4 angles, which reduces creative freedom and the themes you can do. I put this as a neutral, as constraints tend to develop creativity, and that it’s already great some stuff has 4-angles rotation at all, but still, it’s a bit limiting and disappointing.
  
• If you haven’t played the demo, it may go over your head, but… no more un-cozy creepy dark twists. Plenty of early fans were complaining about the removal of that, but honestly, I’m quite glad there isn’t such stuff in a cozy game that has nothing else truly creepy in it in general; this isn’t the vibe it wants to give. And by creepy and dark, I’m not talking about superficial scary things, but triggery stuff for some people. I don’t get why the second change has been… changed as well though. In my humble opinion, devs should have either embraced that to the fullest, I have nothing against cozy games having dark undertones as long as they’re upfront about it, or not included any at all.

• Very hard to read most of the text and use controls on Steam Deck, to the point I ended up playing on my MacBook (which I rarely do, especially for those comfy games you want to play under a thick warm plaid in bed).
  
• The mystery aspects are deeply underwhelming. While I’m happy there isn’t any creepy stuff as said above, the “glitch” thingies aren’t enough to capture all the mystery potential the game could have had. As of now, this is just strange stuff that appeals to younger players wondering what the heck on socials, looks kind of an excuse to create achievements.
  
• Underused of good and original story mechanics such as time travelling. Again, something that has been removed in the full game. You only use that mechanic once, while in the demo, you could “fix” a story that went wrong. The game would have been way more original if that aspect was part of the whole gameplay loop in addition to the decoration: decorating a house based on a request → see the next day what would happen → do changes in accordance.
  
• Overall, it’s quite short… You quickly finish the core/main requests in a kind of abrupt way asking yourself “wait, that’s it?”; then it’s sandbox time with the exact same couple requests again and again (very reminescent of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer on 3DS where villagers would give the exact same requests in loop, but here it’s worst, there’s like 8? It seems to have improved after the Holidays update though, but still not much).

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3564872638
Whisper of the House may not have much story, but not every game needs to. Everything else in the game offers a great chill, relaxing, laid-back experience in which I just had fun decorating cute pixel houses, while watching some movie or listening to music, or just vibing to the calm in-game music. Playing this after getting back from work for an hour here and there has been a huge help for my mental health, and I can’t recommend it enough! If you’re looking for a stress-free cute game in which you can be creative without using much brain power, to me, it’s a perfect choice!

💻 Controls and performance: 9/10 – I’ve played on Macbook (M2 Pro 16GB ). You only have to use the arrowskeys to move (or QZSD on AZERTY keyboards) plus E or right-click to confirm. I remove half a point for a freeze I got after trying to keybind. There’s also a weird glitch that makes the game think I’ve started to play… today. I do not recommend the game on Steam Deck though; everything is way too small to read, the controls are clunky, and parts UI don’t go away as they should sometimes.
🎨 Art style: 9/10 – As a lover of pixel art and pixel sprites, this game is really beautiful to me. I, however, remove one point because of some items that don’t seem to match the art direction of the rest; it’s not… consistent. This is also a bit disappointing that some customizable items don’t have the same color as the next one if you pick the same color (it’s either way too bright or too desaturated).
🎵 Music: 8/10 – Matches the overall chill vibe of the game; it didn’t get on my nerves despite the loop.
👾 Gameplay: 8/10 – For people who love to decorate in games, this is pure pleasure. Just disappointing that the requests board is full of the same repeating requests.
⏳ Length: 7/10 – If it wasn’t for the abrupt end of the main “storyline”, it’d be a 10/10 for sure. The game can’t be played as long as what it got inspiration from because of the lack of variety in the sandbox requests. You can, of course, do as you please and not follow perfectly the requests (it’d be considered correct anyway as long as the mandatory items are placed).
🏷️ MSRP worth: 10/10 – The base price isn’t already high, and for the experience I’ve gotten out of it, it’s worth every penny to me!

Disclaimer: I write all my reviews by myself. If something may sound weird, that’s because English isn’t my native language. I don’t use any AI to write; I use my own experiences and ways of expression.

For other honest cozy games reviews, feel free to follow my curator page: Rabgon’s Cozy Corner ♡ ~ 🇫🇷 Review également dispo en français sur mon blog ![rabgon.substack.com]

After +200 hours, I’ve finally achieved the last achievement; and I think it’s the perfect time to finally review Spirit City, a productivity tool game that may be considered the pioneer of this subgenre of full-screen idler focus tool.

With similar games on the market (Gogh, Chill with You, Ithya, etc.), this one stands out with its high-quality visuals, richness of customisation and creative freedom, and, evidently the goal of the game: finding and collecting all Spirit critters through your different activities, your location in the room, lighting and background sounds.

As for “active” activities, there are none. Your character will do whatever activity you tell them to, but there aren’t actions required by the players, no mini-games or anything.

This is a 100% distraction-free focus tool with a Pomodoro, a to-do list, an habit tracker and a diary.

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https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3717966852

For in-game currency and leveling up, you get some automatically every minute the game is running (you’ll get more when you discover new spirits, check a list item, let the pomodoro run…). For critters, there are hints to find them that are unlocked through leveling up.

To find and discover new spirits, there are different conditions to meet depending on the spirit; of course, those are more and more complex the farther you are in the game:

1. Room spot (desk, bed…)
   
2. Activity (typing, reading, relaxing…)
   
3. Time/light (morning, afternoon, evening, night)
   
4. Background sounds (fireplace, rain…)
   
5. Spirit to have with you (for DLC critters)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3717967841

This game has helped me to… sleep again (insomniac here). Nighttime is kind of the only moment I can “play” the game without it to crash and quit (see “big issues” section below 🫠). The visuals and animations are soothing, not distracting. The background/ambiance sounds selection is rich; I let them run at low volume during the night.
As someone with ADHD, Spirit City (same as with “Chill with you”) has helped me keep focused on ONE task at a time. For the rare occasions I could let the game run without it crashing while doing anything else on my computer, it has helped me doing dull numbing tasks for work as well.

I adore customisation and decoration in video games, and this game has been a treat! You can decorate every room spot in detail, even saving custom colours to apply to other items. Same for your character, lots of body features and clothing options! You can save up to 5 decor and dress-up presets.

This creative freedom applies to the DLC locations as well (kitchen, garden, and train; the train is the most limited imho). Also, the spirits all have different colours!

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3717968616
I was a bit skeptical about those DLCs, wondering if the base game was the type to be affordable with not much content at launch, then filling up the content with paid DLCs that could have been in the base game. It’s not.
I’m personally OK with DLCs that do add quality content that extends the base game, not just cosmetics or micro-transactions sold as DLCs. In SC:LS, it’s a bit peculiar since the game is all about aesthetics, but they also do add additional locations that genuinely required a great amount of work.
What bothers me is that those DLCs are always discounted at the same cut.

Note that you don’t need any of the DLCs to 100% the game!

1. I’ve never had a game crashing so much. Either it simply doesn’t start, or it’ll crash then close for the most basic action within the game, or outside of it! (yes). The issue was already there months ago when I originally bought the game. I didn’t play it then, waiting for patches, but same problem to this day…

Is it because of my hardware? I don’t think so. If BG3, Cybperpunk, and No Man’s Sky can run just fine, GPU at max 70°C, and never ever crashing, I don’t see why SC:LS would. Some memory leak issue somewhere?

To be sure it won’t crash, I let it run with nothing else open on my computer, at night, 99% of the time. This is insane for a game that’s supposed to sit on a secondary monitor while you’re doing other things, like… working.


2. Impossible to use text fields in French (ditto for Portuguese): the character “^” will crash and close the whole game (it’s hitting Windows users too from what I’ve read). Forced to use it in English, but to be honest, I wanted to use the game (diary) in my own language for once… It’s such a shame because the French localisation of the game is very good otherwise.


3. I’ve contacted the team about those issues. They quickly opened a ticket on Discord, then… well, they ghosted me since they’ve never gotten back to me, even after I asked for a follow-up. Given these issues have apparently been known for a while, this is a big yikes to be ignored like that.

Fortunately, I was still able to enjoy it, but it was quite stressful to decorate or be about to discover a new Spirit just for the game to crash to my face. It runs on Steam Deck, but it makes it sound like a rocket launch (again, it’s fine with BG3 or CP2077) *shrug*.

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https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3717968072

I know I enjoy a game when I’m looking forward to having all its achievements. I usually don’t care about “100% games”, but this one has clear goals and achievements, and not stuff requiring whatever obscure stuff you would never think about.

Finding all the Spirits through hints was really fun! The game takes lots of time to “finish” so I didn’t mind to sometimes clicking randomly here and there until I heard the “ding” notification for a closeby new spirit.

I recommend both of these guides made by iamrure and November Brightshroom ♡
Despite the crashes, I really did enjoy it!