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0 Twinkleby, developed and published by Might and Delight, is a cosy decoration game that hit Steam on September 23rd. Build adorable little dioramas across a whimsical archipelago of floating islands and make your little residents as happy as can be!
Twinkle Twinkle Little Island
It is once again time to review a cute decorating game! This one has a very unique vibe to it that I am excited to share with you today. Let’s get into it!
Gameplay
Imagine diving into a peaceful, cosy world with a refreshingly simple premise. Twinkleby is like your personal digital dollhouse. You spend your time customising adorable floating islands, placing and decorating houses, building gardens and planting trees. But your work doesn’t stop there! You will need to collect and place cute furniture all over the island, because soon some new residents will arrive, ready to move in! Making them happy is the most important job you’ve got, so get on it! Placing enough items will reward you with some special items and access to the next island in the floating archipelago.
Furniture and Customisation
If you need some more furniture, why not buy some from the shop? That’s where “Stellars” come in handy. How do you get them? Well, they practically just fall from the sky! No, really. They do. You will also earn some extra Stellars just from placing things around your island, too.
All furniture pieces belong to certain collections. Completing a full set of items earns you a cool, special furniture piece to show off! That’s just one of the ways the game gets you to keep collecting, but it doesn’t feel all too grindy, thankfully.
Every now and then, chests will randomly fall from the sky! You place them on your island and open them with keys, which you can buy from the shop. They often include some cool, new items, but sometimes you even get new colour schemes or variations for items you already own!
Progressing through the game will also unlock some new scenery. These backdrops are key to giving your little islands a truly unique feel. You can set the weather, season, time of day, and even have floating planets or stars appear in the sky! But my absolute favourite part about the game? If you want to return an item to your inventory, you just throw it off the island. Just yeet it. I’m serious. I love it.
Neighbours
Once new neighbours move onto your islands, their demands are amazingly simple…on paper. Some just need a place to call home, while others might require a cosy spot to chill, some nice plants, or even just some tasty snacks to make them happy!
The only really frustrating thing is the residents’ AI behaviour and total lack of priority. If someone is unhappy and desperately wants to paint or read a book, they won’t just use one of the 50 available items right next to them. No, instead, they will just walk straight past them just to stare out of the same window repeatedly, staying unhappy even when their needs are technically met. It really drove me crazy at times, and I’ll admit, I just ended up throwing those people straight off the island out of sheer frustration.
You know when you have fed your cat, but it still screams for food because it can see a tiny bit of the bottom of the bowl? That is what it feels like. Ignoring the abundance of things that would satisfy them to focus on the one thing that won’t.
On a more positive note: Once your island is full of happy residents, they will bring you some gifts! You mostly get Stellars, but also Map Shards, which you can use to unlock more special islands. If you are lucky and have the right decorations, some rare visitors might show up and gift you some neat new paintings!
Graphics & Audio
Twinkleby’s graphics absolutely hit the nail on the head for this type of game. Its simple and bubbly graphics paired with cute and simplified character designs make everything look incredibly adorable and perfectly suits the game’s cosy feel. The furniture items are lovely, and the fact that you can dye most of them is a fantastic touch that lets you add even more creativity to your designs. Everything is well-scaled and cohesive; nothing looks out of place. My only minor nitpick is that some of the scenery’s weather effects can sometimes block your view while decorating, but you can simply switch to clear weather and change it back once you are done decorating.
While the music is calm and sets a good tone, sounding like a gentle, jingly lullaby, it can get a bit repetitive. What really sells the sound design are the items. Every item has a distinct, satisfying sound when you place it down. A dresser makes a heavy thud, compared to the lighter noise when you place a chair or carpet, and even plants give off a nice, little rustling sound. On top of that, what I always love to praise in cosy games, there is an option to mute the sound when the game isn’t focused! Hooray!
Longevity
Twinkleby may be quite a simple game, but it will still take you a good chunk of time to beat. The exact time is a bit variable, depending on how much care you put into each island and, honestly, how good the neighbour’s AI is. I am around 10 hours in and just about to finish (I think). Honestly, I think the game has excellent replayability. You can easily start a new game to try out some completely new styles, or, if you don’t want to grind for all the furniture again, you can just yeet everything off the island and start from a blank canvas. If you enjoy the cosy decorating, you will easily get a lot of playtime out of it. The game is perfect to jump back into whenever you feel like a relaxing decorating session.
Final Thoughts
All in all, the game absolutely nails the cosy, calming vibe it is going for. The core gameplay loop is fun and never really gets repetitive, even as you move through new islands doing basically the same thing as before. I do wish there was a bit more furniture available, but maybe that’s just me. While the price of £14.29 feels a little steep to me, the sheer amount of gameplay you get can make it worthwhile if you enjoy this type of gameplay, and it will probably go on sale eventually, too.
Despite a few of its annoying quirks, Twinkleby is a very solid game that delivers what it promises, even if I still really feel like a little more content would have been nice. Here is hoping that some more furniture will be added down the road!
But for today, I am giving Twinkleby the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you enjoyed this review, why not check out my previous article about the game Eat the Rich here.
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