Gourdlets is like the retirement stage of building sims.
Playing it feels more like if Tom Nook decided to abandon profiting off your debt in Animal Crossing or if you never had to worry about your Sim setting the house on fire or getting sick. In other words, Gourdlets is a lovely time for anyone looking to build an adorable town and take a break from the digital grind.
The game tells you via a text tutorial at the beginning that any town you make in Gourdlets doesn’t have any money and the little anthropomorphized gourd creatures will be content no matter what you build them. “We tried explaining capitalism to the gourdlets but it made them feel too tired, so you don’t have to worry about managing currency or resources,” the text reads.
Learning to play is a breeze. I played on Windows PC and the tutorial introduces you to a column of buttons, each with its own function: The build menu pulls up a little catalog of objects you can use to build out your town; the “bulldoze objects & fences” lets you demolish stuff you’ve built. It probably took me five minutes to begin the game and get to work making a little town square for the little guys.
You play the game from an isometric view, which you can rotate by 90 degrees to see your pixelated creations from different angles. Little touches, like a toggle that allows you to draw straight lines with decorative tiles or the ability to edit the number of tiles you want to place when you make a path, make building the crunchy pixelated paths and objects super satisfying. Loads of items — like benches, buildings, and cobblestone paths — come in a variety of rainbow pastel colors right from the get-go with no grinding. I could build the Candy Land cottagecore town of my dreams.
True to its promise, you can really putz around and do whatever. The game uses a system where you invite gourdlets to town, seemingly as many times as you want. (The game didn’t stop me, but I imagine there’s a limit at some point.) You don’t manage the gourdlets, so you can sit back and build as the creatures play and grow up. Once you get more mature gourdlets, you can unlock more items.
I started with making a town square, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as designing some nature areas, so I switched to making forest campgrounds complete with glowing critters, mushrooms, and string-lit paths. I didn’t feel like the game incentivized either way of playing — regardless of whether I chose to make them a more formal town or focus on building nature areas.
According to the studio’s Steam page, this is the debut game from AuntyGames, and it’s an absolute gem. Whether it’s taking a moment to appreciate a gourdlet watering a garden or finding the perfect placement for a shell on the beach, I’m obsessed with this sleepy little sim.
Gourdlets was released Aug. 24 on Windows, Linux, and Mac. The game was reviewed on Windows using a pre-release download code provided by Future Friends Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
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