Wholesome Direct - Indie Showcase 2022

Last night, the Wholesome Direct delivered everything I have been craving and more. With over 100 games covered, it was a sweet hour to sit back, relax and enjoy all the possibilities. As you know by now, cozy games are one of my favorites to help me de-stress. So, the Wholesome Direct showed us plenty of new indie cozy games that we can look forward to in 2022 and beyond. The showcase was marvelous, however, I only had one negative comment to make. I really wish we got a more precise release date. So far, we have estimated release dates for most games. That makes it difficult to let myself get overly hyped so I don’t get disappointed when the game does not show up after months and years of waiting. Regardless, we have so many games to talk about. I chose 25 new ones to show you.

1. LumbearJack – $12.99

Developed By: FinalBoss Games

Published By: Armor Games Studio

Release Date: June 11, 2022

You Can Play This On: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Play as Jack, a humble bear with a simple dream: to return nature to its former glory with the help of his trusty axe and animal friends. Slice and dice through machinery, slap some sense into wasteful humans, and work with wacky woodland critters to thwart the sinister plans of up-and-coming industrial giant Evil Works. You also have plenty of puzzles to solve by tinkering with your environment.

2. Little Bear Chef

Developed By: BananaBox

Published By: No Info

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: Steam first, consoles later

Little Bear Chef is a cozy 3D cooking platformer where you play as a tiny bear chef in a regular-sized kitchen. Albearto Honeybottle, better known as Chef Toto, is the main character of the game. He is small, and sometimes he cooks food. He likes reading and long walks by the beach. In general, Little Bear Chef is all about coming up with creative and funny solutions to cooking the recipe at hand.

3. Super Mini Mart

Developed By: Blazing Panda

Published By: Those Awesome Guys

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC and Consoles

Super Mini Mart is a cozy take on the management genre with a charming 3D aesthetic and an endearing cast of characters. Stock, supervise, and manage store activities in a laid-back environment, befriending locals and turning those one-off bargain hunters into life-long loyal customers!

This is a charmingly carefree single-player management game where you are tasked with handling all the day-to-day activities of an up-and-coming convenience store. Manage products, create promotions and fulfill the needs of every unique customer that walks through your door to become the most thriving supermarket in town!

4. Paper Animal RPG

Developed By: Cuddling Raccoons Studio

Published By: Top Hat Studios, Inc.

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5, and Xbox!

This is a cute rogue-lite RPG with a real-time tile-based battle system. You can explore a colorful world, fight scary enemies and relax with your friends at the campfire. Each world and map is procedurally generated, which means that no playthrough will be the same. The map will look different each time. This includes the available items, skills, and stickers you can find, as well as the events and NPCs you will be able to encounter.

As you can see, it is inspired by and tries to pay homage to the Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi as well as the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.

5. Soulitaire

Developed By: BeardShaker Games

Published By: TBA

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android

Soulitaire is a relaxed story game in which you can catch a glimpse of the future of your interlocutors via solitaire. To do so, you might have to interpret what the cards mean and which future they foretell… This is where you have to decide what your customers should do to face their problems, and become a part of their life.

6. Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist

Developed By: FlameBait Games

Published By: FlameBait Games

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

This game is the sequel to Passpartout. This time around your landlord has finally had enough with your bouncing checks and put you on the street. So, you must pick up your brush again to reclaim your lost glory by taking a place in the draconian curator’s Museum of the Masters, or be forever remembered as a failed artist.

You get to draw your own art while unlocking fancier tools along the way. Not only that, but you also enjoy easy point-and-click gameplay as you explore and interact with the town of Phénix.

7. Usagi Shima

Developed By: pank0

Published By: pank0

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC, iOS, and Android

Usagi Shima『うさぎしま』is a relaxing, idle bunny collecting game. Here you’re asked to be a caretaker of an abandoned island. You can decorate it over time as curious bunny visitors start to appear! Buy toys, and plants, and build structures on the island to entice curious bun tourists to pay you a visit. Discover, take photos, and make friends with a variety of bunnies. These bunnies will appear based on the items that you use to decorate.

Usagi Shima is heavily inspired by cute, soothing games like Neko Atsume and Animal Crossing. The game’s namesake and setting draw inspiration from Ōkunoshima (大久野島), a real island in Japan that has plenty of bunny inhabitants.

8. Petit Island

Developed By: Xelo Games

Published By: SOEDESCO

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC and Consoles

You play as Lily, the granddaughter of a once brave and adventurous cat. As your grandpaw retires, you get to go on your own quest and relive the memories that grandpaw left in his journal. So, you get to explore Petit Island with all its hidden treasures and wild animals. Not only that, but you also get to capture your grandpaw’s memories by taking beautiful photos. Additionally, to make this even more purrrfect, you can customize Lily to your heart’s content with lots of options to choose from.

9. DokiToki: Time Slows Down When You’re In Love

Developed By: Flip Alive Games

Published By: Flip Alive Games

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

DokiToki is a first-person puzzle game about manipulating time to solve escape-the-room-style puzzles. Play as Ai, a girl who’s so hopelessly in love, that it feels like everything around her is stopped in time. You get to traverse Ai’s school, hopping from hallway to hallway and clearing each classroom in search of the boy Ai is in love with. Players need to freeze, unfreeze, and manipulate objects in time to reach each level’s exit and progress through school. You do that by using a collection of tools that manipulate time in their own unique way.

10. Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To

Developed By: Soft Not Weak, LLC

Published By: Soft Not Weak, LLC

Release Date: 2023

You Can Play This On: PC

You play as Samar, a young witch working the spirit-swapping night shift in the eastern outskirts of Demashq. A recent spike in spirits crossing over from another dimension breaks the chill atmosphere of their night shift. With her trusty familiars by her side, she sets off into the city to find out what’s happened.

Spirit Swap is an action-puzzle game set in a lush, narrative-driven world of witchy demons. Here you can cast spells, be queer, & crash the biggest concert of the year!

11. Garden In!

Developed By: Dramatic Iceberg

Published By: Dramatic Iceberg

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

In Garden In! you choose a pot, put some soil in it, and plant a seed. As simple as that may sound, this is where your journey begins. Each plant is unique and has different needs. From the time, to love, and caring, they’ll grow strong and beautiful. You can also combine the seeds to get new ones. So, by mixing and matching different ones, you slowly complete your herbarium.

Besides gardening, you can also customize rooms by changing their colors and background to truly relax and enjoy the scenery around you.

12. Tiny Witch

Developed By: Creative Hand

Published By: Creative Hand

Release Date: 2022

You Can Play This On: PC and Consoles

Tiny Witch, is a little game about managing a minion store, where you must mix the right resources to build the minions needed by the dungeon masters. You play as a little witch left in charge of a magic wizard store, and a town full of dungeon masters. Activate your spells, unlock new recipes and prepare the best minions in time to avoid being attacked by the customers.

13. Fall Of Porcupine

Developed By: BUNTSPECHT.GAMES

Published By: TBA

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

This is a unique story adventure about the collision of work and daily life. It also offers an exciting reflection of an unhealthy healthcare system. Not only is there a lot to discover in the old hospital, but also in the small town itself. There you can meet the villagers and have a beer with them in the pub. Or you can take a trip to the nearby forest, where mysterious castle ruins are hidden. From getting to know different characters to demonstrate your skills and empathy, there will be many dark secrets to uncover.

14. The Wandering Village

Developed By: Stray Fawn Studio

Published By: Stray Fawn Studio

Release Date: Summer 2022

You Can Play This On: PC and Xbox Series X

In a world where mysterious plants are spreading all over the earth, emitting toxic spores as they grow, a small group of survivors seek shelter on the back of a giant called ‘Onbu’. In The Wandering Village, you become their leader, build their settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the creature to survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world. Build a functioning village, face the challenges of living on the creature’s back, research new technologies, and survive the wastelands.

15. Harmony’s Odyssey

Developed By: MythicOwl

Published By: MythicOwl

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC and Nintendo Switch

Harmony’s Odyssey is a 3D fantasy adventure puzzle game set on mythical dioramas. These are full of riddles, perky creatures, and magic. Here you embark on a fantastic journey through remote fabled lands tangled by a rowdy cat and bring peace to its inhabitants. Each diorama is diverse, unique, and represents mini universes – biomes. You also meet wonderful, curious creatures and experience their daily lives full of comedy and drama.

16. Ooblets

Developed By: Glumberland

Published By: Glumberland

Release Date: Summer 2022

You Can Play This On: PC, Xbox and Nintendo Switch

Ooblets will finally get out of Early Access and be fully released this summer. If you don’t know, this is a farming game where you also get to engage in dance battles. You play a simple life where you farm and collect magical creatures. You’ll have plenty of challenges to complete, dance tournaments, townsfolk quests, and badges to collect. You also get to customize your character with different outfits and accessories. I love this game and cannot wait to play it in handheld mode on my OLED Nintendo Switch and see the beautiful colors pop on the screen!

17. Terra Nil

Developed By: Free Lives

Published By: Devolver Digital

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

Terra Nil is a reverse city builder about ecosystem reconstruction. Turn a barren wasteland into an ecological paradise complete with different flora and fauna. Then clean up to leave the environment pristine. The game offers you unique, procedurally generated maps and picturesque landscapes to enjoy. Subverting the builder genre, Terra Nil is about the restoration of a ravaged environment.

18. Hello Goodboy

Developed By: Rolling Glory Jam

Published By: Freedom Games

Release Date: 2022

You Can Play This On: PC

This is a wholesome, non-linear adventure game, where a lost soul and his dog set out on an otherworldly trek through the afterlife. With no memory of what brought him to the world beyond, he must rely on Coco, a strangely familiar dog who will help him solve the mysteries of this new existence. Pass into the world beyond, commit acts of kindness for other souls, and mend mistakes from a forgotten past life. All with a very good boy by your side.

19. Feed All Monsters

Developed By: DU&I

Published By: DU&I

Release Date: 2022

You Can Play This On: PC

Feed All Monsters is a cute and cozy Line Puzzle game. Monsters have it tough. All-day long they have to wait at one specific spot until the player comes along. And not all of them remember to bring a lunch box. So, you assist a team of delivery workers in their quest to bring tasty food to all the little monsters. This lets you enjoy 200 handcrafted puzzles where you must find the optimal path for each worker in order to get all the monsters fed.

20. Bilkin’s Folly

Developed By: Webbysoft

Published By: Armor Games Studio

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

Percival “Percy” Bilkins is a treasure hunter on a mission to find his missing mother and grandfather, who mysteriously disappeared many years ago. The only problem? His ship got wrecked in a storm, and he needs to find a new way forward. Together with his family’s beloved dog Drayton, Percy must find a new ship, reunite with his crew, and discover family secrets that will change his life forever. Adventure through a series of unusual islands, solve puzzles to uncover valuable treasure and bring to light the foreboding family secret buried beneath it all.

21. Garden of the Sea – $24.99

Developed By: Neat Corporation

Published By: Neat Corporation

Release Date: January 13, 2022

You Can Play This On: Occulus Quest 2 and PC VR

You wake up on a small island in a magical world where you can grow your garden, nurture local creatures, furnish your home, or adventure across the seas to explore more islands and gather new resources. This world is for you. Garden of the Sea invites you to play and explore at your own pace. If you are looking for progression and adventure, you will find it. If you are looking for relaxation, stay where you are and let the world gently take its course.

22. Love, Ghostie

Developed By: Janbeh Games, LLC

Published By: Janbeh Games, LLC

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC

Love, Ghostie is a cozy and relaxing game with tons of wholesome romance! As a cute ghost in a mansion, it’s your job to set up residents and help them find love. Learn about each resident, bring joy into a stranger’s life and watch love bloom between them. You get 10+ residents which means you’ll have over 45 couple combinations

23. Pine Hearts

Developed By: Hyper Luminal Games Ltd

Published By: Hyper Luminal Games Ltd

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC and Nintendo Switch

Pine Hearts is an itsy-bitsy, open-world puzzle game. It takes the item-based progression of Zelda, combines it with Souls-like level design, and wraps it all up in a Wholesome aesthetic with a focus on puzzles, not combat. Explore the sleepy scenery of Pine Hearts Caravan Park as you uncover items, unlock new paths, and discover all the little secrets stuffed throughout the Park.

24. PixelShire

Developed By: Kappa Bits

Published By: Merge Games

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: PC, PS 4/5, Xbox One/Series X, and Nintendo Switch

Build the town of Pixelshire and grow your community in a unique RPG sandbox that mixes life-sim elements with town-building, exploration, and combat. Express yourself by planning the town to your liking, master trades, get to know your neighbors and explore the continent of Arcadia. I think we can agree that the art style draws heavy inspiration from StardewValley. I hope the game finds its own gameplay though, to set it apart from the plethora of similar games that we have been getting.

25. Potion Prodigy

Developed By: Kate Wright

Release Date: TBA

You Can Play This On: Itch.io

Potion Prodigy is a 2D point-and-click game with a spooky twist… make potions and chill in this cozy cavern environment by completing small tasks and finding hidden gems!

These were only 25 games out of 100 that were announced. It is safe to say, it’s a wonderful time to be a wholesome games lover. If you want to know about more upcoming cozy and wholesome games, then check out my YouTube channel. You can also find me on Twitter for some shenanigans. Stay bubbly and positive and I will catch you in the next one!