While farming sims are often considered the poster child of the ‘cozy games’ genre, the most popular farming sims are usually not just smooth sailing. Most of them contain an in-game clock that limits how much is able to be completed per day and the genre strongly encourages min-maxing wherever possible. So Sugardew Island is here to offer a truly cozy experience, taking away the stress and time management to offer a game that is fundamentally easygoing.

Sugardew Island describes itself as intentionally uncomplicated, condensing the gameplay down to a few key elements and adding in the idea of a farm shop that is personally managed by the player to encourage more direct interaction with the island’s residents.

The game begins with the player character crashing their boat at the shore of Sugardew Island and learning from one of the few residents on the island that it has been pretty much abandoned for a long time. Some time ago, the humans, animals and forest folk all co-existed on the island together but the humans succumbed to greed and threatened the important Harmony Tree causing the animals and forest folk to flee.

While there are still a few people living on the island, there are no humans except you, and the denizen of the Harmony Tree is less than willing to accept your help. So the main goal of the game is to encourage the animals to return and to help the few remaining forest folk on the island, so the Harmony Tree can be restored.

Mechanically, this just means running the farm, selling goods at the shop and completing tasks on the bulletin board for the forest folk. Unfortunately, the game does lock itself into a pretty repetitive and unsatisfying loop, because both the bulletin board and the shop rely on a steady supply of crops to complete. Since Sugardew Island has simplified the majority of farming sim staples down into these minimal tasks, it means that there is no option to fish, mine or forage if you want a break from maintaining the farm every day. Especially on rainy days when there is no watering to be done, your day is really boiled down to nothing but harvesting and then selling crops and it is just not enough depth to be suitably engaging.

Sugardew Island Review – Sugar without spice

The farm shop itself is especially dull. Unlike selling crops in most farming sims, the shop is semi-interactive; the player lays out what they want to sell on a bench and then opens the shop. Then, a collection of forest folk slowly walk their way up to the bench, choose what they want to buy and then walk over to the counter where you press a button to acknowledge the purchase. The only truly interactive element during this is that some customers will be uncertain about whether or not they want to purchase an item and then you can offer a discount to convince them. I always refused a discount and tried to convince them to pay full price anyway, because I wanted that money.

It takes quite a long time to get through these store sections, especially when there are a lot of items up for sale. The game would have benefited from a way to either fast forward these parts or skip them entirely because there just isn’t enough interactivity to make them engaging and unfortunately they are completely necessary. In order to restore the Harmony Tree, you need to collect harmony by selling things in the shop, and the amount of harmony you need to collect increases exponentially throughout the game, meaning even more time spent sitting in the shop and just mashing the buttons until it’s over. The idea of a farm store is something that has appeared in earlier Harvest Moon games, but as more of an extension to a much broader game instead of as part of the central gameplay loop and it works much better there. As more of a focal point, it just needed to be fleshed out way more.

The other main leg of the gameplay is completing tasks from the bulletin board, usually just a combination of two kinds of crops that are delivered to the board when collected. Some of the Sugardew natives are the ones you are delivering the crops to and each of them lacks any of the real character oomph necessary to make them endearing. They usually just spout general lines of dialogue that can’t even be responded to, unless you have reached a new friendship level with them, at which point you can go on a ‘date’ and talk a little bit more. I found these discussions to be pretty shallow as well and not very organic, making it even harder to connect with the characters.

“Sugardew Island’s attempt to embrace simplicity does leave it too simple”

Because both of the two main forms of progression require crops, it makes the gameplay loop very one-dimensional, especially because crops cost quite a bit and it takes a long time for you to start breaking even. It took me over 20 days to reach that point and then I had to blow all the money on an upgrade for my watering can and was back at square one. Sugardew Island’s attempt to embrace simplicity does leave it too simple with little more to do than harvest crops, sell them and then go to sleep. The island is tiny as well, meaning there isn’t even the reward of exploration available, what you see on day one seems to be all you get.

The game is cute visually with bouncy animations and bright colours; the animals are especially round and adorable. The characters often seem a little stiff and the designs aren’t anything to write home about, but all the farming animations are pretty satisfying and the island does manage to look inviting, if a little generic.

5.5

Average

Positive:

Cute artstyle
Attempt at being truly cozy is admirable

Negative:

Repetitive gameplay loop
Lack of variety
Paper-thin characters

Overall, there is little that Sugardew Island does to make itself stand out. The initial premise is interesting and the art style quite cute, but it fails to create a real identity for itself and the gameplay, while perfectly serviceable, just isn’t interesting.

Sugardew Island Review – Sugar without spice

Reviewed March 8, 2025 on PC

5.5

Average

Positive:

Negative:

Bree Maybe

Fresh off the press