Twinkleby - Another Cozy Design Game, But in the Sky

Just as we know the seasons change, we know a new cozy game will be published. This one is dedicated to decorating floating islands and enticing space neighbors to move in. Just as the concept suggests, the game is cute, light-hearted, and simple. 

Twinkleby is the latest game from Indie developers, Might and Delight. The laid-back game has you sailing to multiple floating islands and decorating while waiting for new residents. Each island will have a set number of residents who will want to move in, and they have their own wants and desires. The goal for each island is to make all the residents happy, which is pretty simple. Those desires will appear in thought bubbles and range from wanting to water a garden to doing an art project. All you need to do is make sure those items are placed somewhere on the island, and eventually, the resident will find them. 

I found that waiting for residents to eat or read was time-consuming when everything else for the level was already done, so I decided that maybe Sims players who torture their Sims are right. I would trap them in a house with only the desired item and force them to fill up their thought bubble. The worst case of this was when I was going for an achievement to have six neighbours all sleep in the same house. I trapped about four helpless neighbors on the top floor and barricaded the stairs.

Decorating is simple, but it can start to feel repetitive. You can collect new items by decorating your islands. Suitcases will randomly fall from the sky that you can open with keys to gain a new item. Keys can be bought in the shop or gifted by neighbors. These suitcases can range from a piece of furniture to a new color dye for furniture or housing. And, if you need more, you can go to the shop and buy more. There are pieces for all themes you can think of. Greenery with trees, shrubs, and benches to decorate the yard. Kitchen tables and plenty of delicious-looking food, and even bookshelves and pianos. 

I love that I can go to the shop and sort out the theme or room type I want to buy. There's no limit on the number of items you can buy, so you can make the wackiest island designs you can think of. Keep in mind, if you are an achievement hunter, you get one for placing 50 copies of the same item on your island. I personally did this with shrubs and trapped people with them. 

Now, to decorate, you grab the item and want from storage and place it on the grid. The grid system in decorating games can make or break the game, so I always hold my breath until I see it for myself. They either feel clunky and restrictive or smooth and natural. I rarely see something in between. Twinkleby feels pretty smooth. Yes, I did run into the occasional issue where the dimensions were a bit off, but overall, the placement was great to work with.

Now, the best part, in my opinion, is how you put items back into storage. If you don’t like the chair, the tree, or even the whole house, just throw it into the abyss! Throwing something off the island will put it back into storage. This is the funnest mechanic in the whole game, and it showcases the fun personality that the game is going for perfectly. 

And once you roll credits, you unlock a black hole that sucks up all outdoor items. I do think this would have been cool to include, sucking up the houses, but you can get everything inside a house back in storage when you toss the whole thing off the island. I spent a lot of time grinding out points by placing a bunch of items and sending them to the void, so this is a very helpful tool for achievement hunters or level completionists 

Now, throwing items off the island isn’t the only thing you can do. If you are trying to collect all the neigbours or just don’t vibe with one and want them gone, you can simply toss their bag off the island. This does trigger a very sad animation of the resident realizing they’ve been kicked off the island, crying, and jumping off the island with the umbrella, but this is the price you pay when trying to have all of the rare neighbours visit your island. 

One of my favorite aspects of designing is how many colors you can work with. Basically, everything has a color palette you can use to help match any theme you’re going for. These colors do need to be unlocked through the falling suitcases or gifts the neighours give you. So, it can take a while to collect everything. This, paired with tables getting beautiful themed setting pieces, makes your rooms look professionally designed. Color can be chosen for most of the furniture and the room floors, and the walls. Sadly, the roofs are locked to their base color. 

Now, one thing I wouldn’t have thought I would love as much as I did was the control over the scene. The game gives you full control of the weather, the time of day, and the season. Once you unlock them, of course. This means you can have a rainy night in the fall or a sunny summer night. Getting to adjust even the lighting makes this game amazing for taking cute pictures. I usually don’t take a lot of pictures in games like this because I try and be creative, but I’m not great at it. But I have so many screenshots sitting in Steam because it’s so easy to make adorable rooms. 

I enjoyed this game a lot. It gives the player a lot of freedom when designing the islands; there are so many items to buy from the shop, and getting currency is easy. My time spent in the game was filled with designing and seeing how many achievements I could get by just playing. I managed to get a good amount of the overall achievements, and once I got about halfway through the game, I pulled up the Steam page to see which ones I could aim for. One of my favorites was to complete a level without a house on the island. I aimed for 100% in this game, but I’ve run into two issues. One, there is a bundle that I need to buy all the items for that is not in the shop. And two, there are a bunch of hidden achievements that I don’t even know where to start. 

I think this is a great cozy decorating game, a solid 4 out of 5 stars for me. I think if you liked games like Make Room or The Sims, this is a super simple, cute, and chill game where you try to decorate and make people happy.