Luna’s Fishing Garden is the right sort of game at the right sort of time. In my free time, of which is less and less nowadays, I love to play small indie games that don’t require a huge time investment from me. I love gameplay focused titles that get in and get out quickly, never overstaying their welcome. Luna’s Fishing Garden is such a game and one with an utterly wholesome and relaxing feel that managed to take up most of my Sunday and left me feeling warm and fuzzy inside.
The team behind Luna’s Fishing Garden call it a short, cozy fishing and building game. I say it’s like Wizard of Oz mixed with Stardew Valley. The game itself is as simple as it gets with no deaths, penalties of any sort, or enemies of any kind. You simply have the task to clean up a magical set of tiny islands in a magical world that you wash ashore of after a huge storm sweeps you away. You first meet a huge Cat Spirit and they task you with fixing up the islands, growing sea crops, planting fruiting trees, and fishing the ocean.
During this process the islands life will slowly return and other Spirits will appear to give you new tasks to complete. You can sell your crops and fish to upgrade your fishing rod and your modes of travel. Other Spirits might require certain crops to fulfill certain objectives, while others may ask you to catalog the flora and fauna for extra perks. But the main idea stays the same: you plant crops, harvest crops and work to revive the island at your own pace and how you see fit.
Gameplay is so simple that Luna’s Fishing Garden has a mouse only mode and even provides a casual fishing mode as well. The planting and harvesting is super simple and you can plant whatever you want right off the bat, the only hindrance is earning enough money to buy a plant, tree, or small animal trap. Even then, money turns over quickly, something that becomes almost automatic as there are helper animals you can hire to harvest both your ocean crop and land crop. That means money is never an issue and your focus becomes enjoying the colorful experience and not micromanaging it as you might in something like Sim City.
The crux of the gameplay really focuses in on the fishing. There are twenty different types of fish you catch, each of which acts a bit different and requires you to fight each to reel in. The normal mode tasks you to jam the action key and try not to break your line as you gauge the tension, while the easy mode simply asks you to keep a green bar over the fish icon as it moves in order to catch it. It’s a fun little system that is simple and rewarding, and since the game is short, never overstays its welcome.
It’s all simple and relaxing on purpose as a design choice and not limitation. The wonderful pixel-art helps the colorful world pop and makes it a real joy to row back and forth through, especially as you fill your islands with plant and animal life. The developers even encourage you to sit back and relax alongside some really chill music. The incremental gameplay loop also kept me hooked as I have this weird mentality to get my islands perfect and aesthetically just right. Moving plants and trees around to get pleasing patterns is nice, something made better as there is no pressure of time limit.
This means that you could easily run through the game in about an hour or so, but for me, it took much longer because I got lost trying to lay out the islands plant life in the just perfect fashion. I also wanted to complete all the extra tasks given because the Spirits are all charming and silly, and not because I felt like I forced to in order to complete the game. The quest system keeps you motivated and plugging away at growing and fishing. The fish you find are also super interesting, I just wish the game had an encyclopedia to learn more about them.
Luna’s Fishing Garden is a delightful experience and the perfect way to spend an afternoon in. It’s not deep, it’s not long, and it doesn’t bring anything new to the mechanics at play, but what it is is wholesome fun. I really hope the title gets the love it deserves and that the team can build on this idea into something bigger and with a little more meat on the bones. But for less than a fast food value meal you get a fun couple of hours that leaves you feeling good. Here’s to hoping Luna’s Fishing Garden gets a port to the Nintendo Switch as while the PC version is solid as can be, it does beg for a portable experience as playing it on a plane or train would really help the time fly.
Pros:
+ Charming Art Style
+ Relaxing Experience
+ Simple Gameplay
+ Capybaras In Sailor Hats
Cons:
– No Remapping Controls
– Difficulty Could Be Too Low
– Left Wanting More
Final Score:
Genre: Casual, Indie
Developer: Coldwild Games
Publisher: Coldwild Games
Release: Jun 16, 2021
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