Thank you rokaplay for providing us with a review code!

In March of 2024, rokaplay launched a successful Kickstarter for Sugardew Island Your Cozy Farm Shop and tripled its goal by bringing in over 95,000 Euros. Digital editions of the game were sold for 22 Euros and backers were understandably upset when the game launched for 15 Euros. A supporter pack DLC is available for a few bucks which will unlock some outfits, but the backers alone get their name in the game’s credits.

Sugardew Island sells itself as a cozy farm game and it lives up to its promise there. It’s much simpler than games like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory. With that said, some may find this title too simple and boring, but for those looking for a relaxing farming game, read on!

You begin your adventure on Sugardew Island by creating your genderless character. You can set their appearance and voice register to mimic whatever gender you align yourself with. After your character is created you’ll see the intro movie with the backstory of Sugardew Island and how humans were greedy and caused the harmony tree to surround itself with thorns. The animals all fled the island in fear of mankind. All that remains on the island is the harmony tree, thorns, a spiteful creature (that’s a mix of a rabbit, owl, ferret, and deer), forest folk, spirits that your character can date, an abandoned farm, and a merchant named Tomte. Given the bad blood between the island’s inhabitants and humans, you can understand the not-so-warm welcome of your character who finds themselves shipwrecked on Sugardew Island. Tomte sees potential in your character and lets them live in the abandoned farm and teaches them how to work the land in hopes of restoring harmony to the island.

You can take your time with doing chores and you don’t have to worry about planning your planting around different seasons. Nighttime won’t happen until after your storefront closes and your plants will always grow and thrive as long as they are watered. If you don’t feel like watering them daily, you can put down special fertilizer that will handle that for you. I wish there was something like that available in real life!

Restoring harmony is done by accepting quests from the harmony tree. The quests are sorted by animal type and are available in different levels with higher levels requiring more harmony to fulfil them. The rewards include new seed types, pets, livestock, better tools, and building upgrades. You can complete the quests in any order you see fit.

Harmony is obtained by opening up your farm store and selling your wares to the forest folk. The main currency is sugar dew. You can always sell items to Tomte in a pinch for sugar dew, but you won’t earn any harmony that way. Harmony is earned on a 1:1 ratio with sugar dew as you sell items in your shop. However, the forest folk will sometimes try to haggle with you for a lower price. You have three ways to respond. You can recommend an item with the highest payout but lowest chance of acceptance. You can give advice on the item for a 50/50 shot of it selling. You’ll have the most success with offering the item at a discount to seal the deal.

Once I had all of the necessary harmony to unlock everything, I didn’t bother opening up the store anymore and just sold my products to Tomte. After all of the quests are completed the credits will roll, but you can still continue playing the game. I completed all of the harmony quests before fully maxing out relationships with the island spirits.

To build relationships with the island spirits, you’ll need to complete their various requests that they’ll put up on the request board. You will not get money or harmony, just their favor. Each island spirit has their own backstory and you’ll get to learn about them as you go on dates with them. Even though you can “date” spirits that have the same gender appearance, you can opt to friend-zone them on your last date. Be warned that friend-zoning is permanent. I wish they would label the outings as hanging out instead of labeling them all as dates. If you do decide to pursue a romantic relationship, the characters will cement their relationship status with a kiss. Funnily enough their lips don’t touch so I guess it’s technically an air kiss.

Other than the lack of specifying genders and the ability to date anyone, Sugardew Island Your Cozy Farm Shop is a tame game that can be enjoyed by gamers of all ages.

I did experience a glitch where a couple of the forest folk got stuck and I had to close my store early as a result. In order to feed your farm animals you have to go to the silo and feed them from there. Despite there being a “Feed All” button, it’s only valid for the tab you’re on. I made the mistake of only feeding half of my livestock because I didn’t click on the Feed All button for both of my tabs. The rest of the game’s interface is intuitive and easy to use.

Overall, I enjoyed the relaxed pacing and simple mechanics. I wasn’t fond of the storefront because I found the constant haggling annoying. Outside of the awkwardness of going on dates with spirits that appeared to be the same gender as my character, I enjoyed my time on Sugardew Island.