I played a cozy game this week! I was never one for the intricacies of games like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, but I randomly found this week’s demo in the dregs of the Steam demo pages. Havendock takes away a lot of the depth of those games and makes it more accessible for players who want to still enjoy the genre without sinking hours into the game to even remotely understand it.

This week is Havendock

Havendock is a colony sim from YYZ and published by IndieArk and Different Tales. The game was released into Early Access in April for the PC and retails for $17.

You are a survivor of a shipwreck and the aim is to create a safe haven for those who are looking for a place to call home.

The demo gives the player a pretty large swath of gameplay. Players are introduced to the Raft style of resources collection as planks, palm leaves, and even fish drift by in range of the player ready to be collected. With that, you are tasked with crafting everything needed to recruit survivors to your haven.

Wood makes the research table that researches water collection that waters the plants that grow food that helps with keeping the citizens happy and healthy, ETC. AD NAUSEUM.

There is plenty to research and build in the demo and an absolute ton more that is locked until the purchase of the game.

Citizens can be given jobs and jobs can have levels of priority. Citizens have a wide array of perks and attributes to pay mind to that affect their overall happiness. If they become too unhappy they will leave. Survivors show up with a demand that will make them change their minds about leaving in favor of staying.

I played the demo for 70 minutes and I do not think that I was able to fully unlock all of the reasearchable structures. The main aim was to build a house for a single survivor so that they would stay. Even though that structure is far along, it was worth continuing to play because there was still so much to discover.

Havendock has a cute look going for it. Low poly design but with lots of colors to make the game look more attractive. The customization options in the beginning really can make your character look goofy and can really make it feel like your own adventure.

The soundtrack is one single guitar track that is incredibly catchy.

Havendock was a really cool demo. The onboarding is done well because the game is more simplified than its competitors, and that is fine. I always really wanted to buy games like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress but the learning curve is something to be desired. Havendock has a cute look and the gameplay is simple and addicting.