Haven Park Review

Game: Haven Park
Genre: Adventure, Role-Playing, Puzzle, Other
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam)
Developers | Publishers: Bubble Studio | Mooneye Indies
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: UK £6.99 | US $8.99 | EU € 8,49
Release Date: August 5th, 2021

Review code used, with many thanks to Mooneye Studios

Haven Park is the first game developed solely by Fabien Weibel and it is published by Mooneye Studios’ new indie publishers Mooneye Indies. Let’s take a stroll around the park.

Help Grandma

I’ve been waiting on Haven Park to be released on my favourite console since I played the Steam demo of the game a month or so back. In Haven Park, you play as a little yellow chick named Flint. Flint’s Grandma has become too old to look after the picturesque island and the surrounding holiday camps. So Flint is asked to patch up the run-down camps and make the island into a fun destination for travellers.

Walk and Repair

You’ll spend most of your time in Haven Park walking around the island. Flint doesn’t run and isn’t that great at jumping either. But don’t let that put you off, this is a cosy slice of wholesome gaming and it is delightful. Flint walks the paths on the island collecting wood, cloth and metal along the way. There are lots of lamp posts and signposts to fix, using the items Flint has collected. Every so often he comes across empty campsites.

In the campsites, Flint can build Tents and facilities to eat at such as a BBQ stand or a food truck. As well as items for the camp visitors to rest on and activity items and decorations to spruce the campsite up.

Meet the Campers

Once Flint places some accommodation in a campsite visitors start to arrive, some will have quests for Flint to complete. One visitor will challenge you to a trivia quiz about the island. Another visitor wants to play hide and seek which I agreed to, it has been a few days now since I saw that visitor, I do hope he is all right where ever he is hiding!

Some visitors don’t have much to say, but you can watch them appreciate the campground you have fixed up for them. They will use the tents to sleep in, cook food at the BBQ and watch the fireworks go off at night. It is fun and rather endearing to watch the visitors use what you have built.

Short but Sweet

Haven Park is a game to play at your own pace, taking leisurely strolls around the park to see what you can discover. You may even come across a mysterious tower with a book on top, and take part in a scavenger hunt. Skills can also be unlocked, including improved jumping and movement but it’s not improved that much that Flint starts running marathons.

Then all too soon the game will be finished. You see, this isn’t a long game by any means, around four hours or so of playtime and you’ll have fixed up Haven Park to a 100%. It may be short, but it is sweet and certainly wholesome. Being so wholesome it would be a great game to play as a family with young children, no violence or scary monsters to terrify the kiddies.

A few Niggles

While I have enjoyed my time with Haven Park I do have a few niggles about the game. Flint can get stuck in the scenery at times, it’s not a huge problem but it does interrupt the flow of the game. The game also has minor frame rate hiccups but again it’s nothing major.

I do enjoy exploring, I really like that when I look at a game’s map it is going to show me where I am on the island. But not in Haven Park, there are numbered markers on the island that appear on the map as well, but they only help if you happen to be beside a marker on the island when you look at the map, otherwise you’re lost. A Flint icon or something similar that appears on the map when you look at it would be much better.

Visuals and Sounds

Visually Haven Park does look great, from the lush green forest to the snowy mountains, it is all very pretty. There is the sound of birds chirping as Flint walks along, what you won’t hear too much of is music. There are a few pieces of music playing in certain areas of Haven Park. However, the game doesn’t have music playing constantly.

Instead of music playing, you can amuse yourself by pressing the A button and Flint will say, “Pew Pew”! It’s something very simple but it made me smile every time I heard Flint “Pew Pew”. Plus it made my partner complain which in turn only made it more fun for me.

Conclusion

As you play Haven Park you can see that a lot of love has gone into the game from developer Fabien Weibel. This being the first game from Fabien, he should be pretty proud of what he has achieved.

Haven Park is a great example of wholesome gaming to while away a few hours with.

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot