Game: Pocket Oasis
Genre: Relaxing, Idle
System: Steam (Windows) (also available for Nintendo Switch)
Developers|Publishers: knit’n’purl game studio LLC
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $13.99 | UK £ 11.99 | EU € 13,99
Release Date: May 8th, 2024
A review code was used, with many thanks to Game If You Are.
Pocket Oasis is an idle, relaxing game where you can grow a whole bunch of plants on your balcony. There are several locations with different backgrounds and two different characters you can play as.
A Watercolor World
Pocket Oasis, like many indie games I have loved deeply in the last couple of years, is a hand-drawn game. It contains handmade artwork of all the plants, the backgrounds, the balconies, the furniture, pets, and everything else in the game. It looks like someone hand-painted or drew all the items in the game, and it really is endearing. It reminded me a little of Dordogne in a good way.
I think that it would have been really easy to make the whole game look silly and juvenile, but instead, the hand-made items all make it feel homey somehow. Like the video game equivalent of a warm hug. The sole exception is the people. The backgrounds and the plants all look so great, and the people look like a kid who drew them. I think it would have been better without the character models at all.
How Pocket Oasis Looks and Feels
Pocket Oasis plays like a lot of other idle-clicking games do. You don’t have to do much; you just kind of watch as your plants flower, grow your fruit, and keep track of their water levels to make sure they don’t die on you. You also have to position your plants carefully to make sure they get enough sunlight, and you have to care for your plants to make sure they are taken care of if bugs attack them.
As soon as a fruit appears, you can pick it, make it into jam, and use jams to buy new plants, pots, animals, decorations, and more for your balcony. It’s a lot of clicking on plants, vibing to the music, and relaxing. There’s not a whole lot to do in the game, but that is the point. You are mostly here for the vibes.
To be completely honest, I don’t like games like this. I find it more relaxing to have something to do in my games. However, for what Pocket Oasis is trying to do, I think it does it very well. However, there are a few changes I would have made if I could.
The Downsides of Pocket Oasis
Overall, as I said, Pocket Oasis is pretty great. It has good sound design, good art, good movement, beautiful backgrounds, and a chill sort of relaxing feel. I played an audiobook while I played, giving my brain something to do while I waited for new fruits to bloom, and this game was so perfect for that.
But I think if it were up to me, I would have made new items a little cheaper and a little faster to unlock. I feel like most people who play these types of games want to play them to decorate their space, not to wait for corn to grow so they can unlock the eggplants, which need to grow then to unlock the actual plant you wish you had. I feel like making the space your own is a big deal in these relaxing games, so unlocking all the furniture and pets so slowly was a downer for me.
I may have missed it, but I didn’t see any way in Pocket Oasis to speed up time either, so there was no way to get to the pets and furniture I wanted any faster. Also, every time I saved up enough jam to get an item I wanted, one of my plants would end up infested with a bug of some kind, and I would have to buy the item to get rid of that pest. I feel like the developers could fix this issue by just making jams easier to come by or not making items quite so expensive.
Conclusion
Pocket Oasis is chill, nice to look at, and a fun idle game to play while you are doing something else. It doesn’t require a whole lot from you, and your plants seem to grow even while the game is closed. It’s fun, but I think it could use a little bit more love from the development team. With a little tweaking, Pocket Oasis could be the best relaxing idle game I’ve ever played.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
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