Game: Urban Jungle
Genre: Simulation, Casual, Indie
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Kylyk Games | Assemble Entertainment
Controller Support: None
Price: US $11.99 | UK £8.99 | EU € 11.99
Release Date: March 21st, 2025
A review code was used, with many thanks to PR Hound.
Urban Jungle is a story-driven, emotional ride through a good portion of a young woman’s life. And as you move from home to home, from job to job, meeting new people and trying new things, you learn more and more about our main character and her love of plants.
The Story and Gameplay of Urban Jungle
Urban Jungle begins with our main character as a child, learning to take care of plants from her grandmother. You are visiting Grandma, decorating her room with plants, when your mother tells you she just got a new job and has to move far away from Grandma. Although we leave her behind and start a new life in a new city, we bring our love of plants with us, filling every room we occupy with as many leafy friends as it can fit.
You get an isometric look at every room you rent or own, looking down into the space. Once there, you will have a list of quests in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and you have to fulfil each of these while piling up enough plant points to get to the next level. The more wants and needs of your plants you fulfil, the more points you’ll earn with each plant placed.
While doing this, you also have to unpack your boxes and move into your new space by placing those objects you lovingly bring from one location to the next with you. One thing that is almost always a quest is to pet your beloved cat, who follows you from house to house.
It reminds me a lot of Unpacking in a good way. Urban Jungle didn’t do the environmental storytelling and emotional connection as well as Unpacking did, but it gives off the same vibes.
The Pros of Urban Jungle
Urban Jungle is beautiful. I think it’s one of the prettiest cozy games so far this year. It has this bullet-journal-style notebook you save information on plants inside, and all the little items you can place are cute. There is a lot of detail in the way each of the plants moves, making them feel like living plants.
The music and story are nice in Urban Jungle, as is the sound design. I really liked the polish in this game; I didn’t find any bugs or issues while playing. It seems like a very well-put-together game with a lot of love and attention poured into the details. The locations span across our main character’s life, from 1996 to 2024, and a lot changes in the meantime, giving you new locations to fill up with items, new things to unpack, and more stories.
It’s not a super long game, but there is still plenty to do. I feel it has enough in it to make it worth the $12 USD it costs on Steam. There are ten chapters where you need to complete all the quests, and there is a free-play mode for each of these chapters.
The Cons of Urban Jungle
There was very little I didn’t like about Urban Jungle. I felt like the story was a little shallow; I think I was expecting a lot of environmental details that would touch me in the same way that Unpacking did, but I never got them. The items you move from home to home are all mostly the same, and they have little to do with anything the main character is doing. I wouldn’t say the story failed, but it was less important than I think it could have been.
In the later half of the game, you meet the love interest, who is a neighbor of your mother’s. He’s a cute, friendly man you meet at a craft fair, and then in the chapter after that, you are already living together. I think it could have been cute to see the two of you dating for a while and get to know him a little bit. I think it would have made for a more emotional story beat.
Overall, I think the plot was a little bit shallow, I guess. I seems like the Grandma passes away early, but we never hear about it or have a reaction to it. I don’t know, I guess I was just expecting a little more from the story. I was enamored with the plant placement, look, and vibe of Urban Jungle, so I think that mostly makes up for the story.
Conclusion
Urban Jungle is a lot of fun to play and has many great points. I really enjoyed my time with it, and I look forward to seeing what this developer decides to work on next; I’m definitely a fan of what they have going on in this game! Overall, I really like it, and I think most cozy game lovers will think the same.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot
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