If you’ve ever had one of those lazy Sunday afternoons where you just want to kick back with a long drink and draw around, you’ll know that you can’t beat the best sand games for a relaxing time. Along with classics like Terraria and Minecraft, I’m a big fan of cleaner creation tools like Summerhouse that simply provide a canvas for your creativity. A small meadow is very much in that mold, offering a simply beautiful building game that puts powerful tools at your fingertips in a way that feels downright magical, and the free Steam demo lets you try it out right now on.
Sitting down with the Tiny Glade demo, I can’t help but laugh with delight at how quickly everything falls into place. A relaxing castle building game, it almost feels like magic, pieces fall perfectly into place with the mouse brush. You can quickly switch between walls, towers, paths, flowers and all the smaller trinkets and accessories that turn bricks and mortar into a living, breathing world.
Parts adjust and adapt as you add more elements – walls that form into tunnels if you draw a path through them, and towers that stretch and lengthen as you drag them into place. It has the feel of a putty when creating a character in The Sims 4, even going so far as to allow you to alter the land itself.
The edit tool then allows you to quickly adjust the material and color of individual parts, while the eraser can be set to target only specific object types to allow you to quickly fix any mistakes without damaging any of the other parts; in fact, they will simply re-adapt to suit the changes. Tiny Glade even honors the Ctrl+Z shortcut for an easy undo option.
It’s an incredibly satisfying tool – I was able to make the small diorama below in about a minute at most, and the potential to create a memorable monument even within the limited range offered by the demo version is something to behold, as the creations of community players now share broadcasts.
“We’d like to thank you all for such a warm welcome,” says indie developer Pounce Light of the response to its newly released demo. “We are inspired, touched, grateful – all at once! And we are totally blown away by the beautiful dioramas you create. Thank you for being such a wonderful community.
“Right now, our top priority is investigating launch crashes that are preventing people from getting into the game,” he continues. “This is the first time we’re releasing a compilation to a large number of people, so there are bound to be some hiccups. Thank you for reporting these bugs to us, and kudos to those who helped us fix them.”
The team also wants additional feedback and suggestions for changes and new features. “Hearing your thoughts really helps us understand what to prioritize (or de-prioritize) and which bumps are the most prominent,” it said. “For example, we have plans to change the user interface during the day, but it’s great to hear the same desire expressed by players.”
Among the positive responses from the community is a post shared by Valheim senior developer Jonathan Smores via X (Twitter): “Trying out the fantastic Tiny Glade demo from Pounce Light,” he wrote. “You should try it out – this game is going to be awesome.” I’m certainly looking forward to getting my hands on the full toolset at launch based on my time with the demo.
The Tiny Glade demo, which is part of Steam’s “Cozy and Family Friendly Games Celebration,” will remain live at the Steam Next Fest, meaning it will be available until at least Monday, June 17. The full game should arrive in the third quarter of 2024. Just go here to download and check out the demo for yourself, or add the game to your wishlist to stay updated when the full version arrives.
Alternatively, unleash your creativity with even more of the best sandbox games on PC. Or get nice and cozy and melt away all your stresses and strains by immersing yourself in the best relaxing games around.
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