Lofi Haven has entered the productivity tool genre, promising lo-fi beats to help your hyperfocus. It’s not a genre that’s particularly engaging or labelled a “must play”, but there’s something to be said for gamifying your day to make it more productive.
Unfortunately, productivity-focused games can be pretty hit-or-miss. Add in too many features and the game becomes a distraction. Make it too simple, and players feel no need to hit targets. So, where does Lofi Haven stand on the spectrum?
Work From Home
Lofi Haven gives you free rein to design a small apartment. The decorating tools allow you to add furniture and accessories you want with a pretty versatile materials editor. You can add windows, doors, lights, and even bathroom furniture, creating the perfect workplace environment.
This is set on a backdrop with customisable weather and ambient sounds to accompany the 30+ lo-fi tunes. I was able to happily leave this running for hours while I worked on my tasks, and I appreciated the task timer that reminded me to take breaks.
It’s cosy, comfortable, and really did encourage me to focus on tasks. It also helped keep track of the many tasks I was working through with the tracker.
Decorating Dynamics
The decorating system isn’t perfect, but easy to get to grips with. You can move around the screen with the mouse and middle-mouse button, and change the viewpoint angle with “e” and “r” to reset. Clicking objects in the catalogue will drag them into the scene, but they will go out-of-bounds if you right-click.
It’s not the most intuitive to have to bin the item you were trying out rather than just cancelling the operation, but I got used to it. Equally, rotating objects with Alt and the mouse scroller was a little weird.
The Purrfect Companion
Working from home is often a lonely experience, but you have a feline companion who walks around the apartment like they own the place. You can customise your pet into different styles and types. It’s not especially versatile, but it looked enough like my cat that I was happy.
If you don’t place things for your cat, a little speech bubble will appear to let you know they are not happy. Although I didn’t see this affecting anything, the cat does follow your cursor in an appropriately catlike manner.
Super Chill or Frozen?
I usually find myself trying to “win” productivity tool games, which is a double-edged sword of mammoth proportions. If there is a reward for completing tasks, I will start adding new tasks for myself and wind up overwhelmed with everything I have to do. But there’s none of that here.
Everything is unlocked from the start. You can build your space over time, or load a pre-built room and ignore the building options altogether. I didn’t get overwhelmed, but ticking off tasks on my to-do list didn’t seem as urgent either. This will hit differently for all the various brands of neuro-spice, but it worked for me.
It’s The Little Things
Lofi Haven is a perfectly cosy and productive experience, but a few gripes kept it from being a tool that I can’t live without.
Although you have the ability to extend your room, it extends the whole wall, so you can’t make weird shapes and nooks to hide things in. There are a lot of items, but some seem mismatched in size. It suggests the developer used an asset pack, which is unfortunate since one of the backdrop billboards appears to have been created by generative AI. (Shown above. This is also not disclosed on the Steam page.) I would also like a wall too to separate my areas and the ability to have more than one floor or wall colour at a time.
Some of the songs have lyrics, which catch me off guard a few times. It’s not a huge deal, but it was off-putting when in the zone. However, it’s worth noting that there is a “streamer mode” to protect you from getting smacked with a warning online.
The Stairway To Lofi Haven
Lofi Haven checks all the boxes as a productivity tool. It has timers and checklists to encourage you to work, without distracting you from the task at hand.
I loved the cat and all the different animations, even if they were a bit jerky in places, and I got lots of work done. Lofi Haven is a great accomplishment from such a small team, and there have been hotfixes and items added since I got my hands on it. It’s worth your time if you’re looking for a casual work companion. It won’t be for everyone, and I’m still salty about the AI image, but it does the trick.
Platforms: PC
Developer/Publisher: Meow Games
Played On: Steam
Code Provided By: Keymailer
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