Verde is a cosy city-builder sim game set on a 2.5D landscape. Plant houses and facilities as you welcome in new “seedlets” to your islands and explore new biomes.
The Seeds Of Success
You play as Verde, a child who has been given the task of nurturing this barren landscape and growing the population. To do this, you need to earn “leaf” currency and provide various resources and facilities for creatures, called seedlets.
There’s a cute yet shallow story about presenting the finished project to your tutor, but the focus is largely on Verde and the owl guiding them through the quests. It’s not voiced, but the artwork is incredibly charming, and the dialogue does a lot for how little there is of it.
Building Up Business
Placing facilities is reasonably easy and flexible, but you do have a few factors to contend with. It uses a tile system for placing items, with different ground and biome types stopping you from placing shops and décor on any old tile. Each building then uses and generates different resources such as water or power, while others increase social and nutritional stats of your seedlets.
You don’t need to meet all the requirements for everything, which makes placement more flexible. However, making your seedlets happy will make them more efficient.
Your Mission
Although the overarching plot is to expand the island, you only have to complete the main quest-line to finish the game. The quests work as tutorial and storytelling devices as you work through them to reach the end. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, but still gives players enough to feel like they are progressing regularly.
It’s done well and made sure I was aware of all the items and facilities available to me. There were also bonus side-quests to do while waiting for your main quest goals to tick over.
The Verde Aesthetic
Everything about Verde is super cosy. The soft 2D art style of the cut-scenes and avatars blends seamlessly into the 2.5D backdrop with a UI that brings it together in one cohesive package. Nothing feels out of place, and many players will find themselves right at home here.
The musical accompaniment lends itself to hours of relaxing gameplay, and the low stakes make it the perfect lazy day companion for any cosy-game enthusiast.
On The Verde
I really enjoyed my time with Verde and truly have no complaints. It doesn’t have a huge run time, and min-maxers could probably run the achievements in a few hours. However, I think it’s more about the aesthetics and the relaxing as you build up your biome than actually winning the game. In this regard, Verde has achieved its goal 100%.
There’s a reasonable but not huge number of items to unlock. However, I doubt you will run out of design choices as you can customise each item to an inordinate degree. Two Point players may find it a bit too slow and lacking in chaos, but there are other games better suited for that task.
Verde is cute, cosy and wonderful, just the way it is.
Platforms: PC
Publishers: Assemble Entertainment
Developers: Antimeta Studio
Played On: Steam
Key Provided By: Keymailer
About the Author
