The most wholesome 40-ish minutes I spent with a game this Steam Next Fest came courtesy of Winter Burrow's demo, which was about a little mouse wading through the snow in a cute remix of Don't Starve's survival gameplay.
Like many a cozy game, Winter Burrow opens with your sturdy main mouse running away from a busy urban life and back into the cottage core home of my dreams: a hollowed out tree. Existing in the wintery depths of snow, the burrow has kinda been left in a dodgy state by our aunt, who's also missing, by the way.
So, over the course of the demo, it's your job to gather and forage for all your rudimentary survival bits. Sticks and pebbles to make a DIY axe. Nuts and insect pieces to keep your hunger meter full. Wood to craft bed and furniture. And that's all while fending off the cold, which slowly creeps up and limits the amount of time you can spend exploring the wilderness outside.
The twist, from what I could gather, is that everything is decidedly more laidback than other survival games. Sure, you still have lots of maintenance to do, but, here, increasing your cold resistance just means you need to bake a pie or knit a jumper. Knitting. In a survival game!
Everything from the gorgeous paper-like art style to the way the little mouse patters about tickles a very specific itch in my brain that comes about in these winter months. It's the kind of game that makes me wish it was raining outside, just so I can have even more of an excuse to wrap up in blankets, make a tea, and play.
Winter Burrow comes out in full just next month, on November 12th.
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