Lou’s Lagoon combines the exploration and collection of a survival crafting game with the cozy vibes of a delivery simulator. In this cozy game, you need to explore an archipelago that was devastated by recent storms, helping repair broken structures with collected scrap, and taking over your missing uncle’s seaplane delivery service.
Exploration, Crafting, and Flying Across the Archipelago
The demo I got to check out was fairly short–about 30 minutes–with only one explorable island, but the basic loop was mostly present. You explore and collect materials, like driftwood and trash, using a harvester tool, which can be used to repair stairs or, in the case of the first quest, repair your seaplane. One of the required materials was a propeller some children had, who were willing to trade if I helped Granny prepare dinner for them. These characters have cute and distinct personalities, even if there wasn’t much depth to them in the demo.
With the seaplane repaired, I was allowed to fly around the early section of the archipelago, with my first delivery in tow. The demo ends if you attempt to land at a new location, so unfortunately I didn’t get to experience how the delivery aspect of the game functions beyond its story implications. I did get to fly the seaplane around and I’m happy to report it feels great in an arcade way.
Equipped with a boost and the ability to do tight turns, it feels great to fly around, which is good, because there are items to collect from balloons and ring obstacle courses to conquer. If you are looking for a flight simulator, this isn’t the place for you, as much of the work, like take-off and landing, is automated, so you only control the plane in the air.
Visually the game has a nice blend of a cartoon art style, with luscious and vibrant colors. The first island is small, but the tropical island feel gave strong vacation vibes, even if some of the buildings had seen better days. The water also looks amazing, and I was left feeling excited to see more environments. The next island was described as overgrown and wild, so it seems like there will be some variety in the full experience.
Promising, But More to Explore
Lou’s Lagoon also offers crafting systems and its delivery system, although that might be more of a narrative device than an actual system, but neither was present in the demo. A brief glimpse of the crafting system can be seen in the trailer, which shows the process of building and decorating a house from scratch, so it seems comparable to other crafting systems in these types of life sim games.
It’s hard to deliver much of a verdict on this small of a preview, but the world is vibrant and the gameplay loop of collecting resources and making repairs seems enjoyable. Crafting and deliveries sound interesting, so Lou’s Lagoon seems like it has the right stuff to be an enjoyable cozy life sim. Lou’s Lagoon doesn’t have a release date just yet, but it’s slated for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
