Shroomy Garden is a cute little city builder with plenty of room to grow

We all know I’m a sucker for cute stuff by this point, especially if it’s made up of pixels and the hopes of an indie developer throwing their dreams into the world. I love finding hidden gems, and one game that I recently discovered and have high hopes for is Shroomy Garden. 

Shroomy Garden is a delightfully cozy pixel “city builder” in development by Magicwood Labs. In the game, you create and nurture a cozy habitat for adorable mushroom creatures. You need to balance coziness and comfort with excitement and fairground rides to keep them happy, and making things look pretty is the main goal. 

Decor vs. income

In the demo of Shroomy Garden, you can design your own little garden using limited items, such as terrain paint, ferris wheels, and greenhouses, to get your park score up to 200. I have to admit reaching a park score of 200 (the goal within the demo) with what’s available is definitely a challenge, but it does encourage you to really pack in the decor to get there.  

As you gradually make your little garden more appealing to the Shroomies, more of them will begin to move into houses you can place down. The more Shroomies you have, the more money you get from them using the rides, and the more decor you can put down to keep them happy. This incremental element definitely helps to keep you playing long after you’re happy with your park. 

I will admit that the in-game prompts can steer you off course in the beginning, but I quickly learned to take them more as suggestions rather than “you should do this next” guidance. Placing down attractions and food stalls should be your first priority, as they bring in the money, before you let loose and litter the map with decor pieces and floral arrangements. 

A taster of a demo

The Shroomy Garden demo offers a small glimpse of what will come in the full game when it is released. According to the assets on the Steam page, there will be castles and waterslides among many other new attractions to bring in the Shroomies. The menu also shows an option for Sandbox, which isn’t available in the demo itself but will be when the full game arrives.  

As much as I love an incremental game, I’m definitely looking forward to letting my imagination run wild in Sandbox mode. It’s extremely satisfying to have absolutely nothing blocking your creative freedom, and the decorations and attractions in Shroomy Garden are so cute that I want to use all of them without having to wait for the funds. 

Shroomy Garden is set to release at some point in November 2026, and I already suspect that I will get sucked into hours of decorating when the time comes. Until then, there’s the demo to play on Steam.