Tidy Town turns cleaning up into an impossibly adorable merging game

Every fall, I face a dilemma: should I engross myself in horror games as Spooky Season encourages, or should I give in to the urge to curl up in a ball with a blanket and lose myself in something cute and cozy? October is usually a weird month of juxtaposition as a result, but the battle may have been won in 2026 by one game: Tidy Town. 

Yes, it's another game about tidying up messy spaces, which are admittedly some of my favorite games to zone out with, but it's so much more than you might originally think. Tidy Town is impossibly adorable, for one thing, but it's also hiding something that gives it an edge: it's a merging game, too. 

One plus one makes…

I didn't go into Tidy Town expecting a match-two, chilled-out puzzle game, but I'm really glad that's what it ended up being. I've said before that I try to go into games as blind as I can, and I did a pretty good job with this one, because the first match made me think I'd done something wrong. 

There I was carrying a table and trying to find the perfect spot for it, when I passed by another table, and suddenly a puff of smoke appeared. I started thinking I'd broken it by walking into something, which definitely would have been an interesting mechanic now that I think about it, but that wasn't the case. I'd accidentally stumbled on the thing I was meant to do all along. 

In Tidy Town, the scattered mess is all made up of (in the very least) pairs of objects. Picking up an object and approaching an identical one merges the two and gives you a bigger item, eventually leading to the final one that has to go in a specific spot within the room you're working on. Tidy Town took a mechanic that I genuinely enjoy but mostly avoid and put it into a cozy tidying game, and now I'm left wanting more. 

A story behind the stuff

Another thing that surprised me about Tidy Town is the fact that not only is there a story behind the chaos you need to sort, but it's an incredibly relatable one at that. It's all about bouncing back from things that threaten to completely derail your life if you let them. That's something that instantly resonates with me because, by this point, I think I've mastered the art of bouncing back from bad situations. 

It starts with a cat named Percy losing his job at KittyKorp because the company is “downsizing” the medical catnip division. Of course, he’s depressed, but he looks around his apartment and realizes that he’s put so much time into work that he’s neglected his home, and now it’s a mess. The first level is bookended by text that ultimately says, “Sometimes the worst news of your life is just the chance you need to turn your life around,” and I find that incredibly relatable. 

Left wanting more

The Tidy Town demo is short, offering only three levels to complete, and I did it in under 20 minutes, but it’s perfectly crafted to leave you wanting more. Not only have you just been introduced to lovable and adorable characters, but the design and sound design of the game are incredibly satisfying. Every time you match something, a kind of bubble-pop sound plays, and it has been echoing around my head ever since I completed the demo. 

I have no idea where the full game will go, but I’m excited to see what’s on offer. I’m hoping for more characters, more story, and bigger locations filled with things to merge. Even if every room is a tiny little diorama snippet of the town, I know I’m going to pour my time into Tidy Town, soaking up the cozy vibes during colder days. 

Tidy Town is being developed by Wizard Games and is set to be released on December 7, 2026. The demo is available now on Steam and, while short, it’s an incredibly relaxing experience that will leave you wanting more as well.