Woodo is a love letter to the little moments we never get back

From the first time I saw Woodo, I had high expectations and knew I had to play it. That was only reinforced when I dropped everything during a much-needed vacation to play the demo when it came out in August 2025. I’ve been waiting for what feels like a very long time for Woodo to release, and now it’s finally here. Somehow, it has far exceeded those expectations.

Tiny Monks Tales’ wooden diorama narrative puzzle game is filled with so much love and joy that you can’t help but smile while putting the pieces together. It’s also an emotional journey from start to finish, all about the preciousness of time and how quickly it passes. At least, that’s my interpretation.

By the time I’d finished playing, I’d laughed, cried, cleaned the bathroom (that's connected, I promise), and already planned my second playthrough.

Anything but wooden

It’s obvious that the theme of Woodo is, well, wood, but by the time you’ve completed even one level, you’ll have forgotten that the pieces are made from wood at all. Everything in every cozy scene, from the biggest characters to the smallest little decorative pieces, feels so alive. Each one feels like a living page from a storybook; the type of storybook that you read during childhood and then remember years later, even if the name eludes you. 

The story centers around Foxy, an “online” kind of girl who has to spend a summer in the countryside away from cell towers and signal. At first, she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do; she wants to go home, back to her online life. But then she meets a frog named Ben, who gradually draws her out of the technological shell she’s used to living inside and teaches her how to appreciate the moment. 

Now, I think it’s safe to say that I relate heavily to Foxy because my life centers around being online. My work is online and, most importantly to me, my long-distance relationship is online most of the time. Unlike Foxy, at least when she initially arrives in the countryside, those moments when I can put the phone down and spend time away from screens are utterly glorious to me. They just don’t happen anywhere near as often as I’d like. 

The passage of time

Time is, without a shadow of a doubt, our most limited resource, although I can truly appreciate that sometimes it doesn’t feel limited at all. As kids, it feels like we’re going to live forever. Then we grow up and realize that time only seems to move faster the older we get. I’m jealous that my daughter’s days seem to last 10 times as long as mine do, in her head at least, but that’s exactly what makes time so valuable. 

For me, Woodo serves not only as an impossibly cozy game, but also as a timely reminder to put more value on my time and stop focusing on things that will pass just as it does. I spend so much of my time worrying about things that ultimately won’t matter, but Woodo gave me a break from that. 

Not once during my playthrough did I feel the need to rush or use a hint to help me get a level done quicker. Instead, a huge chunk of the joy that came from playing was in the exploration of the tiniest details in each level: small hidden rooms inside birdhouses, lovely little messages playing through a walkie-talkie after you place it in the scene, and the burgeoning friendship between Lucas the spider and an unnamed mouse. 

We spend so much time going from one place to another that we forget to appreciate the little things that make those places special. Woodo seems to take the saying “slow down and smell the roses” literally, giving you endless metaphorical roses to smell that would usually go unnoticed. 

Time to say goodbye

Woodo doesn’t have hours and hours of content, at least not if you’re only planning to play through it once, but to me that’s actually a good thing, especially given its themes of time being precious and getting away from technology. It took me three(ish) hours to complete the story, and I absolutely adored every second of that time. Those hours felt worthwhile, and that’s special.

By the time I reached the final level in Woodo, I knew I was not ready, especially when I saw that it was ominously titled “Goodbye.” By this point, I was horribly attached to both Foxy and Ben; my anxious brain was terrified that something might happen to one of them, and I just didn’t want my playthrough to end.

So, as a testament to just how unprepared I truly was, I got myself up off the sofa and used my own time to do something I'd been putting off for far too long: I deep cleaned the bathroom.

Can we just take a second to appreciate that I was so unwilling to let Woodo and its story come to an end that I willingly did something I absolutely hate just to make it last a little longer? If that doesn't tell you how much I loved playing this game, nothing will.

And boy, that ending hit me like an emotion-driven freight train that had left the tracks. I won’t spoil it, because some things should be experienced firsthand, but it was enough to have me bawling and clutching the tissues I’d already told developer Julia I was going to purchase for the occasion.

It goes without saying that I wholeheartedly recommend that any cozy game fans play Woodo at their earliest convenience. It’s now available on both Steam and Nintendo Switch.