The game was provided by Future Friends Games for review. Thank you!
This review was created using an LCD Steam Deck. OLED testing will be carried out soon.
There are days when I only want to play a cozy game. After a long day in the office, playing a deeply complex game like Dwarf Fortress is often the last thing on my mind. Sometimes, I will curl up with my Steam Deck, playing simpler games that require little attention. Some of my favorites in this category are Dorfromantik, Stardew Valley, and Spiritfarer, and playing them on a handheld like the Steam Deck is icing on the cake.
Gourdlets is right up there with them, and it is available on Steam right now. Developed by Auntygames, it is designed to be a chill experience from top to bottom. If you fancy a hands-off, creative sandbox game without worrying about the economy or the happiness of the citizens, Gourdlets is an easy recommendation at that price. It also plays very well on the Steam Deck, although I will mention a few minor quirks later.
At its heart, Gourdlets is a city-builder with absolutely no constraints. These little, cute Gourd beings are what we all hope to be: happy with life and as comfortable as possible. They are content with anything you provide them, so there are no survival mechanics like hunger, thirst, or happiness. It is like ruling over a town of gods: nothing phases these adorable little beans. They want to relax, and it provides many creative tools to help them do so.
That emphasis on relaxation and creativity comes at the cost of difficulty, and Gourdlets suffers a little. When given an infinite sandbox to play in as you wish without consequences, it might not be an excellent option for players looking for a long-term experience. This is more of a meditation tool than a deep playing experience, although it has several ways to encourage gameplay.
The town customization is impressive, and the game offers hundreds of items unlocked from the start of play. Creating more land to build on is as easy as clicking a button. You only get a few maps, but being able to edit them to your heart’s content helps. Building interiors can be edited, too, and like the Tardis from Doctor Who, they are bigger on the inside. Gourdlets must have some kind of fancy tech from the far future to pack so much space inside their homes, and you should have plenty of room to tinker with.
Not every item is available from the start, which is where the light progression comes into play. As more Gourdlets join your town by calling a train and interacting with the world, you will unlock more items to work with, which arrive through a parcel train. This is the only real means of progression in Gourdlets, but there are still plenty of items to unlock during gameplay. I found no variation with unlocks, however. During multiple maps, I found that the items unlock in the same order every time and do not seem to carry over between maps. Hopefully, the developers can add more variation to spice things up.
One of my favorite things about Gourdlets is watching the little folk play within the world. Every item you place down can be interacted with by your citizens, and watching them live their lives with custom animations is a delight. Auntygames has put a lot of care and thought into bringing the world to life, making the town feel like it is lived in. Even within the city-building genre, many games struggle with this mechanic. It is another piece of immersion that goes a long way. You can pick up your Gourdlets, move them around the map, and customize everything about them, from their name to appearance.
With all this in mind, I find Gourdlets a charming distraction from the world. The pixel-art graphics, cute animations, the approach to freeform building, and the low asking price make it an easy game to fall in love with. It is not particularly deep or complex but oozes charm with every movement. I want more items and maps, but the creation tools are already sufficient. You cannot get many things for a fiver, and Gourdlets is a great choice.
Gourdlets is officially classed as Verified on the Store page, and I have found this to be relatively accurate. Its simple visual design and controller support make it a great pick for your Steam Deck as a game to pick up and play in short bursts. I enjoyed my time on the Steam Deck but have a few things to note.
There aren’t many graphical options to tweak in the game, and our choices are extremely limited. On stock settings (LCD Steam Deck model, 60hz refresh rate, 60FPS, unlocked TDP), Gourdlets ran smoothly, and the controls worked well. I had no trouble navigating the menus with the default controller profile, and you can tweak the interface size to make things easier.
With all the Gourdlet animations at play, I found Gourdlets more power-hungry than I expected. Despite its humble visual design, it will hit the battery reasonably hard without tweaking. I found an average power draw of 12W at stock settings, with occasional spikes to 14W when you have a decent number of buildings and citizens on screen. Limiting the refresh rate to 40hz did not hurt performance and lowered the power draw to an average of 11w. If you want a smooth experience, I recommend keeping it unlocked at 40hz, with an average battery life estimate of 4 hours for the LCD Steam Deck.
With how Gourdlets functions in gameplay, you can get away with a much lower TDP setting if you are willing to compromise a little performance. The results were better than I expected. With 40hz and the TDP set to 3, I kept an average of 30FPS during standard gameplay. When calling in the Gourdlet trains, I saw some frame drops, but these did not bother me for performance. Saving the game also causes a temporary stutter, but I found this to happen in the stock mode, too.
The main advantage of the Low TDP setting is the battery life, and the average power draw was significantly lower in this mode. With a TDP of 3, I found Gourdlets to be playable with an average power draw of 7 watts, which gives the LCD Steam Deck an estimated 5 hours and 30 minutes battery life. It often dipped as low as 6 watts. This is quite a big increase over the default setting, so if you need to squeeze as much battery out of your Steam Deck as I do, it is a small price to play for longer battery life.
The frame rate is liable to spike more often in this setting, but Gourdlets is one of those games where it does not matter as much as others. If you don’t mind a couple of framerate drops, I recommend locking the TDP as low as possible. Otherwise, leaving things in stock mode but 40hz will grant the best balance between battery life and smooth performance. Ultimately, it is down to what you prefer!
Gourdlets is playable in English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Latin America).
You can invert the map scroll, enable Vsync and autosave, lock the FPS to 30, remap the controls in gamepad or keyboard mode, integrate your Twitch channel so followers can join your town, and adjust the UI scaling. There are no graphics options to tweak, nor can you change the screen resolution.
There are no options for colorblind support. I recommend keeping the UI scaling no higher than 110, as I found that any higher hid important buttons on the Steam Deck.
At its heart, Gourdlets is designed to be a relaxing experience. With its cuddly inhabitants and carefree, sandbox gameplay, it is more about style than substance. With the wide range of items and plenty of space to develop your community from scratch, it is a great pick for when you have a little free time and just want to unwind. It is the perfect game for your Steam Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Gourdlets might not be the deepest game out there, but it is an adorable city-builder with no restrictions or constraints. It runs pretty well on the Steam Deck too.
