Luna’s Fishing Garden

Developer: Coldwild Games, illufinch | Publisher: Coldwild Games | Release Date: 16 June 2021 | Genre: Adventure / Casual / Fishing / Cozy | Website: N/A | Purchase: Steam

Luna’s Fishing Garden is exactly the sort of game its title suggests: small, peaceful, colourful, and built around fishing somewhere that looks considerably nicer than wherever you are currently sitting.

The setup is simple. Cassie is out fishing when a violent storm carries her away to a strange archipelago inhabited by spirits. She wakes on an island belonging to Luna, a fox spirit whose garden has been damaged by the storm, and soon finds herself helping restore the surrounding islands while figuring out how to get home. The story never becomes especially complicated, but it provides enough structure to introduce the different characters, unlock new areas, and gradually turn the battered archipelago into something much livelier.

The developers describe it as a “short, cozy fishing and building game,” and there really is no better way of putting it. There are no enemies, no combat, no deadlines, and no meaningful way to fail. That makes Luna’s Fishing Garden an extremely relaxing game.

There is no clock constantly reminding you that a day is nearly over. Crops do not wither because you forgot to tend them before midnight. Nobody gets angry because you spent an afternoon fishing instead of completing their quest. You simply progress at your own pace.

Fishing is the activity that holds most of the game together, and fortunately it is also the most addictive part. Different fishing spots around the archipelago contain different species, with more than twenty fish in total. Each has its own movement pattern and level of difficulty, so catching a tiny common fish feels noticeably different from trying to land one of the rarer species later in the game.

The standard fishing system uses a moving fish indicator and a controllable bar. The idea is to keep the fish inside the successful catch zone long enough to reel it in, something immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time fishing in Stardew Valley. More difficult fish move faster or behave less predictably, while upgrades to the fishing rod make tougher catches easier.

There is also a Simple Fishing option for anyone who does not want even that mild amount of stress. In this mode, fishing becomes much easier and focuses more on holding and releasing the action button in response to the fish’s movements. The fishing speed can also be adjusted, allowing players to make the minigame more relaxed or more demanding. It is a smart accessibility choice because nothing about the rest of the game is trying to challenge you. Forcing everyone through a difficult fishing minigame would have worked against the entire point of the experience.

We found the fishing addictive enough that we rarely needed much encouragement to stop at another fishing spot on the way to an objective. There is a satisfying rhythm to casting, watching the silhouette appear, recognising how the fish moves, and finally pulling it from the water.

Fish can be given to characters for quests or traded to Luna for Leaves, the game’s main currency. Leaves are then spent on upgrades, plants, and opening further parts of the archipelago. This creates a simple but effective progression loop.

Fish.

Sell.

Upgrade.

Explore.

Plant.

Repeat.

The gardening side is considerably less involved than something like Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons. Plants and trees can be placed on the islands, after which they periodically produce resources that can be harvested and sold. The emphasis is less on crop management and more on gradually decorating and restoring the islands while creating additional sources of income.

Later on, animals can help automate parts of this process. Capybaras can gather water-based resources while kea parrots help with land harvesting, reducing the need to run around manually collecting everything once the garden becomes larger.

Watching a capybara trundle around gathering resources from its tiny boat is perhaps not an essential videogame mechanic. It is, however, excellent. The economy becomes generous fairly quickly. Once several productive plants are established and automation begins doing some of the work, Leaves stop feeling scarce. That means Luna’s Fishing Garden never really develops into a resource-management challenge. But again, that is clearly intentional.

The goal is not to optimise every square of land or create some ruthless agricultural empire. The game wants players to make the islands look nice, catch some fish, help the spirits, and enjoy watching everything gradually improve. Travel is handled through Cassie’s wonderfully tiny leaf boat. Early on, it is slow, but boat upgrades increase its speed, while later traversal options include balloons that can be improved as well. The lighthouse is also used to unlock additional islands as progress is made.

Because the world is compact, moving between locations never becomes especially tedious. Sailing from one side of the archipelago to another only takes a short while, and there is something pleasant about simply drifting across the water while the soundtrack plays.

Luna is only the first of several spirits Cassie encounters. The characters are genuinely interesting despite having relatively little dialogue.The downside is that the game does not really develop them much beyond their function. Once a character’s quests and upgrades are finished, there is generally very little additional conversation available. Social interaction is not really the focus, and characters often become silent once their relevant task is complete. That is a slight shame because the cast is charming enough that spending more time with them would have been welcome.

The Field Journal provides one of the stronger incentives to keep exploring. It records the flora and fauna encountered around the archipelago, effectively giving completionists another checklist alongside fishing and achievements. Nothing requires an absurd grind, and most of the remaining tasks after completing the story can be wrapped up relatively quickly. 

Brevity is probably the biggest criticism that can be aimed at Luna’s Fishing Garden. The mechanics are pleasant enough that the ending arrives just as everything feels fully established. By the time the islands are productive, Cassie has received her useful upgrades, and the different fishing spots are open, there is not much story left. It feels almost like the opening hours of a larger cozy game. Fortunately, the developers allow players to continue after completing the main plotline. So players can keep fishing, decorating, completing tasks, and arranging the islands however they like. This is important because it means the ending never creates artificial pressure to finish everything beforehand.

Visually, Luna’s Fishing Garden is lovely. The pixel art is bright, colourful, and packed with personality without becoming visually cluttered. Islands are rendered with clean shapes and cheerful palettes, while the water gently animates around Cassie’s tiny boat. The character portraits are especially strong. Every spirit has a distinctive silhouette and expressive design, from Luna’s mysterious fox appearance to the considerably sillier creatures encountered later. Even characters that only appear briefly are immediately recognisable.

The environmental changes are satisfying too. The archipelago starts relatively bare and storm-damaged, but gradually becomes filled with trees, crops, flowers, animals, nests and more. Because you choose where much of this goes, the world increasingly feels like something you have helped build rather than merely a static background.

The pixel art also suits the game’s scale perfectly. A more detailed graphical style could easily have made the tiny islands feel artificial, while the stylised sprites turn everything into something closer to an illustrated storybook.

Sound is equally important to the atmosphere. The soundtrack was composed by Paul Zimmermann and consists of five in-game tracks: The Fishing Garden, Calm Sea, Island Harvest, Jellybean, and Decisions. It is a small soundtrack, but it suits the game beautifully. Gentle melodies accompany sailing, fishing, and gardening without constantly demanding attention. The music sits comfortably in the background, which is exactly where it needs to be for a game built around relaxing repetitive tasks. There is naturally some repetition because there are only five pieces, and anyone spending many hours decorating after the story will hear them frequently. 

There is no full voice acting. The game supports several languages but no full audio, so conversations are primarily text-driven. Controls are simple enough that the game even supports a mouse-only mode, while ordinary keyboard controls work exactly as expected. Nothing requires especially precise input outside the more demanding fishing setting, and that can be reduced or simplified whenever desired.

The closest comparison is probably the gentler side of Stardew Valley, except with almost all of the time management, relationships, farming complexity, and scheduling removed. It also has a little of Spiritfarer’s warmth in its boat travel and whimsical animal cast, although it is dramatically smaller and mechanically simpler than either game. That simplicity is both its biggest strength and its main limitation. Players wanting a deep farming or life simulation will exhaust the systems very quickly. Players wanting a pleasant afternoon of fishing, decorating, and helping strange spirits will probably have a lovely time.