When describing Little Dragon’s Café, I like to tell people, “If you think Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing is too stressful, then have I got a game for you!” That pretty much sums up the incredibly laid-back atmosphere of this game. And that’s not a bad thing, in fact, in these troubling times, it’s quite nice. It’s like taking a long bath or sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, drinking a nice cool lemonade.

In the game, you play a twin who’s trying to build up business in a café and raise a dragon to save their mother’s life (don’t worry, it makes perfect sense in the game). Every day, you must gather ingredients for food, help serve customers, explore your island and pet and feed your adorable little dragon buddy. The game quickly sets into a calming rhythm as you go through the same tasks and make your way through the story.

As your café and dragon grow, more and more of the island is unlocked letting you forage for new and exciting ingredients. You can also find recipes hidden around the island that will let you cook more enticing dishes. And you can fish and gather meat from birds to supplement your pantry. It’s all about keeping that pantry stocked!

But a couple times a day you’ll have to warp back to your café to help serve customers, bust tables or wash dishes. And occasionally, come down on employees who aren’t pulling their weight by goofing around. Working the café provides a nice change of pace from material gathering and sometimes customers will give you ingredients as a reward for serving them.

All this would get quite repetitive after a while, but the game does a great job of introducing new characters frequently enough to keep things interesting. And the characters all have quirky natures or funny backstories that constantly make you hope for a new one to appear.

Doesn’t this sound fun?! Little Dragon’s Café is by Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of the famed Harvest Moon (Story of Seasons) video games and it totally has the same vibe. It’s visually charming, spiritually replenishing and mentally soothing. As Harvest Moon proved years ago, there’s something magical in the act of creating and building rather than destroying, which is what you do in most video games.

And of course, being a Yasuhiro Wada game, it’s cute. Like, ridiculously adorably cute. The graphics, music and art direction are all charming and greatly contribute to the soothing quality of the game. While it may be a tad slow for some, it’s a wonderful stress reliever and quite rewarding for those that put in the time and work.

If you're interested in this game, you might like this manga: Black Clover, Cowa!, Dr. Slump, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Toriko.

by Urian Brown