Gorgeous cozy castle doodling game Tiny Glade is launching a demo this month

Since the surprise success of Townscaper a few years ago, a crop of other "radically casual" cozy city builders has been in the works, and Tiny Glade has definitely been at the top of my wishlist—and most other folks', I suspect. Thank goodness we're finally going to get to try painting lovely ivy-covered walls across a pastoral canvas: Pounce Light says a demo is coming on May 30.

Tiny Glade, from everything we've seen so far, is a very laid back building game that takes after some of the procedural building elements so many people enjoyed in Townscaper but with its own deeper set of building tools. You can draw castle-y curtain walls, raise towers, and scatter your choices of windows, lights, and other decor. Bits of your project will respond to one another as you build, like walls sprouting an arched gateway when you draw a footpath leading up to its edge.

In its blog post, Pounce Light says that in the demo we'll be able to play the "summer glade" map, the sunny, grass plains and woods backdrop that we've seen in so many of its sneak peeks and posts. From a screenshot, it looks like we'll be able to build structures and paths, place windows and lights, and change paint colors and terrain heights. There's a flower symbol in the toolbar as well which I'm guessing is related to placing landscaping details.

The developer says it's also added the much-requested photo mode in which players can move about their camera to take the exact screenshots they want. Will my own tiny glade be my new phone and desktop background? Likely.

The Tiny Glade demo will drop on May 30 and will stay up throughout the Steam Next Fest—scheduled to run from June 10 - June 17 this year—"and perhaps for a week or two after—we shall see once when we get there," Pounce Light says. So that's going to be a solid two and a half weeks, at least, to give it a try.

Tiny Glade hasn't announced a release date for its full version, but it's expected sometime in 2024 and it's definitely one of the upcoming cozy games I'm most excited for this year.

Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She joined the PCG staff in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can't stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.