Okay, I know, I’m bad at video games, but that has never stopped me from loving them.
I’ve been drawn to creature collectors — monster taming, companion accumulating, etc. — since I was a kid, and though my vocabulary was much less developed, I still more or less had the words as to why: I love little guys. My kid-brain latched onto anything that let me gather and care for little beings, digital or otherwise.
My Littlest Pet Shop figurines ran the world from my bedroom floor. When I was allowed internet access, Neopets and FlightRising tabs stayed permanently open (for fear that closing them might somehow harm my critters). Finally, when I was granted a Nintendo DS, Moshi Monsters: Moshling Zoo and Pokémon — Black 1 and White 2 — ruled my afternoons. My curiosity led me to new corners of pixelated exploration, made-up personalities and relationships alike for all the little guys I carried.
In my adult life, things have changed. Nintendo sells $80 games that require $450 consoles to play, and I am painfully aware of my own overconsumption of little plastic figurines and collectibles. I still want the joys of collecting creatures, but I want it without the financial (and ecologically-minded) spirals. So what’s a girl to do?
I ended up finding my answer on Steam, and it’s as simple as games.
Slime Rancher and Slime Rancher 2
My little guy collections were always about playing and comfort, and the Slime Rancher games capture that feeling perfectly, pairing bright, bouncy chaos with a gentle daily rhythm that makes tending to your ranch a reward in itself.
The Slime Rancher series is a soft explosion of color: Everything is rounded, glossy and friendly (even the antagonist Tarrs). The environments are easy to navigate, full of open skies, glowing plants and intuitively looping paths that guide you effortlessly across the island’s map. Slime Rancher 2 is a further exploration and refinement of this style, with richer lighting and smoother animations enhancing the same cheerful, toy-like charm.
The visuals, of course, scratch the cutesy itch my brain hoards, but the gameplay is what fulfills my little-guy needs. Slime Rancher encourages and rewards exploration and slime care. You move through various stages of wilderness, vacuuming up slimes to bring home and house in their perfect corrals. You collect their favorite foods to farm and keep the slimes fed, since the absolute worst part of the game is seeing a slime wearing a sad, hungry face. There’s light resource management, but nothing ever feels truly stressful or punishing. The slimes are forgiving creatures, and any mistakes are easy to laugh off. The controls are also minimal and intuitive, with only a five-second tutorial before you’re ready to roll.
The story is understated and subtle, quite easy to miss (or even ignore, if you’re just here for the slimes), but it is stunningly beautiful to me. You’re a rancher on a distant, alien planet, farming slimes and slowly uncovering bits of lore from notes planted around the island. You uncover the story of the previous rancher, about his loss and reclamation of past loves, while emails from your ex-partner roll in and play out quite the same story for you.
Slime Rancher is colorful proof that farming simulators can be both absurd and unexpectedly heartfelt.
Coromon
Yes, it looks a lot like Pokémon, but there is so much visual interest and elevation in both art and personality that Coromon becomes its own beast.
The pixel art is crisp, colorful and highly expressive, clearly inspired by the classic Pokémon but boasting a lot more detail. The shading is beautiful, and the environments feel lively and distinct with all of the set dressing packed into each frame. And the Coromon! The creature designs balance cuteness with originality in a way that makes every new Coromon feel exciting rather than previously seen.
The core of the gameplay is the tried-and-true creature collecting: You explore towns and wild areas, battle Coromon, catch the cutest ones and level them up to build your perfect team. Combat is turn-based and strategic without being overly complex, and the game offers many flexible difficulty settings that makes it customizable and approachable.
Coromon’s sci-fi twist is what really sets the story apart from anything I’ve previously seen or played. Rather than gyms and badges, you’re chasing strange deities to harness their energies and fight off the alien virus threatening to take over the world. The stakes and tension feel completely new, cementing Coromon’s confidence in its unique identity.
Monster Sanctuary
Building onto Coromon and offering a slightly different experience, Monster Sanctuary both asked and answered: What if my Coromon could double jump?
Visually, Monster Sanctuary is stunning. Its pixel art is detailed and atmospheric, blending cozy fantasy with an undeniable sense of adventure. The world is side-scrolling with a heavy emphasis on vertical exploration, creating a layered effect that’s incredibly fun to traverse using easy-enough parkour and help from your monster friends. Instead of simply moving left to right, you’re constantly climbing, dropping, wall-jumping and chaining together light parkour moves that are fluid and intuitive. There are hidden paths that are also revealed by your beasts, and, overall, the exploration feels incredibly rewarding because every new ability meaningfully reshapes how you move through the world. Each discovery — whether it’s a tucked-away path or a previously unreachable ledge — feels earned, reinforcing the thrill of curiosity and making backtracking just as exciting as pushing forward.
The story is simple, but it works: You are a monster keeper in a world where humans and beasts coexist without conflict. However, the beasts are getting stronger, throwing off the peace and balance once maintained, and you must journey to find out why. It’s earnest, hopeful and centered on returning to a once-lost balance rather than world domination.
Its gameplay mixes creature collecting with Metroidvania-style exploration. You kill monsters, collect their eggs and raise the young for battle and traversal abilities, using claws and wings to unlock more areas. Combat is turn-based and has a fantastically built learning curve, becoming deeper and more complex as more monsters join your battalion. With the swathe of monsters at your fingertips, strategy, team synergy and smart planning naturally integrate themselves as core features of the game. Team combinations spin out to become absolutely unlimited since each monster has its own unique skill tree.
Monster Sanctuary fills my cup with exploring the wide-open world and, most importantly, cute critters.
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All of these games understand a critical appeal to me: Comfort matters. I collect the cutest creatures, explore the unfettered and enjoy games that I don’t really need to be “good” at. At the end of the day, I don’t need (or want) high stakes or 4K gameplay. I just need little guys in a world that is kind enough to let me hold them.
Digital Culture Beat Editor Estlin Salah can be reached at essalah@umich.edu.
