Cute as hell life sim with optional crime and deviance that breaks the boring cozy game mold.  It's a 2-in-1 game with an optional farming sim biome if you want.
I backed it on Kickstarter and have 30+ hours in so far.  Here's my TLDR:

😀FAVORITES
• INSANE amount to do: jobs, college, dating, farming, shopping, dancing, sports, music, thug-life 
• FREEDOM to do what you want, talents and goals to achieve as you like
• DREAM adds replayability and a personal "story"
• LIVELY city and countryside...I've met 117 Pixelians and counting!
• VIOLENCE is deliciously fun.  Knock out and loot Pixelians and run from the po-po!
• I married the hot doctor! ♥
• $15 for a HUGE life sim?  Yes please!

😕COULD BE IMPROVED
• Super grindy to level up talents and money.  Exercise mini game is brutal at high levels.
• Gangs and some quests difficult to complete, lack of direction (where to find and beat up Jimmy?)
• Needs a WIKI
• Controller WORKS but could be better (right stick acts like cursor)

So it's a bit grindy and won't hold your hand but has a lot of depth and combines cozy and spicy better than most any life sim I've ever played (exept maybe Longvinter).  Worth the 15 bucks for sure! 🥰

🌳Overview video:
https://youtu.be/XuL6dr4EAqQ

📝Tips video:
https://youtu.be/vIIZegZzveM

(TLDR at the bottom)

For a supposedly feature-complete game, I ran into so many small nuisances within the four hours I had playing for the first time that I simply cannot offer a recommendation. It's a huge shame because underneath it all is a really good game that desperately needs a round of player feedback to reach full potential. To Pixelia isn't across the finish line yet and people should know what they're getting into.

Overall, and from what I can tell, the game has some serious longevity if you don't mind grinding some slightly tedious gameplay loops to make progress. The game is clearly designed around slowly improving your skills and climbing your way to either fame or fortune (or both depending on your career), building friendships, relationships, family, and even rivalries along the way. I don't mind the grind personally as it adds a sense of reality to a genre that's otherwise saturated with idealised visions of the world. In To Pixelia you will be paying income tax, making rent every week, taking on debt, considering what services you do and do not need to meet your basic human needs, and generally be clutching your in-game wallet tighter than a first-year college student. It's great.

However, and as I said earlier, your overall experience can easily be ruined by any culmination of the minor oversights and bugs that could easily be ironed out if this was given even a small 1-year window of early access development. Aside from the very minor yet frequent grammatical issues, the most egregious of headaches is the painfully slow dialogue system that makes avoiding NPC interaction more preferable. For what it serves, this UI should be snappy and responsive, deliver quick, flavourful animations that add a sense of development with the character. The UI animation of the text tree unfolding is painfully slow and will not register the conversation as 'complete' until it's finished so you can click the next option for the chance of a measly +1–3 relationship points. It takes way too much time to do this a total of 8 or 9 times per person, and since the game clock is paused during this time, you're really only wasting the players' time.

This issue with UI persists in places like the casino where you have to re-enter your bet between every round and UI elements have to complete their slow fade-in animation before they can be interacted with. Overall it just needlessly slows the entire experience down and was my largest source of frustration. As a quick aside, the entire menu UI is a bit cluttered in places and makes use of very light pastel colors that can make distinguishing menus from sub-menus challenging at times and will certainly flashbang you if you're playing in a dark room and unprepared for it like I was. I also have no idea what that investment screen at the bank is attempting to convey, but it fails — What's wrong with a graph? All. Small. Oversights.

I haven't had much time to explore the career paths but two issue I noticed with the starting job as a waiter is that you don't have to take their orders or even show up on time at all. You can simply stand at the chef UI and wait for the order to be delivered to you telepathically and click on whatever dish gets a (1) underneath it. Really trivialised the whole thing, and I suspect similar logic gaps like this will appear in the other plentiful careers. Furthermore, jobs as a whole seem to be instanced minigames that offer no incentive to arriving on time. You get the same payout no matter when in your allotted time window you arrive, so you can literally arrive in the last 10 minutes of a shift and get a full day's pay depending on your performance in the minigame. How very EU-friendly of them.

There's nothing bad about a game releasing in early access when it's developed by a small or solo development team, and for what To Pixelia offers I would say has it more than 90% of other Early Access releases. I love playing and supporting small indie games like this and I will continue to play and probably flesh out this review more in time. To Pixelia offers a fun, casual and addictive experience that I really, really want to enjoy but actually playing it makes me more sour than it should for a genre of game that's meant to be intuitive and enjoyed casually.


- Gameplay loop is solid and enjoyable, if slightly repetitive.
- Plenty of gripes with UI and game logic that can make the experience sometimes more frustrating or disrupt immersion.
- Needs a few more months of development to iron out the minor issues I encountered.
- If you don't mind that or just really want a good life-sim game to sink 100+ hours into, I say go for it. Otherwise wait a few months or probably until the end of the year to get a seamless experience.

This game is a life-sim, and it's super cute and cozy—but it also has a bit of a dark side. A lot of people in the community have said it feels like a pixelated Sims mixed with a little GTA, and honestly, I totally agree.

Right from the start, you can tell there's a lot this game has to offer. There’s always something to do, sometimes even a little too much. It can feel overwhelming early on, so I’d say take your time, pace yourself, and figure out what you want to focus on as you get to know the game.

The character creator is pretty basic to begin with, but it's enough to get you started. As you progress, you’ll find barber shops and clothing stores around the city to customise your character more, once you’ve earned some money and gotten deeper into the game. One big tip—your starting traits matter a lot. They shape how you earn prestige points and level up, so choose wisely. I recommend going with an “easier” ones early on like the Social trait since you'll naturally be chatting with other Pixelians a lot. You can change your traits down the line, it does cost prestige points.

The map is pretty big and packed with all sorts of places. I suggest visiting every spot you pass at least once, and enter stores since that unlocks map icons and makes life way easier later. You’ll be using the bus as a fast travel method at first—it costs money, so use it wisely! You can get a car or motorbike later on, but that'll come with time.

Housing is a cool part of the game too. I’ve only seen a few houses so far. You start off in a basic, run-down apartment, but you can fix it up bit by bit. There's a place called Pixenville that I love—it is a farming place. You can get into farming, use tools, and even fish. Or you can skip all that and just live the city life—totally up to you.

Work in the game is actually fun! You start out waitressing, which is a great intro job. You can also go to school and study to unlock better jobs. I’ve only tried a couple jobs so far, but I love how interactive they are. As a waitress, you actually serve people; I even tried cleaning, and you walk around scrubbing up messes. On top of your job, there are loads of quests and side activities to keep you busy. Your traits come into play again here, since quests often focus on those. Make sure to check out the daily quests—they give you prestige points, XP, and help boost your mood. Some story quests are thrown in too—I haven’t done too many yet, but the ones I tried were actually really funny.

Now… about that “dark side”. I had to try it out, you know, for science. You can actually go around causing a bit of chaos—punching Pixelians (some will hold grudges lol), cracking safes, stealing, even joining gangs. I won’t spoil too much, but if you want to walk the darker path, you’ll definitely have a good time.

There’s just SO much to this game. So many paths to take, so much to explore. And I haven’t even scratched the surface. I really want to check out the hacking and stock market side of things—that’s on my to-do list! Building relationships with the 100+ Pixelians is fun too. You can call them, hang out, go on dates (complete with mini games), and maybe even romance and marry them. I haven’t gotten to the marriage part yet, but i know is costs a lot. You can even have children later if you so wish.

For its price, this game is honestly a steal. Super addictive. If I had to point out a couple of things, I’d say it does feel like it’ll get pretty grindy later, especially for levelling some skills. Also, the game doesn’t explain everything very well—I wish it had given me more info early on. Honestly, it could really use a Wiki. Right now I find myself asking for help (or helping others) in the Discord a lot. An NPC finder would be a great addition for tracking people down though—it can be tricky at times.

So yeah—To Pixelia is a gem of a game. Whether you want to be a wholesome farmer or a chaos-causing gangster, there’s a path for you.

Have a blast, Pixelians! ☕

Tip: If you want to find more reviews like this, check out our curator page Moon's Tea House