I have a confession to make! I’ve yet to really dive into a survival craft game. Ever.
I tried Don’t Starve Together but couldn’t get my foot in the door without a tutorial or walkthrough. (Yuck.) I played Valheim and the aesthetics were nowhere near as bright and fantastical as the screenshots led me to believe. (I have green-grey-brown palette fatigue frfr.) I will never get into Minecraft because the blocky art style appeals to me less than wet socks on a half-day hike. (So sorry, blocky enjoyers.)
I was starting to think that the genre just wasn’t for me, despite the fact that sandbox design and crafting are two of my favorite elements of cozy games on Steam these days.
Then, I downloaded and played the Delverium demo.
Delverium Gameplay Summary
Delverium is a pixel graphics farming sim designed by Sagestone Games that will appeal to folks who enjoy games like Stardew Valley.
Delverium boasts a sprawling, procedurally generated world where survival and creativity go hand-in-hand. You can play solo or team up with up to three friends in online co-op mode to explore this sprawling sandbox survival-crafting game. Players have the freedom to carve their own path—be it through farming, dungeon delving, or settlement building.
You’ll start with the basics: Gathering resources, crafting essential gear, and building a shelter to weather the dangers of the land. But survival is just the beginning—you can also expand your homestead, recruit helpful NPCs to trade with, and unlock a massive variety of craftable items, from food and tools to weapons, armor, and construction materials.
Farming enthusiasts can also do their thing: Forage for seeds, till the soil, plant crops, and even raise livestock. And adventurers can hunt for rare materials, explore exotic biomes, and brave deep, perilous dungeons in search of treasure. You can spend your time however you want, and progress at your own pace.
But something sinister lurks beneath the surface of Delverium. A creeping corruption threatens the land, and it’s up to you to uncover the truth. Seek out lost fragments of lore, track down the enigmatic “Faults,” and piece together the hidden story behind the world’s mysterious decline.
Delverium Demo Experience
I tested out the Delverium demo briefly for 3 hours but intend to jump back in very soon. The game opened with one NPC giving brief, vague advice and a pocketful of familiar tools. Thanks to 1000+ hours in Stardew Valley across every platform imaginable, I was well-equipped to make the most out of my starting equipment: an axe, a pick(axe), and a hammer. Everything else I needed could be found in the world or crafted in the inventory menu.
The world was filled with forageable materials. Trees for wood, plants for fiber, and rocks for stone. The inventory menu is divided between a “backpack” area and a quick-access bar for your most important items. I was using a PlayStation 5 controller to play, and it took me some time to figure out the button configuration. There were a lot more R2 clicks than I was used to! But even with that weirdness, Delverium seems incredibly easy to learn and dive into for any Stardew Valley alumni.
However, the adage “easy to learn, hard to master” comes to mind, as I was constantly surprised by new discoveries in the world or in the game mechanics.
The overworld is filled with valuable resources, sprawling landscapes to explore, and—oh yeah!—zombies, bats, wasps, and other monsters that will attack indiscriminately. In order to protect yourself, you’ll want some kind of shelter. All it takes is four walls, a bed, flooring, and a light source and you can safely rest away from the things that go bump in the night.
You can build similar bare-bones structures to make room for NPCs you’ll meet wandering around the map. So long as you have sufficient room, they can move into your settlement and will be willing to trade with you or buy excess resources for copper coins. Different NPCs have different offerings, so you’ll want to recruit a few of them. It took me three or four tenants before someone showed up with chickens and sheep in their wares, for example.
You can also buy other essentials, like seeds, food, and crafting ingredients. If you don’t have the coin to pay, you can find all of these things for yourself. Seeds can be harvested by finding and cutting down fruit- and vegetable-bearing plants in the wild; food can be crafted from produce found around the map, like wild mushrooms and wheat; and crafting ingredients can be collected off the ground or as enemy drops.
I spent a large majority of my time just collecting wood and stone to build out my settlement map. A cottage for myself, dorms for NPCs, a small garden, a crafting shed, and a livestock pen are just a few of the structures I focused on. If you like the “town building” mechanics of games like Animal Crossing or Littlewood, this part will surely consume you as much as it did me. The world map is so vast that you’ll undoubtedly need a few settlements to dash between, depending on where you are currently exploring. Only one, it seems, works as a spawn point upon your ‘death.’
Death, from what I experienced, was pretty painless! The only “items” you lose are your currency coins and those can be picked back up by returning to the point of death and interacting with a small pouch your perished sprite leaves behind. I like the idea that the game is about challenge, not punishment. This is a large part of why I think it makes for a great cozy game experience, despite the danger all around.
In the overworld, you can run back to your cabin or build a new one if you need a quick reprieve. However, there are also areas where this isn’t possible. Namely: the caves and mines below the world surface.
Entranceways to these dark corridors take the form of a little grey staircase descending into the depths. The one I found was out in the open, no need for me to dig or chop to discover it. But I can’t say if they will all be that easy to spot. Once descended, you’ll meet a winding cave system that is pitch black without your trusty torches. You can place them on the ground or on the floor to light your way as you work.
This is a great place to mine for stone and ore, so long as you are prepared for the increased enemy presence wandering the halls. Zombies, bats, and skeletons can quickly overwhelm you in tight passageways and dead-ends if you aren’t careful. There are also scant ways back up, so be prepared to run back to your OG stairwell if you want to call it a night.
You have unlimited “stamina” but health (the red bar) and mana (the blue bar) are in short supply, particularly early on. I was able to find a Health Token in the cave system, which increased my life supply maximum. I can only imagine that other permanent enhancements are available all across the world.
And it’s a world that I can’t wait to explore more of—both in the Delverium demo and the full release!
Delverium Release Date
Delverium‘s planned release date is listed as 2025 as of writing this. There is no word as to whether it will launch Q2, Q3, or Q4, but it seems like players can anticipate getting their hands on it before the end of the year.
You can play the Delverium demo right now, plus Wishlist it on Steam for release date notifications!
Up Next…
Are you going to check out Delverium?
If you do, let me know on Bluesky: @cozygamereviews.com—I’d love to hear about what you saw and discovered! Let me know what your best beginner’s tip is in the comments below.
If you are looking for great co-op cozy games in the meantime, I have a list for that!
Stay cozy, gamers!