▲ Recommended
6 hrs
My Pocket Paradise is a perfect example of why I love discovering smaller indie games, and why sometimes it is worth giving a game a second chance.
This is a cosy little desktop companion that sits quietly on your screen while you go about your day. You can fish, grow crops, mine, collect different items and interact with NPCs who allow you to buy and sell things. It is not trying to demand your constant attention or become the only thing happening on your computer. Instead, it is simply there when you want to spend a few minutes with it.
And honestly, that is exactly what I wanted from it.
I actually had a rather difficult first experience with My Pocket Paradise before release. I encountered several issues with resizing and positioning the game, which made it increasingly difficult for me to play. Eventually, the window moved in such a way that I could no longer access the controls properly at all.
Rather than publish my original video immediately before release, I sent it privately to the developer and explained the problems I had encountered.
Within a matter of hours, every single issue I had raised had been addressed.
I went back into the game expecting to simply check whether those problems had been fixed, but the difference was enormous. Suddenly, I was no longer fighting with the interface or worrying about where the game window was going to move next. I could resize it to something comfortable for me, place it where I wanted and actually concentrate on enjoying the little world in front of me.
And that completely changed my experience.
My Pocket Paradise is deliberately simple, but I don't see that as a negative. It is a desktop companion, and I don't necessarily want a game like this demanding my full attention every few seconds. Sometimes I just want to glance across at another screen and see my little character standing at the end of a pier, quietly fishing while I am doing something else.
In fact, I finished recording my video quite some time ago now and the game is still running.
My little character is still fishing.
I could close it. I simply don't particularly want to.
That, for me, is where My Pocket Paradise works so well. It has become a pleasant little presence on my desktop rather than something I feel I need to actively play every moment it is open. I can interact with it when I want to, make a little progress, collect things, do some fishing or explore its other activities, and then leave my character happily getting on with things while I return to whatever else I was doing.
There are plenty of familiar cosy ingredients here. Fishing, farming, mining, collecting and trading are hardly new ideas, but they suit this type of game perfectly. Everything feels gentle and approachable, and there is no sense that I need to rush.
I also really appreciate being able to resize the game. I have mine enlarged considerably and currently sitting on my smaller XENEON display beside my main monitors. It works wonderfully there and has effectively given my little character his own home on my desk.
My next important mission is apparently to earn enough in-game currency to give him grey hair so that he looks a little more like me.
Priorities.
What impressed me most about My Pocket Paradise, though, is just how dramatically my opinion changed once the usability issues were addressed. My original experience was frustrating enough that I wasn't sure I could recommend the game at all. After returning to the updated version, I found myself enjoying it so much that I have quite happily left it running beside me.
That is quite the turnaround.
For anyone looking for a deep management game or something requiring constant interaction, this probably isn't what you are looking for. But if you like cosy desktop companions and want a gentle little game that can sit alongside everything else you are doing, I think My Pocket Paradise is absolutely worth having around.
It is charming, relaxing and unobtrusive.
And apparently, once you have a tiny character quietly fishing at the end of a pier on your desk, it becomes surprisingly difficult to make yourself close the game.
💜 Tom Recommends
This is a cosy little desktop companion that sits quietly on your screen while you go about your day. You can fish, grow crops, mine, collect different items and interact with NPCs who allow you to buy and sell things. It is not trying to demand your constant attention or become the only thing happening on your computer. Instead, it is simply there when you want to spend a few minutes with it.
And honestly, that is exactly what I wanted from it.
I actually had a rather difficult first experience with My Pocket Paradise before release. I encountered several issues with resizing and positioning the game, which made it increasingly difficult for me to play. Eventually, the window moved in such a way that I could no longer access the controls properly at all.
Rather than publish my original video immediately before release, I sent it privately to the developer and explained the problems I had encountered.
Within a matter of hours, every single issue I had raised had been addressed.
I went back into the game expecting to simply check whether those problems had been fixed, but the difference was enormous. Suddenly, I was no longer fighting with the interface or worrying about where the game window was going to move next. I could resize it to something comfortable for me, place it where I wanted and actually concentrate on enjoying the little world in front of me.
And that completely changed my experience.
My Pocket Paradise is deliberately simple, but I don't see that as a negative. It is a desktop companion, and I don't necessarily want a game like this demanding my full attention every few seconds. Sometimes I just want to glance across at another screen and see my little character standing at the end of a pier, quietly fishing while I am doing something else.
In fact, I finished recording my video quite some time ago now and the game is still running.
My little character is still fishing.
I could close it. I simply don't particularly want to.
That, for me, is where My Pocket Paradise works so well. It has become a pleasant little presence on my desktop rather than something I feel I need to actively play every moment it is open. I can interact with it when I want to, make a little progress, collect things, do some fishing or explore its other activities, and then leave my character happily getting on with things while I return to whatever else I was doing.
There are plenty of familiar cosy ingredients here. Fishing, farming, mining, collecting and trading are hardly new ideas, but they suit this type of game perfectly. Everything feels gentle and approachable, and there is no sense that I need to rush.
I also really appreciate being able to resize the game. I have mine enlarged considerably and currently sitting on my smaller XENEON display beside my main monitors. It works wonderfully there and has effectively given my little character his own home on my desk.
My next important mission is apparently to earn enough in-game currency to give him grey hair so that he looks a little more like me.
Priorities.
What impressed me most about My Pocket Paradise, though, is just how dramatically my opinion changed once the usability issues were addressed. My original experience was frustrating enough that I wasn't sure I could recommend the game at all. After returning to the updated version, I found myself enjoying it so much that I have quite happily left it running beside me.
That is quite the turnaround.
For anyone looking for a deep management game or something requiring constant interaction, this probably isn't what you are looking for. But if you like cosy desktop companions and want a gentle little game that can sit alongside everything else you are doing, I think My Pocket Paradise is absolutely worth having around.
It is charming, relaxing and unobtrusive.
And apparently, once you have a tiny character quietly fishing at the end of a pier on your desk, it becomes surprisingly difficult to make yourself close the game.
💜 Tom Recommends
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