Arctico

This is a "cozy" exploration game where the main objective is to find a collection of scattered blueprints in an arctic biome by traveling with your dogsled. Crafting is a minimal part of the game and most of the buildings you unlock are redundant. I'd recommend looking for the Workshop to upgrade your auto-drill and setting up auto-drill sites along with a small Energy farm (solar panel or wind turbine depending on if you've found the blueprint). By "sleeping" over and over you can basically get all the components you need to play the game without too much trouble as resources respawn at dawn. Setting up Sled Garages at key/far locations allows for quick travel and resource gathering (e.g., data via telescope). It is not a hard game. My 7 y.o. can play it by himself. Younger kids will tremendously enjoy the theme of driving your dogsled and keeping them well fed until they finally unlock the glider plane and fulfill that fantasy too. Overall a highly enjoyable experience (the sledding and flying) with good fun playing the game after you've collected the blueprints because ultimately it is not what makes you want to sink 10h into the game.

Unexpectedly fun

cozy feeling in uncozy situations

A cozy and relaxing game, wish the story was slightly more interactive rather than just reading notes, but it's still a nice relaxing game

By the way, it's a great game, despite being made with Unity. The fishing is particularly well done, while most games that include fishing haven't done it very well. The only thing that makes me frown are the avatars. They look like characters from the 1920s.

Its so relaxing and fun

a really nice game i dont really know the purpose of the game but i play it mechanically

This is possibly the best game I have ever played in my life, It is so relaxing and helps me forget about stress

Unfinished and abandoned. The trading cards don't even match the game

i really like it its super chill and i recomend

Its not terrible but it was so boring that I almost fell asleep. They need to add something or stuff to make it fun

Very relaxed game, good to spend three or four evenings. If you are looking for a challenge, then this game is not for you. Run between machines to make numbers go up and when numbers sufficiently high, go explore to find ways to make number go up faster.
With the 3-4 evenings, you will go through all the content the game has to offer at this point. Feels like early access, as there is a lot of room to add content and gameplay mechanics, but nothing is missing, it is complete. Just lots of room for expansion.
There are some aspects that could benefit from additional clues or instructions (e.g. "how to build a workshop" or how to advance in story in some specific points), but if you are truly stuck, you can search the internet for answers.

You can pet the dogs.

The game is only worth it when heavily discounted (I got it 80% discounted). It's not playable with the controller, unless you want to move the mouse cursor with your controller, what is a hell. Yes, the developer said in 2020 that the controller support was planned, and that's what we got. The game is only playable in English. Translations are awful. Particularly Spanish makes one cry plenty of typos, false friends, wrong translations, terrible grammar. I switched to play it in English because it was painful at some point.

If you want to play with keyboard+mouse and want to play in English you'll find a soothing mining and crafting game. Quite shallow, honestly (don't expect endless crafting trees like Minecraft, Ark, etc). Actually the mining becomes at some point a bit boring and repetitive as you can just mine 4 elements (seeds, science, metal and gems). There are many things not explained, and the game lacks a good tutorial. Essentially you're told to fish and feed your dogs, and to accelerate with the sledge, and build one item. And you're good to go. Beyond there there's no help, no way to find how to improve anything (except the sledge, which has a dedicate building). No idea what are some sensors you find around, etc.

So well, you can enjoy the solitude of the endless snowy spaces with nice Minecraft-like music, and play for some time, but as I said, I don't think the game is worth its full price. And maybe not even the discounted one.

So not a bad play through BUT i picked this one up on sale and it was dirty dirt cheap. FOR MY MONEY, i feel like I got great value. This game also has co-op but I'm honestly glad I didn't drag my wife into this as I don't think there's enough to do honestly.

Pros:
- It's peaceful
- There no pressure or time limit or anything, you just play
- Some building and collecting, little bit of story. Some music.

Cons:

- Its clunky feeling and the controls aren't too smooth, also every movement is just way too slow
- Severe lack of music for a cozy game, there are times when the music stops and there's just nothing playing
- Some creature comforts missing, biggest offense being the lack of access to the map.
- Building is fairly low level, once again missing some basics to build satisfying / functional designs.
- Upgrades aren't noticeable enough to feel like they justified the cost.

Main gripe: Once I got towards the 'end' of the game, I was only missing missing a few documents with no real way to track them down. I had been labeling every POI that I came across but I was not up to revisiting every location and wandering the map looking for 4 documents.... So i chose the option to pick me up or whatever.

I would still recommend this game as I played it a little bit before work during the week and enjoyed the peaceful and chill tone with no real expectation of success or victory. It was a nice mood set for my day. With more content, I feel like this game would gain a better following.

Doggos are super cute but the gameplay and controls are garbage.

The tutorial was a bit tricky to figure stuff out and the Arrow was a triangle shape so was a bit confusing to use other than that you can pet ur palls give them love so 10/10 game!

Super cozy and relaxing!

Chill game, 10/10

It's pretty clunky and hard to enjoy.

Artico is a captivating and serene exploration game that masterfully blends beautiful visuals, immersive sound design, and a relaxing, yet thought-provoking experience. Set in a breathtaking frozen world, the game invites players to step into the snow-laden boots of a lone traveler, navigating through an endless white landscape filled with frozen mysteries.

From the moment you begin, the strikingly atmospheric environment immediately draws you in. The subtle interplay of light and shadows, paired with gentle snowfall, creates a mesmerizing world that feels both vast and intimate. The art direction is stunning—each scene is like a painting, with soft pastel hues against the stark, crisp white of the ice. The minimalist aesthetic works wonderfully, allowing players to focus on the journey rather than distractions.

The gameplay mechanics are wonderfully simple yet surprisingly engaging. You move through the environment at your own pace, solving environmental puzzles and uncovering small secrets along the way. There’s a gentle rhythm to the exploration, making it feel more like an interactive meditation than a race to finish a set of objectives. Each step you take is filled with purpose, and the game’s pace allows you to truly appreciate the stillness and quiet of the frozen world.

The sound design is another highlight of Artico. The score, a soft mix of ambient tones and gentle melodies, complements the serene atmosphere perfectly. You’ll find the sound of wind whispering through the ice and the soft crunch of footsteps in snow to be oddly comforting, pulling you deeper into the world.

The narrative, while subtle, unfolds in a way that adds emotional weight to the journey. It's a story about solitude, survival, and connection with the environment, inviting the player to reflect on the themes of isolation and inner peace. It’s not a traditional narrative driven by dialogue or complex plots, but rather a story told through visuals and atmosphere, leaving much to the player’s interpretation.

Artico challenges the player in a unique way. Instead of offering complex combat or action-based mechanics, it challenges the player’s patience, sense of exploration, and curiosity. It’s a slow-paced game that rewards mindfulness and quiet observation, making it a perfect choice for anyone seeking a calming yet deeply immersive experience.

In conclusion, Artico is a masterpiece of tranquility and beauty. It’s a game that speaks to those who appreciate artful visuals, atmospheric soundscapes, and reflective storytelling. It’s a meditative journey into a frozen world that encourages you to pause and take in every moment, making it a must-play for anyone looking for a peaceful and introspective escape.

Interface and controls are very unpolished and difficult to understand. Not enough polish to be a full release.

It's very relaxing to play! I love exploring with the cute doggos and finding notes and collecting data. Definitely one of my go-to comfort games.

Nice, short but enjoyable game

not worth the money

Difficult to understand. I got it for a dollar and I still regret it. It's definitely not worth $10 in this state

When I saw this game initially, I thought this game would be really fun. It looked similar to astroneer which is one of my favorite games on steam. But after playing for about half an hour I was trying to get into it but it was just boring. I didn't know what to do and nothing really peaked my interest to go explore. Now since I only have .4 hours there could be a great game down the line, but from what I experienced the game seems pretty boring. The art style and music is nice and the game is pretty cheap. Wouldn't recommend but could be worth trying if on sale.

I drove into the water (my fault) but the game respawned the sled onto my heated shed that I built during tutorial, and now I can't remove the sled and I can't move the shed because it says I have to take everything out first, but the only thing in it... is the sled. Dogs are on the roof.

sigma game

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I Like It

I would not recommend this game due to its extremely slow pace. I had fun in the beginning, thinking it was some sort of story game, searching throughout the map and finding small notes. However, there is no story, plot, or ANY sort of interactive campaign in the game. I would only play this game again if they significantly made the progression easier. I've played this game for 3 hours and I've only gotten 3 buildings. Each building quite literally has no purpose. The game has potential but as of now its extremely boring and not interactive.

This game, as many others have said, has a BOATLOAD of missed potential. The game would be very good if it was only a building game, or only a story game. It fails to mash these two genres together in a way that is just entirely frustrating to play through.

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First up, I want to talk about the building system. It seems really half-baked and needs a ton of work as you can't build most basic components when you first start, which the game uses in an actual good attempt to encourage exploration and make sure that the player actually sees everything that the devs added. HOWEVER, in doing this and with how it's implemented, it basically means that until you go to LITERALLY EVERYWHERE to find most of the blueprints, there are a ton of items and buildings that are just LOCKED with no way of even tracking where the blueprint could be, "just go find it!".

The most egregious part of finding these blueprints is that the locations that they're tied to most of the time MAKE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! Allow me to point some of these out:

- The first telescope blueprint makes sense because the building has a (broken) telescope on it, however on a building that is LITERALLY AN OBSERVATORY WITH A WORKING TELESCOPE, there's nothing except for 2 notes on the floor.
- There are a TON of windmills around the map, surely there's the blueprint for a windmill at ONE of them right? nope. literally not there.
- Oh hey, I found a crashed plane, there's a few of these around. Surely I can use my brain to figure out how the plane works by literally looking at one... NOPE, glider blueprints are spread around RANDOM buildings that don't have ANYTHING TO DO with planes.

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Now I want to talk about the story. It feels insanely forced and just shoved into wherever they wanted to put a note. As the frustration was building up wandering aimlessly around the map going from location to location trying to find ANY semblance of a blueprint, the one thing I kept finding INSTEAD were random notes that had almost nothing to do with the overall story. The game never explains if these notes are all from the same person or not, and a lot of the notes seem to contradict each other if they are supposed to be from the same person.

I normally adore stories in games like this as it feels like you're uncovering the truth and figuring out what happened (which is literally what it says in the opening of the game as what you're supposed to be doing btw) However with how shoved in the notes are, and how pretentious most of them come across, and the added bonus of finding NOTES instead of the BLUEPRINTS that you need TO PROGRESS, It all culminates into an insanely frustrating slog of a game.

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If this game was JUST a building game, It could've been great. You could've been tasked with picking up where the old researcher left off. You could have inherited the lab as a starting base and used the resources on the island to grow out and expand. You still could've had blueprints as a way to motivate exploration, but without making them NECESSARY! There could have been an ancient civilization or alien crash sites or something that had way more advanced technology that you could find and use as SHORTCUTS, skipping the progression needed to unlock said part. In terms of progression to skip, the player could use the research samples and data to unlock new parts in a tech tree. There should ALWAYS ALWAYS be multiple routes to take, ESPECIALLY in a sandbox game.

If this game was JUST a story game, It could've been great. You could have started on the coast and your task is to find out why the researcher stopped sending distress signals or something. And the ENTIRE GAME could have just been managing the dogs, surviving the cold, and finding notes that were left behind like a trail of bread crumbs. Once in a while, through the snow storms, you would come across a structure and actually be EXCITED because it means you're on the right path and you get more info on what happened. The game would end when you get to the researcher's lab where there could be a big twist or something. Overall, a short, satisfying, enticing experience of a game.


It should not have been both.

This game is important. There's very few games out there that create the same experience this game creates. If you can spare just a few dollars to play this, I highly recommend it :-]

This game is what i have been looking for. A game about exploration with no real threat. No Zombies, No mythical creatures at every corner just you your dogs in a vast area.

I just wish for a few things. I would love for more things to be added. It would be amazing to add more animals. Bears , Wolfs , Deer , Elks all types of species to liven the world.

And a expansion on the buildings we have in.

All in all. A great game i would 100% recommend!

Nice game, 6/10.

Very peaceful, no rush, and trekking around is rather interesting.
But it has some performance issues, I have a very good computer, but adding 2 or 3 buildings along few props, it occasionally, but regularly, freezes for few seconds, it's unbearable to the point you cannot really enjoy in building something complex.

Well worth it for the price though.

I played Artico with a friend of mine online and we had fun playing it. We both bought it when it was 80% discounted and for that price it was well worth the purchase. We had fun playing it together for about 7 hours and found almost everything that there was to find, and the exploration component of the game was what kept us playing. There is potential for this game to get even better, potentially by adding more survival components, such as potential environmental hazards like blizzards, polar bears or frost damage, but this would depend on how the developers what to grow and change the game. I will follow them to see any future updates and maybe play it again once new things are added to the game. So far, if you buy it at a discount, it is definitely worth it and fun to play!

Arctico feels like the lifeless, uninspired cousin of The Red Lantern—a game that strips away the emotional depth, engaging narrative, and tense survival mechanics, leaving behind a repetitive, hollow experience.

At first glance, Arctico promises a serene, open-world survival adventure in an icy tundra, but the reality is a game that quickly becomes monotonous. There’s no real sense of purpose—just endless resource gathering and base expansion, all of which lack meaningful stakes. Unlike The Red Lantern, which weaves an emotionally charged survival story through its gripping roguelike gameplay, Arctico throws the player into a sandbox with little motivation to keep going. The lack of a compelling narrative or even dynamic survival challenges makes the experience feel more like busywork than an actual adventure.

The sled-dog mechanic, which should be one of the game’s most exciting aspects, is disappointingly shallow. While The Red Lantern turns dog sledding into a core survival challenge filled with random events, tough decisions, and emotional connections with your canine companions, Arctico reduces it to a simple means of transportation with no real engagement. The world itself, though expansive, feels barren—there’s little to discover, no real threats to overcome, and no sense of progress beyond upgrading a base that never truly feels necessary.

Visually, the minimalist art style might appeal to some, but it ultimately contributes to the game’s lack of personality. The environments feel repetitive, and the absence of detailed animations or environmental storytelling makes the world feel empty rather than immersive. Even the music, while somewhat relaxing, doesn’t do much to elevate the experience beyond a dull grind.

Overall, Arctico is a survival game without the actual sense of survival. It lacks the tension, challenge, and emotional depth that make The Red Lantern so compelling. If you’re looking for a survival experience that actually feels meaningful, you’re better off playing something else.

nice and cozy game
really chill and relaxed

it's very glitchy, and the technological part to get enough resources to fix a certain mechnism is a bit boring/uninteresting

but exploring the whole world was really fun! and i can see the potentional of this game, still a long way to go tho

Very good relaxing game, 2.5 hours in and it's fun so far. I just recently had to clean install windows again so when I booted up my game there was no saved load... you guys need to have the save data upload to the cloud, if I was any further I don't know that I would have played the game again

I think this game is super chill, which is great, however if you are looking for a game with something past the shallow surface, you will have a tough time. The notes were good.
If this game gets updated itll probably be pretty good.
5.0 out of 10

nice little coop game to play with friends. not a very long gameplay but an enjoyable one. well worth the money this game has potential

Although, i have only played a small amount, it is a relaxing game. The game does not have much to do so if you want a game jam packed with various things to do, it would not be a game you would like/enjoy but it's simple tasks and what little extra content there is makes for a surprisingly enjoyable and relaxing experience with the simple abidance and relaxing soundtrack.
I would not recommend buying it at full price but buying it on sale, I got for £1.59 on sale.

Overall, a relaxing game, simple, not much past the collecting materials and reading notes and finding blueprints and the game is not a game for those who would want a large amount of content or variety. Despite its flaws, I have enjoyed what time I have spent playing as it was a relaxing experience.

This is nothing but a shell of a game. I was really excited for the Dogs! But found myself leaving them behind more often than not because walking was just better. Which was so sad. The ui is unorganised, and the core game loop is bland and needlessly repetitive unfortunately. But it is cute. Cute graphics and cute dogs :) You get to name them, but co-op players don't get to name theirs.

This game isn't too long, however what it lacks in length it makes up for in the visuals. the visuals in the game are incredible, from the sky to the water it all look really good, the only this that really need fixing are some small bugs here and there and the moving animations which don't quite look right at times. I would recommend this if your playing with a friend.

with a friend this game changes vastly, exploring the far lands of ice and uncovering structures and lost scripts, yeah it doesn't have a lot to offer but it does have a lot for a game made by 2 people, the simplicity of it makes the cold island a lot better, i recommend this as a game with friends it would be boring by yourself. (it was only $2 when i bought it)

Fun game but is exploitable later due to being able to sleep during the day. Infinite hardware and money. I know this isn't a tryhard game but it would benefit from not being able to sleep during the day.

This game could be great. Please make the dogs move even a little bit faster. Maybe third person? It's close to being a great game but feels clunky. The atmosphere and soundscape are beautiful. It's worth it if you can get it on sale but not for full price. I could see 13 dollars being real if the dogs moved a bit.

This game is absolutly amazing, it's like astroneer but in the antartic.

This game on sale was not really worth it, I played it with a friend and it was kinda uninteresting and they wasn't a clear objective so the gameplay was bland and boring. ;)

Nice game for the sale price, im enjoying it.
Lovely atmosphere, pretty chill.