Staxel

me like staxel but it gets lonely

i got staxel for like $5 on sale, and i love it so much it's not even funny. there's a ton of problems with it: it's buggy, unfinished, and it's not very ergonomic. it had a lot of potential that will never be realized, but its charm is all right there. i love it so much that im going to write a long, personal criticism of it.

most of the characters were very engaging to me. some were forgettable, but for the most part, i looked forward to giving them gifts every day to see what quest they had in store for me next. almost every single character has a few lines of dialogue that teases a relationship (non-romantic most of the time) with another character, or something that they're hiding etc. i was excited to learn more about them and i eated up the few scenes that actually materialized those lines of dialogue into a quest or a scene. unfortunately, most of the character's storylines feel unfinished, like there should have been more. like a LOT more, and most of those lines of teaser dialogue i mentioned never get a real conclusion.

the quests were confusing at times because it was unclear what to do, how to do it, and the wording was off at some points. the wiki doesn't have a lot of info and i found most of the answers to my questions on the reddit or steam lol. i do think it's largely confusing because not as many people know a lot about this game as they do other popular sandboxes.

i went into this game expecting some sort of combination of minecraft, stardew valley, and animal crossing. i was sort of right; staxel feels like it took a lot of inspiration from those games, but i don't think it managed to incorporate aspects of those games together without sacrificing playability. it allows you to build freely in a minecraft sort of way, but every time i wanted to build a big project, i felt like i was being interrupted by the stardew day-by-day progression and having to go to sleep unless you want to just pass out. also, specifically with quests that transport you to different places, i wish the day-night cycle paused so i could properly enjoy the story.

as far as crops and farm animals go, i like the way they do most of it. i love the watering system because it takes pretty much no time at all to water most crops. for some reason, some of the larger crops were more difficult to water, and it's super annoying that the sprinklers water a circular area instead of a square one, but it's whatever since using a watering can doesn't take long anyway. the pigs are REALLY cute, which practically makes up for everything else (it doesn't).

i avoided fishing at all costs. it was so annoying and the ui is reaaally ugly. i hated how i had to do the entire fishing minigame thing just to get trash. but imo, the stardew fishing is peak and can't be topped, so i get how that's a difficult bar to live up to. for the bugs, i actually liked that they didn't move or run away when you went near them. it made it less stressful to catch the bugs if they were rare. i enjoyed collecting the fish and bugs, but i just like collecting things.

the building system is really strange in my opinion. i like that you can rotate blocks before placing them, and that you can instantly take apart large builds just by removing any attachments to the ground. one of my biggest grievances with building is that blocks meld into each other and poke through other blocks, which is pretty annoying. it became more of an inconvenience than an immersive experience.

the way you craft items was also strange and tedious. it made it feel more "realistic" to place down items individually on a bunch of different tables to craft, but it was ultimately so inconvenient to deal with that i ended up buying pretty much everything i needed, unless i HAD to craft to get the item. i think there are way too many crafting stations and way too many items to craft with; most items that can be used for crafting are used for one or two recipes and that's IT. i did have a lot of fun using the cooking stations. i enjoyed the process of making different ingredients and putting together food items and such, definitely more than i enjoy the stardew valley cooking. this is definitely personal preference though.

the only storage system available is bookshelves. i didn't like it much at first, but honestly, it became pretty convenient being able to physically see all of the items right in front of me. the lighting in the bookshelves gets weird and some items are bigger or smaller than others in the display, but it's not a terrible system of storage imo, especially since you can stack items up to 999 (excluding eggs and some items that can only be a stack of 1). it is pretty tedious to reorganize and rearrange stuff, but that's something i enjoy doing, so it didn't affect my enjoyment too much.

the movement was difficult to get used to. it's very flowy and slippery to move around, which is nice for quickly getting across the island, but i flew off so many buildings at 30mph just by tapping a button. this is awful if you try to build anything horizontally high off the ground (i kept wishing there was a sneak function). luckily, the movement isn't a big deal most of the time, and you're only expected to do [easy] parkour occasionally.

i haven't played the CE version (yet). the PC version is laggy and freezes up on me sometimes, especially when playing multiplayer with just one other person. it's obvious that this game isn't very well optimized, and i think that's the biggest turnoff.

staxel really could have been something. i see it. i see the vision they were trying to produce, and it's a wonderful game with wonderful characters, storylines, interesting quests, a plethora of items, an intricate crafting system, building, farming, exploring, worldbuilding, and all of the best things from all of the favorite games of so many people. i think the dev team bit off more than they could chew, and in the end, they fell short. i think that's okay.

super fun love it 5 stars

so pweeettyyyy <33

I grabbed this for $5. I guess it's worth that (wish there was a star rating rather than yes/no), since it kept me busy for 56 hours before I got annoyed enough to quit. Why? Broken quest chain. Unless I need to do something else I can't progress Leif beyond friend because Rem never shows up. Only thing I'm possibly missing is maybe there's a hidden req for other relationship levels in the village, as most are still pretty low (<10/200). Overall it's worth $5 when it's on sale, but not $20, but that show-stopping bug (if it's actually that and not player error) makes be downvote this.

Prob the shortest review I do..this game isn't worth the money.

All the hours I have on this pc version, Were not spent playing, they were spent trying to install mods & erroring & waiting & issues I've only had a couple true hours of playing when my steam deck was at one point dual booted with windows.

Was nice to have this game with mods on the deck..

The devs just lost my trust, scamming steam deck Linux players without any warning !

Don't have much positive for this game anymore after years of trying to get it running MODDED on a steam deck with Linux.
Don't buy on steam deck it's a scam your just getting the switch ported CE version with no mods.


If your on windows PC eh it's a nice game to have but only due to mods,
this devs abandoned the game a lot could of been done with it,
Modders add more value to this game & features like longer days,
this games days are too short, the main game is too dang grindy..
mods actually add new, add more furniture, features & gameplay which can't say the same for the actually game.
Which gets boring ..


if your on steam deck & want mods don't waste your money,
the devs decided to say screw Linux and gave the switch CE version without saying nothing so a scam this is.
when u buy the game on steam deck there just giving you the same game switch has & u can't have mods.
No matter what's tried install the nets, switch to proton version gives the full game but doesn't load I've spent years trying to get this game running on a steam deck Linux with mods as I don't care to dual boot..

So unless u run this game on Steam Deck dual booted windows,
Linux Steam deck can't run this game with mods,
making it just again a waste of money if you already have on switch.

It's abandoned game could of gone far if they kept it updated & added content & treated all players equally instead of taking the cheap way out of things 😒
the only good block game so far is Minecraft as the devs care to keep it updated & can get modded Minecraft working on steam deck..

This game has a lot to offer to the cozy crafting genre of gaming. There's a small story line to follow but ultimately once you figure out how things work you can do whatever you want. Making money is easy enough that you won't spend all your time trying to get it, and the building is guided but leaves you room to work with your creativity. Honestly a fun little game over all and I plan on letting my daughter try it out to see what she thinks.

I had high hopes for Staxel when it came out because, at a glance, its a mix of Minecraft and Stardew. I tried it out but decided to stop playing until the devs pushed out enough updates to make it feel less empty and unpolished. Unfortunately, they seem to have abandoned and in its current state, its buggy, unsatisfying, and grindy.

I love this game. It is unfortunate that they stopped developing it, but I still find myself revisiting this game again and again. Lovely graphics, fan of the game mechanics and love the freedom you get to construct things.

great game but died fast

As of writing this, I'm trying to 100% most games in my steam library and I've finally gotten around to Staxel - I really wish I could refund this game because through what I've played through right now I would not recommend it. I thought it was a cute game at first but its really quite grind-y, especially for how imo short the days are.

The fact its been pretty much abandoned by the devs as well is disheartening. I would have loved to see if this game could improve but as such, it won't. I really hope my opinion of this game changes as I continue to play but I doubt it will.

i was forced to play this..

I can confirm from my side that ~100 hours was very much fun playing with my fiancee and I was able to max all NPCs reputation and complete all quests. In my opinion this game is 100% finished and underrated.

This game has it all - farming, quests, chill out, adventures in the wilds. I liked the story.

In order to gain reputation you need to give gifts to the NPCs and you will be able to complete the game - a little bit of grind, but still this is good game mechanic that works properly. By completing game I mean maxing out reputation and complete all the NPC's quests is possible.
Also there are tons of cool easter eggs.

I noticed one bug during last quest for Jamie (gamer NPC) - you need to first talk with Yoshi, not Damien. Talking first with Damien will bug out this questline and you'd need to fix that in game files.

However quick fix worked for me (link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/405710/discussions/0/3275813740944016167/).

i like staxel

The game is left in a buggy state, and it's been 4 years without any updates or news. This game is more of a struggle then it is fun to play, stick to another farming game cause this one isn't it. :<

abandon ware

Staxel is a great concept and truly I like what it's trying to go for, however it falls flat in many areas and, in my personal opinion, feels under-developed.

I love farming simulators and games of this speed, however this game felt like it was relying too heavily on concepts and ideas other games had, such as Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing. Actually this game feels like the weird love-child of all 3 of those games.

I like the ideas presented in the game anyways, regardless of its originality although I do believe Staxel would benefit from a bit more of that, and there was quite a bit that had me intrigued! Problem is, at least for me, I couldn't get over the many things that bothered me enough to play it more. For starters I cannot say I like the overall visual design of the game. It feel rather weak, overly simple sometimes, and flat. Visuals are a HUGE deal for me so this is unfortunately one of the primary reasons I haven't continued to play more. A lot of design choices also had me feeling kinda meh, which I know is rather nit-picky but again, I'm a picky person. The beginning was a little hard to follow, I feel the tutorial could be a bit better.

As for things about the game I did like in the short time I played, character creation was okay. Needs improvement both in how you can customize as well as character designs, BUT I cant complain too much when I get to have ears and a tail. I like the store set-up in game, I thought it was unique and cute. I also like the amount of recipes available to cook.

Overall this game has potential but in its current state feels unfinished and abandoned. I think my boyfriend put it best, "It feels like a game a group of high-schoolers came up with and created for fun." which, honestly when you look at the game that way isn't bad, however a lot more work needs to be put in for the kind of depth and detail you can tell they are attempting to go for but don't quite make the cut with. I do hope this game gets an update, face-lift and re-work in the future. I would gladly give it another go one day should things be changed for the better.

Lastly, while I understand all games have a level of work put into them, this game is not worth $20, at least not in its current state. At best 8-10 dollars would be a decently fair price in my opinion, however $20 feels very much overpriced for the content we end up receiving.

For the time being I cannot say I would recommend this game, however that is just me. If you really enjoy farming sims and RPGs, and you don't mind the visual design of the game, go for it! You may end up liking it far more than me! I recommend at least waiting for a sale to buy it however.

This is a pleasant little farming game with more to do than you may first realize. I particularly like how much freedom there is, as there are many ways to turn a profit and make your island your own. Just be aware that mods don't really work on linux.

I would have refunded this game if I remembered to, but I cared so little about the time I spent with this that I forgot I even wanted to refund it.

Literally my dream world?!

ja, sehr schon und nett xx

If minecraft and Stardew valley had a baby it would be this

Just moved in and was told to fund building the entire town, I have no money for myself and was guilt tripped into building a house for the person who was previously squatting in my house. 10/10

The magic influences in this game add an interesting level. Although I haven't finished Staxel, there is a hint that around the next corner, I'll discover hidden treasures.
Staxel is more than just another idyllic farming game. Try digging tunnels...

This game was fun. I had great times playing it with friends. But now it has been abandoned since 2021. Do not buy the game. It will be fun but you wont get new updates and it will get boring.

If the developers resume working and updating the game I will change my review.

I do like this game, it has sadly however been abandoned by the developers. It will not get any more updates.

Good game, could have been fleshed out a bit more but still have lots of fun with it

love this game, Super Underated

Forgot about this game much like the devs it seems, never felt finished. Lots of promise way back when that turned into nothing ultimately, a shame. There still isn't much to do or at least nothing to keep you here long nor reasons to do the stuff that is on offer frankly. Staxel never developed the QOL and gameplay it needed to be satisfying and complete, its honestly a wonder how this game still has any kind of community around it.

This game is amazing. Stardew-Harvest-Minecraft connection, but cozy one.

Honestly as someone who got into the game early, it's hard not to see it as abandonware... Most recent updates have been basic bugfixes and nothing more.

animal crossing-ish building game with great mods. farming is really just there to give you cash to build things. all the friendship questlines require you to build villagers new houses, stores, etc, or at least plop down a cluster of necessary items on the dirt ground. emilia is very happy with the beautiful bakery i built her. . . by placing the sign down next to the mayor's house, dropping off an oven, cash register, and a few shelves, and then leaving to go back to my large scale terraforming project.

i'm approaching 4 in game years in to my current save file. i've played off and on since early access. staxel is a game that pushes you to make your own fun out of it, and it keeps me coming back about once a year or so for more. the workshop mods certainly hold it up better than the base game itself (i would not play without the added furniture, cosmetics, roofing options, etc) but honestly i love it for that.

MAYBE.

At 46.6 hours of Gameplay and some fun Creative Mode Building, it glitches out.
I'm playing via Keyboard and Mouse, not Game Controller.
The Usual for Item Rotation of Position is Left-Click Mouse Hold, then use Q or E or the Middle Wheel to Rotate the Object to Position that is desired to place it in. It simply just places the object and doesn't give me an option to rotate it. So, it WAS fun until that happened. Restarting the Game, Restarting the Computer, neither helps. No one seems to have this issue online as they only have issues with either not knowing how to rotate the object or the buttons don't work. My issue specifically is: Instant Item Placement, despite holding the Left-Click Mouse Button.

If it doesn't happen to you, go for it.

It can be fun to build alone or with friends.
Pixelated like Minecraft but a Casual Farm Game -- no downsides to health, even your animals are Immortal (unless you feed them to the Void via Creator Mode OR Capture and sell them).

great voxel game thats a cross between animal crossing and minecraft I like how it tasks you with building some of the villager's homes instead of giving you all of them to start, a lot of the furniture is cute, the animals adorable

Abandonware, buggy, messy, not much to do once u pass hour 5-10 if im being honest. Could have been amazing, but they butchered it and left it to rot.

<3

Ok. So. Staxel is a fun game in the beginning. The problem is when you've played it more than an hour, then you realise, that there's not much to do. You can dismantle the city hall, which is pretty fun. That's about it tho. It's a game with so much potential, that no one really exploited. Could have been a banger with a little more love and more time in development. Sad story.

This game is super fun! I will say it's "finished" but maybe not the most polished. A lot of systems aren't very fleshed out but it's still charming. Also kinda buggy but I still think it's worth the money :)

This is a great game. If you enjoy this style of game, and the voxel art style. If you can get it when it is on sale, I would definitely recommend picking this title up. However, this game could have used a little more polish. Min maxing is relatively easy, and the game feels slightly unfinished. I wish the developer would have spent a little more time on this. All that being said I still had a great time, and the NPC's in the game are definitely worth experiencing. There is a large modding community for the game, that help with rounding out a lot of what the game feels like it might lack in vanilla. Also a lot of aesthetic mods that help if you want to put more of a unique flare on what you see in the game. The seasonal events that transpire in the game are also fun and give you something else to do after you have done all your farming. The building and modifying your farm is fairly easy and straight forward. And building things for other residents in the game give you the opportunity to customize the town in a way you will enjoy seeing. In conclusion if you see this game on sale I recommend giving it a try but at full price it might be a bit lacking for the content.

Such a relaxing/fun game to play!

very fun

This is an amazing little game, though the last time I played it was in 2018 (I think), so much may have changed.

All I can say is that this is fun and there is so much to do. When I played it there was exploration, bug catching, building and decorating, quests, farming, interaction with characters, and so much more. It was like Stardew and Minecraft had a game baby, only better than that.

I am very much looking forward to getting back into this game when I get a new PC. But if you enjoy Stardew-type games where they are cozy, fun, relaxing, and are about community/life sim then this is a must. I loved it, and I can't wait to see what the devs have done since I last played it!