“Loddlenaut” is the Cozy Ecology Game You Need in These Trying Times

If the offspring of Power Wash Simulator and Lil Gator Game took a trip to the Subnautica planet, you’d get Loddlenaut. Its positive ecological message and low-pressure game play is a the uplifting distraction you’ve been looking for.

My ten-year-old has excellent taste in games. His Steam library shows this. I’m required to tell you that I got Loddlenaut out of his contribution to the family library, at his recommendation. He mastered Loddlenaut before I ever touched it. Both of us were entranced. This peaceful but engaging game is great to share with your family.

In the vein of cozy games like Growth, your job is to clean up after a corporation that left the wreckage of its experiments in an alien ocean. The native flora and fauna are sick. By removing pollution, collecting debris, and repurposing the recycled materials into tools, you help the ocean start its healing process.

In four unhurried hours, I played this game to completion. I think I could get another hour or two out of it, if I were a completionist. A small child enamored with breeding friendly axolotl-like aliens might never stop playing it.

Most of the game play is satisfyingly easy ocean cleanup. Auto-aim means you can click and hold to get rid of large patches of grime. Different interactions are needed for some things, like crates and microplastics, but none of them are challenging. It’s meant to be approached methodically, meditatively, and — best of all — quickly. Like the short-but-satisfying story of Lil Gator Game, Loddlenaut doesn’t overstay its welcome.

When you’re not cleaning, you can befriend loddles. You collect survivors of the pollution to clean them off, and if you take them to a clean region, they can make a home.

I didn’t get very involved with the loddles. They were extremely charming, but once you turn your back on them, they’ll breed up a full biome. You’ll only see one or two you helped clean and raise. The rest will be unnamed unknowns.

If you want to get involved with the loddles, you’ll find you can feed them, play with them, and even somewhat pet them. They can evolve four different variables independently of one another, making for a variety of axolotl-like friends with charming looks and helpful abilities.

You’ll have to meet all types in order to one hundred percent the game, which might be the cutest grind I’ve encountered. Artfully pixelated graphics are appealing as Squishmallows. If you don’t like the pixelation, you can turn off the filter in the settings… or you can make it even crunchier with a much-lower resolution.

If I could come up with any complaint, it would only be the amount of reading required. This is a game easy enough that very young kids could play it. Unfortunately, the tutorial and story throughout the entire game requires reading, and nothing is voiced.

This would be a great game for kids to access. The story has a meaningful message about cleaning up after ourselves, the ecological damage huge corporations can cause, and the importance of biodiversity.

In the end, the invading force of GUPPI (a mega corporation) leaves behind wreckage that becomes the scaffold for new reefs and kelp forests. If it’s possible for a cute axolotl-breeding simulator to also say, very sweetly, “Eff capitalism, pardon my French,” then Loddlenaut has done it.

Controller support is also strong. Feel free to hand this game to your child and watch them learn something without even realizing it. But definitely take a few hours to play it yourself, too. Loddlenaut is a comforting bubble bath for the soul.

Author: SM Reine

Half-Tellarite SM Reine is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy. She’s been publishing since 2011 and a nerd since forever.

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