Tiny Glade, the biggest game ahead of Steam Next Fest, now has a Manor Lords-style exploration mode

Tiny Glade
(Image credit: Pounce Light)

Tiny Glade is a snuggly building game currently tearing up Steam Next Fest, the online store's free demo palooza. The game is, as of writing, beating out big shooters and online multiplayers as the second most wishlisted upcoming game in the fest. To celebrate, its developer Pounce Light has added an exploratory first-person camera.

The two-person Swedish indie studio announced the new mode in a recent post on Twitter

"It’s been a week since we launched the demo, and we had an absolute blast seeing your creations — TYSM for being such a wonderful community," it said. "As a li’l thank you, we added a new feature — a FIRST-PERSON mode. I can't wait to see your builds from a new perspective." 

In Tiny Glade, players can design their own mini-castles inside a green circle of trees. Like The Sims or a more-focused city builder like Manor Lords, Tiny Glade lets you drag and adjust architecture with little restriction. You can yank, expand, and add as many bricks or flowers you'd like to your forest plot, and then snap a picture in photo mode when it looks just right.

Tiny Glade's gameplay is straightforward, but its graphics are understated and pretty like a vintage Valentine's Day card, so some players were eager to get a closer look at it in first-person.

But, since Tiny Glade is only in its free demo period on Steam, you'll have to make sure to manage your expectations a bit. You may find that wandering through your rustic buildings is more Haunted Mansion than Sleeping Beauty. 

"This new camera mode [is] still a work in progress," Pounce Light wrote on X, "and we don’t check for collisions with what you’ve built — so be careful walking through walls." 

Tiny Glade is the latest addition to the medieval builder genre

Ashley Bardhan
Contributor

Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.