It seems like now is the era for cozy/horror games, with titles like Grave Seasons and Fractured Blooms arriving on the scene. Unlike Grave Seasons, however, which touts itself as a cozy farming/life sim with supernatural horror elements, Fractured Blooms swings the mashup in the other direction, being more of straight up psychological horror game with some cozy/farming sim elements. Honestly, I’m here for both.

Fractured Blooms focuses on Angie, a teenager who is stuck in a time-loop inside her neglected familial home. Day after day, Angie will take on daily chores, such as cooking, restoring the house, and planting crops. She will also need to balance her stamina while undergoing these chores, which makes players have to think carefully about how they’ll choose to spend their energy and strategize accordingly. If Angie gets too tired or overwhelmed, her mental state will begin to decline, and that’s when things get… spooky.

Being a game with a time-loop gameplay mechanic, Angie will begin to find more efficient ways to get through her chores, but she’ll also begin to remember things about her past as well. Not all at once, but with a slow trickle of new memories beginning to seep their way back into her mind. The more Angie remembers, the more drastically things around her change, and she will choose to make different choices throughout her day to see how that affects her next daily cycle.

The demo I played was fairly short, But I did get a good idea over what the visuals will look like, and let me just say that I’m impressed. The environments look realistic, with lots of detail, dynamic lighting, and solid texture work. In an unexpected contrast, the characters have an anime style (that reminded me of the artwork in Doki Doki Literature Club), albeit with 3D character models. The difference between the environments and the characters took me by surprise, but in a way that I found myself enjoying quite a bit. I find it helps to sell the surrealistic tone of Fractured Blooms.

During my playthrough, I didn’t get much of a chance to see the farming/life sim side of the gameplay. Honestly, I’m more than fine with that, because what I did get to experience was a slow build up of the kind of horror I’m sure we’ll see more of in Fractured Blooms. I walked up to what appeared to be a long-abandoned chapel, and upon entering, I was met with the only other NPC during my playthrough. She told me that she needed my help with retrieving a watering can from the back garden. Upon returning, the woman was gone and I made my way back to the pulpit.

Doing so seemed like it was starting to unlock one of Angie’s memory’s, but it was interrupted by the woman returning to the entrance of the chapel. After giving me an ominous muttering of thanks, I made my way back to the pulpit, which began to transform into a bathtub that began filling with blood. That’s where my demo ended, and let me tell you, I’m hooked! I can’t wait to uncover the rest of Fractured Blooms‘ secrets when it finally releases.

There’s no release date as of yet, but Fractured Blooms will launch on PC via Steam, hopefully sometime next year.

*All assets provided by the publisher