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Craftlings

Craftlings Game Cover
88%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:gameplay, music
Most mentioned negative aspects:story, grinding
88% User Score Based on 194 reviews

Platforms

PCWindows
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Craftlings Game Cover

About Craftlings

Craftlings is a single player tactical city builder game with a economy theme. It was developed by ARIANO Games GmbH and was released on January 15, 2026. It received positive reviews from players.

Read before buyingIs Craftlings for you?Craftlings is a handcrafted puzzle-strategy builder about tiny workers, visible logistics, and clever settlement planning. You do not control the Craftlings directly. Instead, you shape the world around them: build paths, ladders, lifts, production buildings, and routes so your little workers can gather, carry, build, and complete each objective. Every res…

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Reviews

88%Audience ScoreBased on 194 reviews
gameplay19 positive mentions
grinding4 negative mentions
  • Craftlings offers a unique and charming blend of classic Lemmings and Settlers gameplay with modern puzzle and logistics mechanics, creating a nostalgic yet fresh experience.
  • The game features engaging production chains and resource management that are easy to learn but challenging to master, providing satisfying gameplay progression and optimization.
  • Beautiful pixel art, pleasant music, and a well-crafted UI contribute to a relaxing and cozy atmosphere, enhanced by responsive developer support and regular updates.
  • Some players find the micromanagement of individual craftlings tedious and frustrating, especially in managing their movement on ladders and resource delivery.
  • The game’s tutorial and in-game guidance can be insufficient, making the learning curve steep and causing early frustration for new players.
  • Limited content with only 12 levels and lack of community-created maps reduce replayability, while some consider the pacing slow and levels repetitive after extended play.

  • gameplay

    46 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    41% positive mentions, 52% neutral mentions, 7% negative mentions

    The gameplay is praised for its unique blend of puzzle, strategy, and city-building mechanics, reminiscent of classic games like Lemmings but with modern twists and crafting elements. While the mechanics are engaging, creative, and rewarding to master, many players find the initial learning curve steep due to insufficient in-game tutorials and documentation, leading to some frustration before the gameplay becomes enjoyable. Overall, the experience is described as relaxing yet mentally stimulating, with depth that appeals to fans of optimization and experimentation.

    • “The gameplay loop is engaging and relaxing at the same time — there’s always something to optimize, tweak, or rethink, but it never feels stressful.”
    • “The little craftlings are instantly likable, and the core mechanics are easy to learn but rewarding to master as your production chains grow more complex.”
    • “Beautiful pixel art and engaging gameplay that teach you how to build efficient systems and manage resources towards a singular goal per level in a very calming, focused way along with your community of craftlings!”
    • “Unfortunately, the levels and gameplay are slow, long, and not particularly interesting.”
    • “It has a lot of that 'fail often and memorize what works before you can play efficiently' style of gameplay, which is just too much unnecessary stress and frustration before the fun can begin.”
    • “As it is right now, it plays clean, but the gameplay loop is horrendous because of these puzzle elements that you can't solve.”

  • story

    16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    19% positive mentions, 62% neutral mentions, 19% negative mentions

    The story in the game blends nostalgic "Lemmings"-style gameplay with more in-depth settlement-building and resource management through a series of interesting main and optional side quests. The 12 diverse and generally forgiving missions offer a nice difficulty curve, though some players find early tutorial missions overly guided and desire more control from the start. Overall, the narrative framework is engaging and suits a relaxing yet strategic gameplay experience.

    • “In Craftlings, you have a main quest (defeat an enemy, build something, gather specific resources), so you have to build a 2D settlement with production facilities and gather resources.”
    • “+ interesting main quests (although some maps are too easy) with optional side quests.”
    • “While the game only has 12 missions, they can be quite lengthy, sometimes taking several hours to complete.”
    • “It looks like this might get easier with future missions, but that's a cardinal sin - if I can't control them how I want from mission 1, it's not fun.”
    • “Figuring it out for myself is fun but I expect a lot more hand holding in the first 4 tutorial-driven missions.”
    • “This game might look cute and simple, but you'll realize just how devious this game is when you run out of hammers halfway through one of the more complex levels and realize that you have just made your attempt impossible (true story).”

  • music

    15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    47% positive mentions, 53% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The music in the game is consistently praised for being pleasant, relaxing, and nostalgically charming, enhancing the overall enjoyable and immersive experience. The soundtrack complements the pixel art and gameplay well, creating a satisfying and enduring atmosphere that encourages long play sessions.

    • “The soundtrack is excellent and makes the game that much more enjoyable.”
    • “You'll find the hours drifting past without worrying thanks to the relaxing music.”
    • “The nice pixel art graphics (three different biomes) and unobtrusive sound effects and music allow long hours of play without getting tired.”

  • graphics

    14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    50% positive mentions, 29% neutral mentions, 21% negative mentions

    The game features charming, retro-inspired pixel art graphics that evoke nostalgia while offering detailed and cozy visuals across multiple biomes. The art style is consistently praised for its beauty and thoughtful design, enhancing the overall strategy experience without overwhelming the player. However, some users note minor usability issues like slow tooltip popups that hinder understanding building functions initially.

    • “The graphics are pure nostalgia along with beautifully executed reflections in the water.”
    • “The nice pixel art graphics (three different biomes) and unobtrusive sound effects and music allow to play long hours without getting tired.”
    • “Awesome lemmings style game with charming graphics and a very interesting evolution of the concept.”
    • “The settlers world building and strategy is combined with lemmings style graphics and layout.”
    • “The hover-over tooltip delay to popup is very slow, which is frustrating when starting out without knowing what any of the buildings do based on graphical appearance alone.”
    • “The art style is cozy, but the graphics make it difficult to understand building functions without tooltips.”

  • replayability

    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    60% positive mentions, 40% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    Replayability is centered around optimizing strategies and improving completion times, with players motivated to replay levels to achieve faster runs and climb community rankings. While campaigns are few and relatively short, the variety of building options and order choices within levels provide a decent degree of replay value.

    • “There's a whole bunch of things you pick up along the way, keeping each of your levels generally separate, such as which buildings to build on the same level and the order to put them in. This leads to a decent amount of replayability as I'm still playing through 9 of the levels, figuring out how to get them done even faster.”
    • “Not many campaigns yet and they are relatively short, but there is a lot of replay value in trying to optimize the strategy and get faster at them.”
    • “Very fun playthrough and even some replay value to do it more efficiently.”

  • grinding

    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    Grinding in this game offers a cozy, farming-like experience that some find refreshing, but it involves tedious micromanagement and repetitive tasks that can feel frustrating and monotonous. Progress often resets, requiring players to rebuild and repeat activities, which may diminish enjoyment for those seeking a more relaxing grind.

    • “32.7 hours to complete everything plus some replay, minus 2 final 'get x gold/mana in total across all play time' goals I don't feel like farming.”
    • “You end up micromanaging a single crafting half of the time, and it's very tedious and frustrating rather than relaxing.”
    • “Everything you've built resets on the next small tedious level, so you just build all the same stuff again and complete a few repetitive tasks. I'm sure it's great for some but it bored me sadly.”

  • optimization

    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The game's optimization focuses on resource production and logistical management rather than hardware performance, with gameplay emphasizing relaxed, strategic control over tasks. However, users note that Steam Deck controls are not optimized, impacting the user experience on that platform.

    • “Steam Deck controls are not optimized.”
    • “The main task is to create sustainable, optimized production of resources, and build a logistical system that can move those resources to where they are needed.”
    • “Between having considerable direct control over the craftlings, unlimited free respawns, and the ability to pause and issue commands, it's more of a relaxed optimization puzzle rather than the timing/budget puzzles from Lemmings.”

  • emotional

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game evokes strong nostalgic emotions through its smooth UI and charming presentation, fostering a heartfelt attachment to the quirky characters. Its music and atmosphere effectively recall classic titles, enhancing the warm, sentimental experience.

    • “The UI is incredibly smooth, and the presentation is pure nostalgia bait. You will inevitably form a genuine emotional attachment to those silly little workers as they bumble around.”
    • “A little reminiscent of the Settlers music on the Amiga in places, just enough to be a nod and bring the nostalgia back thick and heart-warming.”

  • humor

    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The humor is noted for its unexpected and unique style, often subverting typical expectations in a surprising way.

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Play Times

8h Median play time
8h Average play time
8-8h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 1 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Craftlings is a tactical city builder game with economy theme. Common tags for Craftlings include turn-based, indie, colony sim, building, difficult and others.

Craftlings is available on PC and Windows.

On average players spend around 8 hours playing Craftlings.

Craftlings was released on January 15, 2026.

Craftlings was developed by ARIANO Games GmbH.

Craftlings has received positive reviews from players. Most players liked Craftlings for its gameplay but disliked it for its story.

Craftlings is a single player game.

Similar games include Factory Town, Railgrade, Whiskerwood, Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure, Foundation and others.