Hokko Spaces Review – A Zen Garden Built On Fast-Tracked Stacks

It makes sense for me to cover Hokko Spaces, as I was an advocate for Hokko Life. In my opinion, Wonderscope Game’s take on an Animal Crossing experience was decent, and I felt that it would give Nintendo a run for their money. Of course, this is always an opinion, and I was wrong on this as it didn’t seem to take off.

What I was right about was it being a good game, and that I enjoyed it. One of the standouts was the crafting element. No, not sourcing coconuts and making a flux capacitor out of it, but how to build furniture and experiment with designs and physics. At times it was clumsy and complex; at others it was refreshing.

Hokko Spaces incorporates that skill set, removes the narrative aspect, and gives players a sandbox to do as they please. I’m sometimes on the fence with these sorts of titles, as without any real objectives, it’s relying on the player to bring their imagination and creativity to the forefront. Sometimes, we need some guidance.

The furnishings and decorations are pretty much available from the get-go, and you can expand the allocated spaces immediately as well. So, without everything at your disposal, what’s the point? The incentive (aside from being creative!) is to unlock the supporting characters, and to do that, you need to meet their requirements.

The Art of Stacking

This is a pretty simple scenario, as hovering over one of the many silhouetted characters will indicate their wants. For example, one might want to have 20 or so stone-based items, while another wants to see a large area of sand. Now, this probably isn’t what the developers had hoped for, but I was on a mission to unlock the characters first.

To accomplish this in Hokko Spaces, all you need to do is stack. Without any currency or limitations, you pick the desired item, place it, duplicate it, then stack it until you unlock the character. This is incredibly ugly and spoils this zen-like space you are setting out to create, but it also means you can populate it with characters you actually want to see.

So, after grabbing a few of these, I was happy with my selection then started deleting all the stacked items to then lay down some foundations. An interesting point worth mentioning is that, despite all these stacked assets, I didn’t experience any slowdown whatsoever.

How you create your Hokko Spaces is up to you. There are terrains to place, like grass and sand, or ice and water. These can be stacked, but the residents can’t climb them without stairs or ramps – which there are a fair amount of to choose from. You can essentially create a beach area, forest, or something completely different.

Diorama Dreams

Essentially, these spaces are dioramas that your characters will interact with. Place a sunbed down, and they’ll lie down, plant some seeds, and they can be watered. The camera angles are decent with the usual zooms and panning, plus you can raise the height of the camera, too. This particularly helps with building, which has both horizontal and vertical snapping if you need it.

Aside from building cute lil’ locations, or perhaps a Bowser-like stone structure, a day/night cycle applies, seasonal changes, and a few more bits and bobs to make it lived in so that you can take some snaps and share them on social media, or add them to your desktop. But then what?

That’s the real question: longevity. As there are no objectives and no restrictions on building, you could effectively see everything all in one go. However, while I was candid about unlocking the characters I wanted by steamrolling through, I did find myself taking time afterwards to create some new worlds.

This was quite surprising, as having everything on a plate from the start can sometimes spoil it – with the exception of the unlockable characters. My youngest saw me playing and asked if she could have a go, thinking she could customise a character (you can’t). What then transpired was a solid hour of creating a space and then telling me afterwards, “That was really relaxing”.

Make Some Space In Your Backlog?

That’s a good assessment, as Hokko Spaces is relaxing. It’s not an idler to be forgotten about. After all, if you’re familiar with Hokko Life, you will recognise the characters involved. However, will you keep playing it after the initial first couple of goes? That’s up to you.  

If you want character customisation and story, then perhaps Hokko Spaces isn’t for you. But those who want to create a lived-in space with a decent selection of items, furnishings and seasonal features, try the demo.