Design & Conjure Review (PC)

Why Command & Conquer when you can Design & Conjure? The latter here is a harmonious choice—a serene way to unwind once the smoke of any violence-addled RPG has cleared. For the record, these are two completely different games — but we had to chuck in a rhyme to whet the mood. Sorry.

Design & Conjure is, if anything, a bit like Unpacking, or perhaps even Camper Van: Make it Home. It’s the sort of cozy home renovation game that doesn’t like to spoil the mood with convoluted ideas or advanced UI jargon. Rather, it chooses to take a simpler approach, thus amplifying its commitment to storing therapy in a vibrant bottle. It opts to take wholesome aesthetics and smooth, almost bubblegum-like visuals to create an idyllic landscape of communal harmony and peace. There are challenges to face, but nothing particularly daunting or difficult. No, it’s not like that at all. This is, for lack of a better description, a gift-wrapped love letter to simpler times. And to be honest, it doesn’t need to be anything more than that, either.

If you’ve recently plucked the feathers from Small Spaces or another cubby-centric room renovation sim, then you should know how Design & Conjure unfolds its cards. In a similar fashion as its adversaries, the game invites you to de-clutter an otherwise cozy room and, with the power of Feng Shui and a little bit of good old-fashioned fine tuning, embellish it with all of the hallmark elements of a tranquil storybook setting. It has items for you to flick through, spaces to fill, and, above all, puzzles to solve—three in-house fixtures that ought to make those with a sweet tooth for peaceful vibes bend at the knee with excitement.

My Own Haven

Design & Conjure doesn’t bend to the standard set out by a traditionally abrupt and often disadvantageous blueprint. Instead, it goes by the mantra that, even if it does pose a problem through the lens of a logical puzzle, things don’t necessarily have to be difficult to be enjoyable. In this instance, you have a simple task: clean a young witch’s room to help bring out its charm and magical enchantments. To conjure such a world, you have a job to work through—a creative instruction that essentially involves shuffling through various wizardly decorations, and sprinkling the odd bit of magical infusion into the size and colors before adding them to the space.

There aren’t any timers or intrusive rules to adhere to here — and that’s a major plus in my books, to be fair. What’s more, the game doesn’t require you to fully complete a checklist in order to enjoy the benefits of the experience. Thankfully, Design & Conjure offers a simple-to-use decorating tool that, while not complex or fleshed out with all of the usual bells and whistles of a hearty sandbox, allows you the creative freedom to work at your own pace. With just enough assets to explore and a magical twist to help sweeten the pot, it does, in all fairness, capture a laid-back memento that has the capacity to keep you casting your spells and arranging floral tributes for an hour or two whilst you hold out for another witchy delight with all of the homely comforts.

A Touch of Magic Goes a Long Way

As this is the demo that we’re talking about, I can’t exactly touch base on a lot of the features that Design & Conjure is hoping to bring to the cauldron in the near future. As mentioned in the opening elevator pitch for the game, there is a storyline for you to play through. That said, I think we covered it a couple of minutes back. And if you’re wondering whether or not it goes a little deeper than that — it doesn’t. It’s a game about cleaning up a witch’s room after they’ve returned from university. But don’t let that trick you into believing that it’s short of a well-oiled concoction. Oh, it has the wow factor — just not in the storyline department, of all things. Stick with us, though.

In the short time Design & Conjure chooses to stick around in the limelight, it does indeed manage to do a great job of keeping you immersed and focused on the tasks at hand, whether it’s alternating between pastel color schemes or shuffling through a surprisingly large array of potential decorative elements, toying with new ideas or—if you can believe it—petting the cat, Cosmo. It has a lot of great features here, too, with a soothing lo-fi soundtrack and quaint ambiance available to accompany an incredibly rewarding spell-and-shuffle renovation experience.

With all of the above said, Design & Conjure does still have a couple of loose screws that could do with a little extra tightening. Case in point, the opening sequence suffers from an odd case of the jitters, with a stuttering overlay that prevents a seamless transition into the gameplay segment. A small bug, I’ll admit — but one that’s worth bringing to the table. Aside from that, everything works as it should. It looks fantastic, and it plays well. Hallelujah.

Verdict

Design & Conjure certainly produces a memorable portrait of idyllic living that’s both pleasant to gaze at and awfully satisfying to add extra lashings of paint to. Given that it is still, of course, in its teething phase, it’s difficult to shed light on a lot of the finer aspects of the game. Even still, I’m actually over the moon with just how much attention to detail Design & Conjure has poured into its melting pot of moving pieces and cozy enchantments—to the point where it’s filling me nothing but confidence in its upcoming launch.

If it’s an effortlessly wholesome witch-centric clean-and-cast renovation puzzler that you’re looking to sink your teeth into, then I could think of a dozen or more reasons why Design & Conjure would be a perfect fit to quench your thirst. Think Unpacking, but with a few more natural enchantments and spell-binding decorations, and you ought to have a good idea of what you’re getting yourself into. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, then be sure to hang your hat in these witchy quarters the next time you’re scrubbing the barrel for a new potent elixir.