I’ve been playing and reviewing a lot of action-oriented games recently. Retro action-platformers, RTS games about World War II. Maybe I need a change of pace, something slower, chilled, and cosy? From Kylyk Games and Assemble Entertainment comes Urban Jungle.

“Use luscious plants to turn your ordinary home into a green haven in Urban Jungle. Find the best place for each plant in your small apartment and enjoy gardening without worries. And don’t forget to pet your cat!”

Originally released on PC and now out for Xbox, Urban Jungle is a game that understands the power of simplicity. At its core, it asks very little of you: place plants around a room, earn enough points, and move on to the next space. If you’ve played Unpacking, you’ll feel instantly at home — the structure is familiar, but Urban Jungle adds its own gentle twists. Each plant has preferences: some crave sunlight, others shrink from it; some thrive near water, others wilt. A few are fussy about neighbours, while others are social butterflies in leaf form.

Your job is to arrange these plants according to their needs, and while the system is easy to grasp, it adds a surprising amount of texture to what could have been a straightforward “place object here” loop. The game layers in small side objectives too, clearing rubbish, locating hidden items, even giving a cat a well‑deserved pet, all of which help each level feel like a lived‑in space rather than a puzzle grid.

What Urban Jungle excels at is mood. It’s effortlessly cosy, the kind of game that invites you to exhale, settle in, and let the soft soundtrack and no‑pressure pacing wash over you. Across its eleven levels (not counting DLC), you’ll spend around five to six hours tending to rooms that each offer their own flavour of variety, even as the core mechanics remain comfortingly consistent. Completing a level unlocks Creative Mode, where you can decorate freely with any items you’ve earned, a nice reward for players who enjoy the aesthetic side of things as much as the mechanical one.

Not everything is perfectly pruned. The controls can feel sluggish, with a cursor that moves too slowly and occasionally disappears into the colourful backgrounds. Objects sometimes snag on scenery, which breaks the otherwise smooth flow. These issues don’t derail the experience, but they do stand out in a game built on calm, frictionless interaction. Still, Urban Jungle remains a charming, low‑stakes delight. Placing plants may be the stated objective, but I often found myself tidying shelves, rearranging items, and fussing over the layout long after I’d earned enough points, not because the game asked me to, but because it was simply enjoyable. It’s a small, soothing title that knows exactly what it wants to be, and it delivers that experience with warmth and quiet confidence.