Adorable indie is Stardew Valley meets Pokémon Gen 4 and it's free-to-try now

For fans of cosy games, the melding of Stardew Valley and Pokémon might sound like the perfect mix. Both conjure up feelings of simpler times, and while we have plenty of nostalgia from playing our monster-catching favourite back on the Game Boy, Stardew Valley itself is a homage to Harvest Moon and the Zelda games.

With there being such an intersection of fuzziness, it's unsurprising that Pokémon x Stardew Valley knockoffs remain all the rage.

That has led to something of a mixed bag of indie releases, but when it comes to Glintseeker Island, it looks like a genuine love letter to the pair.

What's Glintseeker Island's story?

Available to try for yourselves over on Steam, Glintseeker Island is an adorable indie from Half Soup Labs. With the tiny developer only founded in 2025, it looks like it's making fast progress on Glintseeker Island, which the developer cheers as a combination of Stardew Valley's caves and the mining minigame from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

With many considering Gen 4 as the peak of the Pokémon series, that's not a bad place to start.

Here, players put on their best mining helmets and whip out their pickaxes to explore procedurally generated cave biomes that span multiple floors.

Although there's clearly a story to be told on the surface, the real fun happens when you head underground.

With a mission to mine shiny gemstones, fossils, and rare artefacts, you can then take your loot back into the sunlight to swap for money or craft it to improve your own tools for excavation.

Adding a bit of strategy to things, you'll have to plan every mining mission carefully because each hit with your hammer brings things one step closer to collapse.

If that wasn't enough to contend with, each biome has its own unique twists, and you'll have to face a bullish boss every 10 floors.

From frightening florals to swatting squid, the game's trailer proves a lot is going on. That's before you even get to the Stardew Valley cosy elements of maintaining and upgrading your homestead or helping villages with their own woes.

Finally, yes, we can confirm that Glintseeker Island lets you keep pets, so why not add a furry friend to your homestead after a hard day of digging for gold?

READ MORE: Stardew Valley free overhaul introduces over 850 changes in massive shake-up

Does Glintseeker Island have a release date?

Trying out Glintseeker Island's demo, you can dig deep into two cave biomes across 15 floors, take on eight restoration projects and side quests, and make the most of an exclusive 0.2% drop rate "Soup Fossil".

Championing the game's release on Reddit, one fan cheered: "I've been itching for a cosy Stardew-style game without the romance or farm stuff. This seems VERY interesting."

Another added: "The game looks amazing and super polished!"

A third simply said: "Oh HELL yeah."

As promising as Glintseeker Island looks, there's bad news that it doesn't have a release date just yet. The demo was released on July 16 as part of the Secret Sauce Showcase, but at the time of writing, outlets are simply using December 31, 2027, as a placeholder for the game's eventual release. With Half Soup Labs working hard on that 2027 release, this is definitely one to keep an eye on.