Let’s Play: Minimal Furniture

I am living the dream. My bedroom is outfitted with beautiful chic pine furniture, my kitchen is stocked with a beautiful stove, and there’s a room that I’ve dedicated entirely to cats wearing fancy hats. When I downloaded Minimal Furniture by Overtales Studio for this month’s Marketplace Monday feature

I was looking forward to sampling the 400 beautifully crafted pieces of furniture. I had no idea I would end up driving around in a sports car, selling ice cream, battling angry moles in a goldmine, and generally living my best life in a vibrant town full of landmarks and friendly citizens.

After a brief introduction from the town mayor, I’m free to explore Minimal Furniture’s beautifully constructed city. There are ten distinct districts populated by landmarks, shops, and employers who can give you cash for some fun errands. I start small to earn a bit of money, picking up black bags of rubbish from the seafront and getting paid by a local fisherman. But when I open my inventory I suddenly realise Minimal Furniture has given me a ton of starting cash already! I’m rich!

Hello, I'm Tom, and let me introduce you to my midlife crisis supercar

In a rush of excitement I dash towards a shop sign that says CARS in massive letters, and I immediately blow a huge chunk of dough on a bright red sports car. I am no longer rich! I look cool gliding between districts though. Every so often I hop out to chat to the laid-back citizens in each area. They’re so relaxed that no-one complains when I loudly drive my sports car up dozens of steps and crash into a beautiful cherry blossom tree garden at the top. Nobody tell the mayor! I don’t want to get kicked out of this paradise before I’ve put down my roots.

I was delighted to discover that Minimal Furniture gives you a free house right away! I was even more delighted to discover that it’s not merely a house, it’s a mansion. The massive space is full of unopened boxes, and there’s a pleasant, exhausted ‘moving day’ energy to my first few hours there as night falls outside. I collapse on a bed among the boxes for a snooze, hammer in hand.

Look, being gifted a massive free house is very tiring, okay?

I start opening all of the boxes the next morning. Each one contains a bespoke piece of furniture that I arrange into kitchen and bedroom collections. Ingeniously, Minimal Furniture gives you four commands in your taskbar that you can use to tweak the position of every piece of furniture. This lets you shuffle cabinets into position, rotate items, and quickly remove them if you want to redesign a room.

I spend a while positioning my bed in a room with a lovely view of the harbour. I push a bedside table into place and pop a fashionable lamp on top. For now, it’s perfect, but the reason I love Minimal Furniture is that it gives you a great balance between interior design, exploration, and shopping. It’s time to strike out and start bringing in more furniture to make the perfect home!

The moles have their own gold bars. Who is paying them?

Does your town have its own goldmine? I wish mine did after playing this map. I stumble across the mine entrance as I’m cruising in my car, and hop out to investigate. Inside there’s a vendor who will turn nuggets and coal into gold bars, and then turn those gold bars into precious cash. Even better: this is a free-for-all goldmine! Anyone can wander in, grab a pickaxe, and start smashing blocks to grab gold. What they don’t tell you is that there’s an army of furious moles willing to defend their precious gold at any cost. Don’t be fooled by their adorable little faces; they attack on sight, and they will follow you everywhere you go until you leave the mining area and hand your pickaxe back.

After half an hour of mining gold and fleeing moles (mostly fleeing, to be honest). I’m back on the streets looking for opportunities. Before long I discover the ice-cream parlour and put in a shift there serving customers to a tight time limit. Each customer wants a particular combination of ice cream flavor and toppings, so you have to rush around the store building the perfect cone and serving it to the right customer. It’s surprisingly addictive, and I soon build up a good stack of cash. I also pop an ice cream cone I’ve crafted into my inventory for later!

I have to resist the urge to make these ice creams and then slowly eat them in front of the customers.

Mole-bruised and sticky-fingered from ice cream selling, it’s time to visit the huge furniture shop in the middle of town. It’s a glorious four-story palace showcasing every item of furniture you could possibly want to make the perfect home. 

The showrooms are genuinely inspirational. There’s an appealing room with a low table and floor-level chairs reminiscent of traditional Japanese living rooms. There’s a bold living room built around a strong contrast between black wood and bright red soft furnishings that makes me want to plan a gaming room. I’m particularly fond of the bright pine and white schemes that seem to make everything brighter. What about a pine bedroom that leads out onto a balcony of comfy chairs? Perfect!

Of course you can mix styles to build your own look too, and the possibilities are endless. With my head full of ideas, I head up to the bathroom floor and find a fully working jacuzzi.

I live here now

I’ll have to sell a lot more ice cream to buy said jacuzzi, but in the meantime I can start building a great collection of pieces for my mansion. The fourth floor is a shopping heaven, and to buy something you simply need to equip cash and punch an item – an extremely satisfying way to pay. I see a gaming PC complete with RGB lighting. Punch! It’s mine. I punch a red couch, a spice rack, a bookshelf, a coffee table, a nice red chair. Before I know it, I have punched all of my cash away. 

With an inventory full of furniture, I hop back into my sports car and bring it all home. I find a good spot for each piece, carefully nudging them into place until I’m satisfied.

In my next house I’m going full pink

My goodness, it is very satisfying. Overtale Studio’s Minimal Furniture isn’t just one of the most relaxing Minecraft maps I’ve played, it's one of the most relaxing gaming experiences I have ever enjoyed. It’s good for the furniture alone, but the beautiful town and a smattering of gentle activities make the map a great place to just hang out and build a home. Also, if you fill one mansion up, there are more properties you can buy, and there’s even a pet shop where you can adopt cats and dogs in cute hats. 

That’s my next plan: a cat mansion, complete with a massive jacuzzi. Time to sell some more ice cream and live the dream!