Mango Leaf Games is a small independent two-member studio behind Axie and Leaf. After their first game Kokoro Kitchen, they are now preparing Winter Whiskers, a warm and relaxing snow cleaning simulation set in Winterlight Harbor, a coastal town buried under a sudden snowstorm.
For readers who haven't read our announcement, it should be noted that this is a game where players will vacuum snow, restore the steam system, help the residents, and gradually bring warmth back to the town ahead of the Winter Festival. Winter Whiskers is designed as a short, peaceful experience without time pressure, focusing on relaxation, exploration, and the satisfaction of clearing snow drifts.
Below we bring you an interview with Axie and Leaf, in which they revealed more about the game's creation, the inspiration behind Winterlight Harbor, development challenges, and plans for the release of Winter Whiskers.
1. Winter Whiskers is described as a cozy cleaning sim. How did you come up with the idea of making snow cleaning, vacuuming snowdrifts, and restoring the steam system the main gameplay mechanics?
Axie and Leaf: We both grew up in a hot, tropical environment, so snow always had this magical, mystical quality to it. Now that we live somewhere with real seasons, snow still has that same feeling for us. There’s nothing more exciting than waking up to a blanket of snow on the ground. The world feels quiet, calm, and cozy, especially cuddled up in a blanket with a warm cup of coffee.
When we started thinking about a cleaning game, snow came to mind almost immediately (probably because it was snowing at the time!). Even though shoveling snow can be a lot of work, there's something really satisfying about carving those little paths. At first, our idea was more realistic, with a shovel that would upgrade into real-world snow tools, but it just didn’t feel whimsical enough. The snow vacuum became a fun middle ground that felt very satisfying to use and a little silly.
After figuring that out, we needed to know what the player would do with all the snow once they vacuumed it all up. This took a while to nail down, but we finally found some inspiration in the snow melting systems in Japan that make use of their geothermal energy to pump hot water around and melt snow. From there, it really became a part of the identity of the town and added a fun little steam punk-esk feel to our snowy world. It also really helped our story take shape, now the blizzard wasn’t just bringing snow but also breaking this very important steam system - making it something for our player to help fix.
2. The game takes place in Winterlight Harbor after a sudden snowstorm. What inspired you when creating this small coastal winter town?
Axie and Leaf: At first, we characterized Winterlight Harbor as the four main areas we wanted the player to explore: a neighborhood to start, the park, the docks, and the market square. Each area is meant to feel a little bigger than the last, and including a dock made sense as a nice place for the player to take in the early morning light.
As the Art Director, I (Axie) knew I wanted the town to feel a little more metropolitan than our previous work, with tall buildings, narrow streets, and cozy little corners to discover. Since I have some family in Sweden, I immediately thought about my experience walking around Gamla Stan and how cozy the city felt - walking by the water, walking through the towering buildings, and discovering little tucked away shops. During my research, I also explored Bergen, Norway through Google Maps and that’s when inspiration truly struck - they have so many colorful buildings!
So Winterlight Harbor slowly became a fictional Nordic-inspired seaside town. It’s not really based on one specific place, but Sweden and Norway helped shape the feeling of the town while Japan inspired our steam system mechanic. We’ve pulled a bunch of little things we love from a bunch of different places to help our little steam punk Winterlight Harbor town take shape.
3. The Steam page mentions that the game lasts around 2 to 3 hours and is designed as a short, relaxing adventure. Why did you decide on a shorter, focused experience instead of a larger game with long-term progression?
Axie and Leaf: We are still learning a lot about developing games and each genre comes with its own challenges. For Winter Whiskers, keeping the game short and focused helps us avoid scope creep for the main mechanics of the game and gives us some space to provide the players with a more polished experience.
We’ve also been really inspired by Doot and Blibloop, the developers for Minami Lane and other cute, short games. Doot had talked a lot about the power of shorter games, for both players and developers, and it really resonated with us. As fans of shorter games ourselves, there’s something really nice about a game that gives you a complete cozy experience for just a couple hours. Definitely an enjoyable way to unwind after a long day, and that’s the feeling we want to give our players.
We also wanted to challenge ourselves to make and release this game in about a year. For our small team, a larger game just wouldn’t be possible in that timeframe. And honestly, a shorter experience felt like the right fit for the kind of relaxing game we want Winter Whisker to be.
4. The game has no failure states, time pressure, or complex systems. How important was it for you to make Winter Whiskers a game that everyone can play at their own pace?
Axie and Leaf: Since Winter Whiskers is inspired by a bunch of cleaning simulation games, this decision came rather naturally for us. When we play cleaning games together, we both really enjoy getting into a calm, peaceful headspace and we wanted to replicate that feeling for our players.
Keeping things simple also allowed us to focus more on accessibility. With our first game, Kokoro Kitchen, we learned that some of our mechanics were less intuitive than we hoped and that the faster pace wasn’t always enjoyable for every player. While time pressure made sense to us for a cooking game, it felt more natural to let players take their time in Winter Whiskers. We really wanted to capture the nice feeling of slowing down a bit after a chaotic day.
We actually did have a cold meter in the game at one point. Since the game takes place in the snow, it made sense on paper that the player character would get cold and have to deal with that at some point. But after playing with it for a while, it started to feel like we had added this obstacle arbitrarily and it wasn’t adding anything to the experience of the game. So, we removed it and started leaning more into having fun interactions with the snow and the world.
5. The steam system plays an important role in melting snow and reconnecting the town. Could you explain how these steam puzzle mechanics work and how much they evolve throughout the game?
Axie and Leaf: “Puzzle” might be a little strong for what we’re doing with the steam system. The mechanics are intentionally pretty simple, but it all plays an important role in the life of the town and in guiding the player through each area. It has evolved a lot since we started working on the game, but the main goal has always been to provide the player with an additional way to clear snow.
In general, the idea is that the blizzard has damaged parts of the town’s steam system and scattered pieces around the environment. As players clear away snow, they will find those missing parts, reconnect sections of the system, and be able to melt the large piles of snow blocking their ability to progress to the next area.
Ultimately, the steam system became a nice way for us to pace the game without adding pressure to the player. We think that it gives players a clear goal to work towards, but still allows them to move about the world, clear snow, and help the town at their own pace. We’re planning to add some small additional element to the puzzle in each area, so it feels like it’s progressing along with the player.
6. You mention that you learned a lot from your first game, Kokoro Kitchen. What were the most important lessons from that project that you applied to Winter Whiskers?
Axie and Leaf: The importance of testing early and often! With Kokoro Kitchen, we knew what we wanted the game to be and we had a release timeline in mind, but we didn’t really start testing with players until later on in development. Because of this, there were some things that just weren’t possible for us to change without adding a lot more time. Honestly, there were also some things that we just couldn’t fix because we didn’t know how.
For Winter Whiskers, our first small playtest happened just one month into development with a second one happening a few months later! This allowed us to really hone in on the important mechanics of the game and figure out what our players liked, what might be confusing, and what we wanted to do to improve things while the game was still very flexible.
We also wanted to focus on nailing down the very base mechanic from the beginning. Because of the simplicity of Winter Whiskers, it was extremely important to us that our core mechanic felt good on its own. We really wanted the snow vacuuming to feel satisfying right away, so our baseline when testing has been to ensure that the “brain go brrr” experience of clearing snow is hitting just right.
7. During the development of Winter Whiskers, what turned out to be the biggest development challenge, and which part of the process went surprisingly smoothly, even though you expected it to cause problems?
Axie and Leaf: The biggest challenge, by far, has been designing the town. Even with a bunch of research and inspiration, getting a layout together that felt good for the player, big enough to explore, and containing all the elements we wanted was challenging. The park area alone took a solid month of work, from both of us, to get a layout we both liked.
Surprisingly, the snow shader itself and the snow vacuuming mechanic came together much faster than we expected. Since that’s the core of the game, we knew we needed to get that done and feeling good first, otherwise the game just wouldn’t happen. Leaf spent a solid couple of weeks just trying to understand the snow shader and get the system working how we wanted it to. Thanks to taking that time right at the beginning, he has a great grasp on the snow shader and we can do a lot of cool things with it!
We kinda always expect problems to come up, but the whole game has definitely come together smoother than we expected and our players have found it satisfying so far.
8. When can we roughly expect Winter Whiskers to be released, and are you already able to share the planned price for the game?
Axie and Leaf: Our goal is to release Winter Whiskers in December, 2026! It would be extra cool if we could time it out with the first snow of the season, but if that happens it will just be a lucky accident.
Since it’s a shorter game, we are wanting to keep it on the lower end for people price wise. Depending on what we are able to accomplish between now and December, we plan to price it between $4.99 - $8.99.
9. Do you plan to bring Winter Whiskers to consoles after the PC release, or is the focus currently only on the Steam version?
Axie and Leaf: We’re looking into some possibilities, but our focus is currently on the Steam version, with support for PC, Mac, and Steam Deck. It would be incredible to get the game onto consoles as well, even if that happens after the Steam release.
10. What would you still like to polish before release, and what kind of player reaction are you hoping for the most when people first play Winter Whiskers?
Axie and Leaf: At the moment, there are still a lot of basic things that need to get worked on with the game, including building the last 2 areas! Right now, we’ll just be happy to finally get to the polishing stage.
Overall, we are just hoping that players have a relaxing time. We really want the players to be enchanted by our snowy world, feel the warmth that a great snow day can bring, and have fun learning about our friendly characters. We’ve designed this game with the intention of it being a small moment of calm after a long day, so we hope our players feel that way.
Once again, we thank Axie and Leaf for their time and responses. Winter Whiskers seems like a very charming and relaxing project, and we wish them much success with the game and its release.
