Garage Sale
The real treasure is the friends we made along the way
Garage Sale is an extremely sweet game where you play as young Juniper, allowed to explore town on your own for the first time for the annual Garage Sale Day. At a little over two hours, it felt just long enough to do what I think the developers were trying to do with it.
It treads pretty familiar ground for anyone familiar with the ‘cosy games’ genre – wander around Lettuce Village and talk to the residents. Some of them will need your help with various tasks like recovering lost carrots or soothing a crying baby, which you obligingly assist with.
The characters are a quirky bunch, some nice, some sympathetic, some irritating – so just like any real group of people, really. I think the game is working hard to be extremely approachable and I daresay it would be suitable for children, so nobody has any rough edges, they just pull on loose threads in my brain, evocative of people I know (forgetful guy, irritating gamer preteen, anxious kid, guy who’s weirdly enthusiastic about produce, amongst others).
There were some visitors to the village from nearby Salad City who were all a little heavy-handed in the part they play – to tell you that village life is great by telling you how bad the city is. The Mayor of Salad City has stopped funding public transport in favour of highways, someone has a cough from the city smog. I wouldn’t have had any issue with this if it went anywhere, but there’s nothing to do with this information that’s coming at you from all angles. Another person talks about not knowing his neighbours. I get it, I grew up in a village and now live in one in my 30s, but without anywhere to take it (I will forgive this if they bring out a sequel where you convince the Salad City Mayor to plant some trees or something), it felt needlessly preachy.
The puzzles mainly take the form of ‘this person needs something that fulfils this criterion’ and off you go around Lettuce Village and its garage sales to find the perfect item. One person wants a snack the same colour as the sword of a video game protagonist, so off you go to buy him some cucumber slices. It’s not particularly deep, but that’s fine – I think asking every game to have intricate deep quest lines and really heavy plot is misguided at best. There’s infinite space in the world for games that do anything the developers want to do with them, which is one of my favourite things about being in this space.
Besides, there are a few interesting themes that get touched on. Juniper’s parents have just separated and her mum has moved into a new house; one of the kids doesn’t want to be the seeker in hide and seek because she’s worried she won’t be able to find everyone; one boy is super upset that school is closed and this day isn’t like the other days, and so on. Naturally, with a runtime as short as Garage Sale’s, none of the themes get explored in any more depth beyond the characters and the traits existing, but I think the handling of them really should be applauded. Nobody makes fun of the clearly autistic Charlie for wanting to go to school today, no one insists that because it’s Catherine’s turn to seek then she must seek, Nadia’s moms have cute matching t-shirts. Media like this is taking a vital step towards normalising various marginalised identities, mental illnesses, and life situations. Yeah, other games delve into these issues, unpacking and exploring them with nuance, but media is a huge tapestry, and this kind of inclusion is a crucial step along the path to acceptance.
Overall, Garage Sale is a short narrative experience about the benefits of community and accepting our neighbours, no matter how much they love bugs. It’s gentle and sweet, the characters are well-realised, and it was a peaceful and enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. The art is engaging and really well done and the soundtrack perfectly matches the game.
Game: Garage Sale
Developer: Bug Burrow
Publisher: Bug Burrow
Platforms: PC
Note - I receive the key for this game for free to write this review
I love a bit of casual inclusion in media, not every queer or neurodivergent character needs for it to be their story or it to be a big deal. It’s a really positive step in the right direction and I hope to see more of it in the future.
Sounds like a very sweet little game, agree that bit every game needs to be a deep exploration of themes, just having characters of all stripes appearing as normal people is great x