Garden of Cogs

Garden of Cogs is a gentle building sim where you grow a garden that runs on tiny clockwork machines. You lay out gears, pipes, and planters, then watch the whole thing tick along and water itself. It's part puzzle, part toy.

There's no failure state, which makes it great for unwinding. You tinker until a contraption works, then expand into new plots with slightly fancier parts. The touch controls for snapping pieces together are precise, something these games often get wrong.

It won't challenge you the way a strategy game does, but that's the appeal. I kept opening it just to tweak one more mechanism before bed.

What we liked

• Relaxing, no fail states
• Precise piece placement
• Rewards light experimentation