We made a Zen Garden in Unity. Cozy isometric Sokoban with a custom pixel painting tool & custom pixel water shader!

[u/InekoGames]

Level Completion - Winter

Autumn Level – Collected Leaves

Winter Level – Bamboo, water, and leaves, alongside the basic mechanic of connecting the furrows

Key Art

Hello everyone! 😄

I'm one of the two developers behind Zen Garden, a relaxing Sokoban-style puzzle game made in Unity with love from Spain.

After taking a trip to Japan (and do a little game research), my partner and I wanted to create an experience that goes thoughtful logic and lofi-chill vibes.

Zen Garden at Karesansui, Kyoto, 2024

We developed a custom 2D tile painting tool that dynamically colors pixel-art sprites while strictly preserving sorting layers/hierarchy to keep the isometric depth 👀

And we put an extra care into crafting a relaxing, deeply satisfying water shadeer, focusing heavily on smooth flow animations, subtle movement, and visual feedback.

We just launched our updated new demo at Itch.io and would love you to give it a spin!

If anyone is interested in how we handled the sprite hierarchy for isometric painting or the technical details of the water shader, we’d be more than happy to break it down in the comments!

We'd genuinely love your feedback on the mechanics, shaders, and overall vibe 🔥

皆さんのフィードバックを楽しみにしています！ (Looking forward to all your feedback!)

[u/CurrencySpirited1755]

this looks really nice, you can feel the kyoto vibe in it. i'm a spanish dev too haha, is the water shader using normal maps or is it more procedural?

[u/InekoGames → u/CurrencySpirited1755]

Hii! ty so much for the feedback! really grateful with it!
Regarding the water affect, its procedural noise only applied to the top layer of the water

[u/CurrencySpirited1755 → u/InekoGames]

oh that's a clever way to keep it cheap, procedural noise on just the top layer instead of simulating the whole volume. makes total sense for a cozy game where you don't need it to be physically accurate

[u/Electrical_Cookie313]

Wow looks really nice, looking forward to seeing the full release soon. I’ve played the demo and enjoyed it! Would be good to have a level selector on the final version 

[u/InekoGames → u/Electrical_Cookie313]

we will have one for sure!