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Tinselwood playtest
by Clackety Rock LLC
Paint homes, markets, and workshops into a snowy valley and the townsfolk build a Christmas town around them. Build freely, or earn it title by title in Progression Mode. No timers and no way to lose: just lanes, lights, falling snow, sixteen festive set pieces and a town you can walk yourself.
Anyone with a Steam account can join, and it's free.
- Access
- Instant
- On playtest since
- Nov 6, 2026
- Planned release
- Nov 16, 2026
- Developer
- Clackety Rock LLC
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS
- Players
- Single-player
- Languages
- English, French, German, Italian and 2 more
How to join the Tinselwood playtest
- Open the game's Steam page with the Join playtest button. Sign in to Steam if it asks.
- Use the Tinselwood playtest signup there. You're in straight away, with nothing to pay.
- The playtest shows up in your Steam library, ready to install and play.
New to playtests? How Steam playtests work
How AI is used
Parts of Tinselwood were made with generative AI during development: its music and sound effects, its interface icons, and parts of its code. Every building, set piece, and townsperson in the game is built by our own in-house procedural generation. All of it was reviewed and reworked by hand, and nothing is generated while you play.
The developer's own words, from Steam.
About Tinselwood
Somewhere in the snow, a valley is waiting. Tinselwood is a cozy Christmas town builder with no way to fail. Lay the lanes, paint the plots, and the townsfolk move in and build the rest, one lantern and one wreath at a time, until the whole valley glows like the last hour of Christmas Eve.
Two Ways to Play
- Free Hand: No money to manage, the whole valley and every set piece are yours from your very first night.
- Progression Mode: Start with a small clearing and a purse of cheer. Your townsfolk earn it, it pays for plots, land and set pieces, and your town climbs ten titles from a clearing in the snow to Tinselwood itself, with new guilds moving in as it grows. You can switch a town to Free Hand whenever you like.
Paint the Plots, The Elves Build the Rest
Brush homes, markets, and workshops beside your lanes and watch them rise on their own. The more Christmas cheer a street has, the grander it grows: cottages become tall townhouses, market stalls become busy storefronts. Choose snow, dirt, stone or cobble for every lane, raise hills, flood ponds, plant firs, and line the fields with candy canes and snowmen. All of your buildings respond to what's around them: houses on water build docks, place enough trees and secluded campfires spawn.
Walk Around Your Town at Ground Level
Step down into Elf Mode and walk your own streets in first person. Wander the lanes and the frozen ponds, stop to meet the neighbors, and frame a postcard from the street.
Full Weather & Atmosphere Control
Hold the town at noon, dusk or midnight, or let the hours turn on their own and watch every window, lamp and string of lights come up as the snow goes from white to lavender to blue. Call in flurries or a full blizzard, choose how deep the snow lies, and dress the whole town in white, red and green, or classic lights.
Meet the Townsfolk
Santa's elves and friends from all around the North Pole will come and settle in your town. Write your favorites into the town's Almanac, shake the snow globe to see who it finds, and watch your town rise from a clearing in the snow to a haven the woods have noticed.
Features
- Paint zones and watch the town build itself
- 15 festive set pieces, all unlocked from the start
- Day, dusk and night, with every light in town coming up at dusk
- Weather from clear skies to blizzards, and four depths of snow
- Three schemes of Christmas lights
- A town Almanac of the townsfolk you love the most
- Postcards and wallpapers of your town
From the game's Steam page.
