Almost everything can be cataloged, so nothing is truly wasted, and everything is worth nabbing at least once. This up and down is a pretty curious approach, often making me wonder whether it was meant to be an allegory for life itself.Įven though Cozy Grove goes out of its way to not feel like a game, there are plenty of elements that will give you a dopamine hit. But that usually meant that I already had what I needed for the next day, and I was back to being happy. Some days it was really exciting to make progress others left me unable to move the needle at all. Everything is given enough time and space for you to mull it over before the game moves you onto the next thing. You eventually learn to do things like craft, fish, bake and dowse, but they’re taught to you incrementally. If I had a hard time finding something, I’d chat to a bear, who would point me in the right direction for a small fee as a way to alleviate frustration. As I kept playing, I realized that with my limited inventory space it was best to just look for the things I needed at that moment instead of hoarding. I often found myself jogging to different characters to chat with them and/or get a quest, and then would scour the island for doodads, trinkets and collectables until there were no more to be found.
There’s definitely a catharsis to having a routine. You can’t min/max your way through it the story and the game’s expectations for the player take a long time to reveal themselves, and intentionally so. If nothing else, Cozy Grove is a great tool for teaching you to slow down and appreciate the small things.
The pace is what makes Cozy Grove so brilliant – you can only play for 20 to 30 minutes before exhausting all there is to do. In doing so, the game unfurls in a way that slowly doles out new activities, characters and crafting items that teach you how it all works, as well as what your ultimate goal is. You set up camp near a talking campfire, which tells you that it can expand the horizons of the island if you feed it special logs that you get from helping out the apparitions nearby. There are plenty of opportunities to sow your creativity and show your personal expression, but it all takes a back seat to helping out your neighbors by learning their stories, investing in their plights and helping them to make amends.Ĭozy Grove has you playing as a Spirit Scout who washes ashore on a quaint but colorless island inhabited by ghost bears. That’s not to say video games aren’t blossoming into so much more, and exploring all kinds of things, but even Cozy Grove’s contemporaries (I’m sure most people make parallels to Animal Crossing) don’t nail what it means to serve your community in the way that this game does. In a medium that puts shock and spectacle at the forefront, those are not feelings most developers are looking to evoke. Spry Fox’s Cozy Grove is a game about kindness and patience.
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