Cozy Games
Some games to kick back and enjoy with fuzzy slippers and not a care in the world.
Travellers Rest Has All I Want in an Innkeeping Sim
Grab your mop, bring your Stardew Valley membership card, and head into olden times with Travellers Rest. Yes, I literally just started this game, so I’ll continue to update this as time goes on, but I’m already hooked. I do in fact still love that old classic Stardew Valley, a basic grounding point for this game. But I have also enjoyed the medieval theme of RPG’s for a long time. The concept is…
Potion Craft Tips, Tricks, and Secrets You Need
Getting started with Potion Craft can be intriguing and fun but also confusing–by nature. The game features role playing game elements mixed with strategy and casual gameplay. It’s one of the hottest games out there for alchemy sims, but quickly has become a diverse favorite for gamers. I’ve taken some time to compile some tips and tricks I think are essential to the full release version of this game and will guide you…
Bear & Breakfast is a Life Sim With All The BEAR Necessities!
Finally, I sat down with the tremendous Bear & Breakfast, a game I’d wanted to try since last year. Now, my personal quest has resumed with a plunge headfirst into this BEARY good game. Here are my thoughts on all the vast building and crafting systems, quests, and exploration features that make this game so good. Not to mention the fantastic hand-drawn woodland setting and the game’s humble (and hilarious as it were)…
Wanderful, is a Cozy Puzzle Strategy Game on The Horizon From “Tiny Roar”
Daedelic Entertainment is a huge high-quality game publisher featuring a range of developers from small to major, including the new Gollum game and also Wanderful from the German developers Tiny Roar. I have my eye on this publisher as an unbiased indie gamer because while, yes, the smaller indie community is my foundation, I also like really good games. So, when you can, there’s a great game you need to try from them…
Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition is Excellence Beyond the Veil (I Finally Tried It)
Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition touches my heart in a way that’s genuine and welcome. It’s one thing for a game to speak of the hereafter as a storyline, but another to make one truly wonder as this game does. It is also an excellent example of intentional gameplay that makes you want to keep going deeper and reveal all its fruits. I’ll share with you why Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition combines the deep spiritual context…
Hip Witch is a Simple Groovy Magic Cozy Game
Hip Witch is a free adventure game released on Steam this week by developer Studio Hip Sword. The environment is handmade, and the storyline involves a lost young witch boarding in a state park, where she begins a quest to investigate odd happenings on the park’s grounds. It is playable with a controller or keyboard and is short but charming and cozy met with positive reviews. Gameplay in Hip Witch: You Got Spells,…
Moonglow Bay Tells Tales of the Maritimes in this Great Indie Catch
I’m a big fan of fishing in games, but even more so a good story involving it. Moonglow Bay has done it. It’s a story about a retired fisher getting back out there. It is also about settling a community’s superstitions and getting back to the foundation of their livelihood. The story takes place in a traditional Eastern Canadian seaboard fishing village in the 80s. It is otherwise perfectly afloat in its conventional…
Pupperazzi. Am I The Only Who Loved This Or Something?
Dogs dashing, catching, posing, and dogs riding scooters to surfboards throughout the whole game. Pupperazzi is a comedy game with a pretty clean content concept. In all honesty, I initially wasn’t too interested in the game, until I saw it was on Xbox Gamepass where I tried it for free. To my surprise, I found this game very funny, and it had enough achievement-based gameplay that it was actually quite fun. I know…
Donut County is Definitely Immature and Has GREAT Dialogue
Forgive, me, because we’re about to “dive into” some game material from the past. All the way back to the year 2018. Which isn’t really that long ago, making the sentiment of that sentence nearly arbitrary actually. Donut County is on its fourth year after release, and I’ve been meaning to play it for about half of that time. Why did I wait so long? I have no idea, but anything that was…
Unpacking is Great For People Who Obsess About ORGANIZING But Need To CHILL While They Organize
Unpacking is an isometric puzzle game by Witch Beam, an Australian developer, published by our very own sponsor Humble Bundle. You are a third-person clicker, looking down into an empty room with a stack of boxes sitting in the middle of the floor. There’s no direction or impetus, but as you open the box, intuition sets in, and you start to place objects from here and there. Before you know it, you’re an…
Indie Spotlight: Down In Bermuda is a Tropical Hidden Gem on Switch
Yak & Co released Down In Bermuda catering to the growing indie cozy fanbase in Q3 of 2019. Yes, this game is over two years old, but with the occasional mega discounts, from time to time and continuing interest it’s cognizant to explore. It’s still relevant, fun, and cozy–indeed. The level of a-ha moments in this puzzle platformer is suited to YouTube, Twitch, or wherever you want to turn a gathering into a…
GOOD PIZZA, GREAT PIZZA is the Ultimate Pizzeria Simulator
In the Fall of 2020 when I was just launching the Mr. Dave Pizza concept, I played Good Pizza, Great Pizza by Tapblaze on an Android tablet, one of the many formats this game is available on. Today I played the official version released for Nintendo Switch to go back and really see what amused me about this game. Pizza, the food, has always been pretty popular, but in the last five years,…
Shindig is the Ultimate Happy Family Indie
This is a game that had come across my desk yesterday, which I had accidentally overlooked because of my new format, but I was really interested in it. Shindig is an interactive fiction in the style of something like a family-friendly exploration picturebook with some tried and true interactive gameplay. As you might know, it’s always been my goal to seek out wholesome indie games because I’m a bit jumpier than a jackrabbit…
Date Night Bowling: This is a Visual Novel About Fun Love
For the record, I am a big fan of Way Down Deep and their dating sim releases over the last year like the socially distanced romance sim Romantic Distancing and the popular release Half Past Fate. I’ve been eyeing Date Night Bowling since I first saw it in an upcoming game roster. So when the opportunity to play it on Switch arose, I snagged it and slipped on some bowling shoes. Eww, digital…
Alchemic Cutie is a Bright, Colorful, & Adventurous RPG
Update: Alchemic Cutie is, once again, a game running across my desk, slated for Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5 for June 2023. I really have no particular context for describing it after so long, but when I tested it on PC I felt that it fits into the few neat descriptors of bright, colorful, cute. It’s an RPG. In all fairness, it is a monster collection game, à la Pokemon-style games. In the…
Beacon Pines is Finally Out Now and It’s Astonishing
Beacon Pines is interactive fiction, but really it qualifies with a new level of cozy interaction and fathoms deep optimistic complexity to its characters. The basic structure of the story relies on an interesting plot device made of… well, plot devices! You start in a storybook tale of a young fawn, though I’d say that’s up for interpretation, named Luka at his grandmother’s. Through exploration and experimentation and interacting with those around you…
Doggone Hungry: This Good Boy Wants All Of Your Snacks NOW
Doggone Hungry is a free hilarious game about an adorable pup, his favorite toy, some loveable humans, and that gosh darn cat. You’ll pounce countertops against the clock to acquire enough, and by enough I mean as many as he wants, snacks to bulk up and solve the exasperating crisis of your unreachable toy duck Quackerjack. The environment alternates between a house party or beach, filled with humans relaxing tolerating your actions as…
Hoa is a New Indie Adventure With a Magical Vibe
Hoa is an intricate hand-painted character and environment art platformer released this week. Visually it succeeds wonderfully with Studio Ghibli-like aesthetics in illustration, animation, and special effects. It also boasts an absolutely charming ambiance in its background music plus sound effects that are cinematic in quality and effect. It also is available in 10 different languages right from its launch. I feel very relaxed playing Hoa, and even watching someone playing it can…
Mini Motorways is A Little Great Game About Traffic
Mini Motorways is a delightful traffic planning sim released within the last month. It boasts charming flat graphic aesthetics with an intuitive casual style game experience. The sleek 2D environment bleeds indie simplicity worthy of a gaming machine or a new phone. The gameplay is relatively simple but allows interactive city planning in a selection of metropolitans all around the world. Start with a small group of structures within the map and drag…
Haven Park is One of the Best Cozy Park Life Sims
Haven Park is here today and we’re happy to have it. Where to start? Let’s start with adorable cute animal heads making friends in the woods. I’m drawn to them the moment I glimpse at them, and my heart gets their attention quickly. Haven Park is a three-dimensional open world that expands on the social crafting genre. And it’s a cool option that addresses the demand for games of this nature. In Haven…
Weaving Tides is a Hidden Gem I Played
Weaving Tides sits comfortably in a genre of its own. Unlock a world map woven together through magic threads. You’ll ride upon friendly creatures known as carpet dragons and weave new threads to move forward. With brilliant surface-swapping mechanics that allow you to traverse impossible terrain, exquisite graphics, and smooth gameplay this is surely a work of art as much as a playable game. The artistic aspects of Weaving Tides are exquisite. You…
Potion Party is That Great Colorful Pixel Alchemy Sim Out
Potion Party is a recently released indie co-op that involves running an alchemy shop and racing around part of your lab to create potions for hurried customers. Its style is a pleasant top to bottom, cute, pixel art environment. Get in the groove as an alchemist to the thumpy party music of its namesake. Players may enjoy reasonable tasks along with adequately challenging objectives. In addition, there is a respectable host of elements…
Magic Trick is A Cool Little Freebie Indie About Skating
Magic Trick is a 3D first-person skateboarding game that combines elements of popular wholesome achievement games with a skateboarding theme. It is rich in cotton candy pastels, low poly maps, and anthropomorphic characters to interact with through each island. You can play this game with a controller or keyboard and mouse. The storyline is driven by skateboarding objectives of traditional moves like ollies, grinds, flips, and jumps. It is a fully released game…
Fall Guys is Still Awesome and Now It’s a Freebie on Nintendo Switch
So, the idea behind Fall Guys is this: you create a jelly bean-like thing character and design them, then you push play and skydive (on a load screen) into a pink, purple, and cotton candy blue obstacle course of hilarious wonder with 60 other jelly beans. If you make it to the finish line in time before at least 40 players you qualify for the next round. If not you have to start over. Fall…
Shu’s Garden is a Slightly Old, Fun Hidden Gem I Found
Shu’s Garden is a game that’s part of the huge Itch.IO bundle released recently. It is essentially an open playground experience, with no strict rules or goals. Play a little space cactus named Shu, a ball of shine with a friendly symbiotic tail that bounces around planets. This game holds up well over time, and even without any clear direction or strategy, it is still quite enjoyable as a mini-session or even a…
Catlateral Damage is A Hilarious Hidden Gem
Catlateral Damage is a game from Itch.IO that is so simple in concept, but so enjoyable that way! I also know it is time for another review! This game is part of a bundle I obtained and is one of many great games over at Itch. The game is about you, a cat, in a playground suitable for the mischievous antics of a cat. The objective of the game is to knock stuff…
Forgotten Fields is a New Indie About a Young Man’s Private Life
Forgotten Fields is an indie-developed story-rich interactive game by Frostwood Interactive. It is about a young Indian author seeking inspiration for his next book in the midst of a major family transition at his childhood home. The character, Siddharth, visits home which at first seems a distraction but may help him re-think his writing completely. The game design is aesthetically pleasing low-poly 3D modeling combined with interactive puzzles and visual novel-style dialogue. It…
BattleCakes is an Astonishingly Colorful and Sweet Indie
BattleCakes is a cozy RPG from the studio Volcano Bean. Play as a customizable cupcake person and explore the town you live in. Talk to other cake-like characters around town and even solve some mysteries. I took a look at the demo and found it to have a very colorful–and sweet–style. You can solve the problems around town when you head out the gates and take on the gumdroplins, some goblin gum drops…
“Coffee Talk” What is This Seattle-Set Indie Masterpiece?
Coffee Talk is an interactive visual novel released in the pumpkin spice season of 2020. You play a barista in Seattle in a futuristic/alternate universe. Your customers range from humans to succubus, and it is your job not only to make them coffee in your coffee shop but also to help talk them through their personal problems. The gameplay is interspersed with actual barista beverage-making with various ingredients and you can even make…
A Cottage Story is a Hidden Gem & Terrific Little Visual Novel
A Cottage Story is an indie fantasy-style visual novel currently in development by indie developer LadyMeowsith on itch.IO. The theme is what is described as, “Cottage-Core.” You’ll play as Emory, or whichever moniker you choose. Your form is selectable as well. You are a human/changeling grown up far away from humans. You live within a fantastic forest of goblins, satyrs, elves, and maybe more. Meet characters and treat their ailments by mastering herbalism…
Princess Farmer is a Unique and Colorful Indie Out Now
Princess Farmer is essentially a complex row-matching game, mixed with some RPG and storytelling elements. With some pixel graphics and a cozy story about bunnies, it’s a lot of fun. The style is pink and indie in the best way, and it is fun just to look at. Whatever your first impressions are, the bunny protagonist and characters in the story are quite the departure from your typical adventure. The indie soundtrack is…
First Impressions of Phoenotopia Demo on Nintendo Switch
Phoenotopia is more than a cozy pixel-art game about a hero with pink hair. There are some pretty deep theme but also pleasant gameplay. For a sample, a group in Phoenotopia known as the last councils decide the fate of humanity. This game has emotional and philosophical depth. But once again, it’s buffered with some enjoyable run and jump platforming. In my playtest of the demo, I enjoyed the open world environment and…
Knights and Bikes is the Best Game About Adventure & Imagination
I knew when I read the description of Knights and Bikes on the Nintendo eShop page, and the bounty of awards adorning it, that this was probably going to be pretty cool. It explores some great themes like imagination, curiosity, and adventure. Also, it’s about finding those adventures in a place you don’t need to journey far to find. I’ll be exploring some of these topics in my experience with Knights and Bikes,…
The Big Journey is an Old Indie Game Involving Cats & Dumplings
Hey, when you say “roll around a dumpling-eating cat,” do you mean that literally? You do? Really? Okay, I’m in. Play The Big Journey and roll around a cat, who should be named Alpuss Dumplingdore (do not deny what a perfect name that would be.) Alright, alright. There’s nothing that bizarre about this game. Firstly, The Big Journey is unique, however, once you jump in, it’s pretty fleshed out. Secondly, despite the weird…
Slime Rancher, the Original Game, is the One That Started it All
You’re an adventurous protagonist named Beatrix who has settled down on her uncle’s ranch on an alien planet where the landscape is occupied by canyons of shiny cute blobs of a variety of species and value. Also some chickens. Which… some slimes eat. Moving on. Yer not from around here, are you? So, what is the point of this? Or the goal, to be a little more specific. Well, it’s basically a high-quality…
Going Under is A Really Colorful, Fun Game But Hard
Going Under: Internships are Heck is a stylistic, colorful, satirical beat ’em up from Aggrocrab Games. Here we go again. I am officially hooked on Going Under. Snagging it quickly on release day, I have some observations on what this is all about, and I like it. Mainly that it looks great and is very tongue-in-cheek hilarious in addressing some very thematic cultural themes in start-up businesses. What the fizz’ is it? FIzzle…
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