I’ve been thinking lately about how many so-called cozy games are out there, and before even talking about the ones I’ve played, I found myself wondering what a cozy game really is.
From my point of view, a cozy game is a game that keeps you relaxed through mundane tasks. It asks you to do ordinary things, sometimes the kinds of things you might do in real life, but it wraps those things in a space that somehow feels comforting. Sometimes there is stress when you are trying to accomplish something, but usually the stress is low stakes. It is not about survival, combat, or constant pressure. It is about doing, building, tending, organizing, progressing.
For a long time, I had a strange relationship with games like that.
Thinking back, one of my earliest experiences with what we might now call a cozy game was Harvest Moon. And what strikes me as funny now is that even back then, the contradiction was already there. My grandfather had a little farm. I could have been helping feed chickens or learning something practical. Instead, there I was on the Super Nintendo building fences.
That feeling followed me into The Sims. I spent hours making sure my sim learned to cook, studied new skills, and built a productive little life, while in real life I probably should have been doing more studying myself. I was living the dream through my sims.
Then came Animal Crossing on the GameCube, and I had much the same reaction. Here I was doing in a game things I often didn’t feel like doing in real life.
To be honest, I used to look at cozy games and think maybe these were a waste of time. That was my view, at least until life itself changed the way I looked at them.
During the pandemic, I found myself wanting something calming, something steady. I remembered wanting to revisit Harvest Moon, but what I eventually found instead was Stardew Valley, and that game became something much more than I expected. It gave me a kind of escape during a strange and heavy time. All the chores had been done. We were stuck at home. I needed something to relax myself.
What surprised me was that a game about tending a farm, gathering resources, and reading dialogue could be so absorbing. It also reinforced something I’ve said before: I still think Stardew Valley is a remarkable game for kids, especially for reading and resource management.
Then came Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch, and that added something new. My son and I shared an island. We built together. Because we were on the same island, he benefited from my progress, and that made the experience feel collaborative in a way I hadn’t expected.
I even started over again later on Nintendo Switch 2, ignoring everyone who says not to restart your island. I wanted to see what would happen. I got far enough to bring in K.K. Slider, reached that sense of completion, explored the updates, even tried the new additions. And then I stopped, not because the game was bad, but because I had simply gotten what I needed from it. In fact, I told myself I would not get pulled into another cozy game again.
Then came Pokopia.
And honestly, I only bought it because of fear of missing out. I saw everyone playing it. I bought a game key card partly because I wasn’t even sure I’d keep it. I thought maybe I’d sell it later if I didn’t like it.
Then I played it, and I was surprised.
What I expected to be another simple rebuilding game turned out to have something many cozy games struggle to balance well: a genuinely strong story. Yes, there is building. Yes, there are systems to learn. Yes, at times it can even feel a little daunting. But because the story keeps guiding you forward, the rebuilding has meaning.
That changed the way I looked at the genre. It made me realize a cozy game does not have to be just digital chores. It can be a world you return to because the tasks and the story support each other. One of my favorite moments was realizing I had done things out of order in the open world, only for a character to essentially tell me I had already completed what they were about to assign me. That flexibility made the game feel alive.
And maybe that is what I have been circling around this whole time. The cozy games that stay with me are not just relaxing games. They are games where ordinary actions are given purpose. That may be why Pokopia works so well for me. Because it has such a strong story, it feels like the kind of game you can keep going back and forth with and still enjoy. As someone with ADHD, I admit I have to be careful with games like this, because cozy games can be comforting, but they can also pull at hyperfocus in ways I have to manage. Still, I did not expect to say this, but I am more open to cozy games than I used to be, though I think I need them to give me more than chores. I need them to give me a reason to care, and sometimes that reason is simply a good story.
—- Prof. Rock
Keaton is my favorite! I'm so sad he moved away!