Cozy Grove (Windows and consoles only)
Oct. 24th, 2021 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrCozy Grove is a cute gathering/crafting game for Windows and consoles about being a 'spirit scout' stuck on an island full of the friendly ghosts of talking bears. It's clearly influenced by Animal Crossing, especially the fact that the season and time of day progress in real time, so you can only play so much a day before running out of quests and certain resources. I have been playing a little bit a day for about two weeks, and am having fun.
There's a Halloween event on right now that lets you create cute jack-o-lantern themed stuff, if that's something you find appealing it won't show up again until next year.
The game was created by Spry Fox, creators of other cute bear themed games like Alphabear and Triple Town, and has their usual vibe.
The gameplay involves gathering, crafting and selling/gifting items like fruit, shells, fish etc. There's a lot of fetch quests involving finding hidden objects. Some of the bug catching and object throwing mechanics require coordination or speed, I can do like 80% of it, thus far this has slightly slowed my progress but not seriously impeded it. I'm probably not going to complete the (ridiculously huge) collections of all the bugs etc, completionists with poor aim or slow reaction speeds may end up frustrated.
The art style is cute, pretty watercolours in isometric 2D. All the characters face forwards all the time, even when walking. I like the art, but sometimes it sacrifices clarity for aesthetics when it comes to the hidden objects. Luckily you can pay a low fee to get hints to the locations of whatever you're looking for. The game gives some scope for self expression in terms of your appearance and that of your island and home, but I haven't done much with it, and there's practical limitations since some plants and animals have strong preferences about object types.
The ghosts need help working through their regrets so they can pass on, which can be a little sad, but thus far the vibe is more 'darkly humourous G-rated ghost story' than 'bittersweet meditations on the nature of death' a la Spiritfarer. The characters and plot are super thin, and pretty silly, but endearing enough.
There's elements I haven't seen in this sort of game before, which on the one hand provides some variety but on the other hand doesn't always work. Like...it seems like I'll progress faster and make more money if I plant multiple trees and bushes a day, but that quickly adds up to a TRULY STUPENDOUS number of plants to find space for and harvest, with no motive to sell any of them thus far. On the plus side there's apparently an auto-harvest item I can get later.
The game only came out this year and they're still tweaking and adding content (the auto-harvest object is new, for example)
There's a Halloween event on right now that lets you create cute jack-o-lantern themed stuff, if that's something you find appealing it won't show up again until next year.
The game was created by Spry Fox, creators of other cute bear themed games like Alphabear and Triple Town, and has their usual vibe.
The gameplay involves gathering, crafting and selling/gifting items like fruit, shells, fish etc. There's a lot of fetch quests involving finding hidden objects. Some of the bug catching and object throwing mechanics require coordination or speed, I can do like 80% of it, thus far this has slightly slowed my progress but not seriously impeded it. I'm probably not going to complete the (ridiculously huge) collections of all the bugs etc, completionists with poor aim or slow reaction speeds may end up frustrated.
The art style is cute, pretty watercolours in isometric 2D. All the characters face forwards all the time, even when walking. I like the art, but sometimes it sacrifices clarity for aesthetics when it comes to the hidden objects. Luckily you can pay a low fee to get hints to the locations of whatever you're looking for. The game gives some scope for self expression in terms of your appearance and that of your island and home, but I haven't done much with it, and there's practical limitations since some plants and animals have strong preferences about object types.
The ghosts need help working through their regrets so they can pass on, which can be a little sad, but thus far the vibe is more 'darkly humourous G-rated ghost story' than 'bittersweet meditations on the nature of death' a la Spiritfarer. The characters and plot are super thin, and pretty silly, but endearing enough.
There's elements I haven't seen in this sort of game before, which on the one hand provides some variety but on the other hand doesn't always work. Like...it seems like I'll progress faster and make more money if I plant multiple trees and bushes a day, but that quickly adds up to a TRULY STUPENDOUS number of plants to find space for and harvest, with no motive to sell any of them thus far. On the plus side there's apparently an auto-harvest item I can get later.
The game only came out this year and they're still tweaking and adding content (the auto-harvest object is new, for example)
