Cozy Grove

I bounced off of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in early 2021. I had missed the high point of it's cultural relevance by then but it was still extremely popular due to ongoing lockdowns and various restrictions associated with the pandemic we nevertheless unsuccessfully navigated. And I longed for the warm-hearted escapism reported by so much of the playerbase as much as the next guy, but after five or six hours of building my little island and harvesting various resources I logged off and just never picked it back up again. There was no single thing that pushed me away, but I wasn't feeling engaged, it wasn't drawing me in the way it seemed to do with so many others. 

That said, I can put my finger on one single thing that pulled me away. Shortly after I gave Animal Crossing a go, Cozy Grove launched on Apple Arcade, and while the two games set out to scratch a very similar itch, Cozy Grove did it much more effectively for me. 

So hey, it's been more than 4 years. Why don't we talk about it, this game that is no longer on Apple Arcade? In fact, it's not anywhere that it launched anymore, I don't think, with the singular exception of Steam. This is down to Netflix buying the developer and pulling all of the platform distributions for the game. There was evidently some form of contract that prevented Netflix from redistributing it on mobile, though, so they had Spry Fox, the devs, create a seemingly very similar Cozy Grove 2 that would be available to Netflix subscribers.

I do not subscribe to Netflix, so I'm still just talking about the first one. Which I did buy on Steam after it got pulled from Arcade. Which meant I lost all my progress, of course, but I'm happily redoing all of it now. Because wow is this game an entire vibe.

So it's no secret that Animal Crossing has spawned its fair share of imitators over the years. Heck, between Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley that's pretty much the genesis of the "cozy game" genre as we know it today. And much like "souls-bornes" and "metroid-vanias" you could rightly combine the titles of the two into an appropriate genre name, but I'm pretty sure both "animal valley" and "stardew crossing" have already been used as titles for knockoff cozy games at some point. So when I say Cozy Grove is a cozy game that hews most closely to the Animal Crossing side of the genre that is both a reasonable generic description and an acknowledgement that from a high level Cozy Grove looks and feels a whole lot like Animal Crossing to play.

Which begs the question then, why did I bounce off of New Horizons and not Cozy Grove?

You know, it's hard to say. I do prefer things like the art style and music in Cozy Grove, which tips the scales a bit I suppose. The basic premise helps too, I much prefer the concept of being stranded on an island with a legion of ghost bears versus being conned into capitalist servitude by a particularly sketchy racoon. 

But I think the biggest difference for me, personally, is the quality of the setting. With Animal Crossing: New Horizons you're set up on a fresh island ostensibly uninhabited aside from you and the folks you wind up bringing with you. The appeal is intended to be in the sense of exploration, discovering and then covering your island with a village that's shaped to your preference. Cozy Grove, on the other hand, sets you on an island that, while also technically uninhabited, feels full of history, of memory, and oh also yes ghost bears. Which sorta count as inhabitants yes, but you meet them a few at a time, unlocking more and more of the spectral island as you fulfill your objectives.

Cozy Grove also feeds you objectives in a much more tangible, less self-directed way. Which may be a downside for some people, but for me it's a lateral move. For me what matters more is that a game which means to direct me by way of concrete objectives does so in service of a story that feels important. New Horizons is much looser in its format, which is a good thing, because the only story involved there is the story you're building from the interactions in the order you wish to engage with. Cozy Grove has a story to tell, as you uncover more of the island and engage with the bears, that is both highly personal to each bear and wholly encompassing of the island itself. 

Any weaknesses in the level of personalization or customization available in Cozy Grove versus Animal Crossing, which honestly I don't feel like there is much imbalance there at all, is more than made up for by the story in Cozy Grove. It is easy to relate to and engage with the characters in the game, all of whom feel pretty fully realized. They all have traits that are endearing and flaws that are annoying, with deep backgrounds you explore slowly over time by helping them with the various psychological issues they all have. The writing is really good, and it largely carries the game.

When you come right down to it, I very much need one of two things for a game to capture my attention. Either the story needs to pull me in with good characters and a well-realized setting, or it needs to feed me a thoroughly satisfying gameplay loop. For some people the gameplay loop of gathering and building is, evidently, good enough. Animal Crossing did sell like hotcakes on release. But I've gotta level, it just doesn't hold my attention. Once you've harvested a bunch of trees and done the fishing game a couple of times, you've done it all the times. Without the strength of the story being told in Cozy Grove, I certainly wouldn't have made it very far there either.

And, well, I suppose there is one other thing that affects my enjoyment; joycons. I bounced off a lot of stuff on the Switch simply because I could not abide the controllers. I originally played through Cozy Grove on a touch screen and enjoyed that more, if that tells you anything about how I regard joycons.

So that's it. It's simple enough. Cozy games often rely on extremely repetitive gameplay loops, letting players relax under the premise of calming routine in the face of the complexity of life itself. I understand how New Horizons caught on. But if you'd prefer your extremely repetitive gameplay be served up on a bed of dark pasts, repressed memory, and the melancholy of unfelt grief, well then. Have I got a game for you.