Recommend your favorite "cozy" games, please
Hello all and welcome to the weekend! We made it. Or if your weekend doesn't begin until later, you'll make it yet!
Let's talk cozy games! You know the ones I'm talking about, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon. Games we used to call something else before the collective zeitgeist of the Internet decided to lump them all together under (which I'm personally fine with, I mean what do you call Animal Crossing anyway?)
In a stark contrast to my younger and more vulnerable years, I've become much more of "casual" gamer, and I find myself enjoying shorter bouts of play rather than becoming engrossed in the same world or story for hours on end. Games like Animal Crossing are perfect for this, in that I can just pick it up, talk to some villagers and go fishing or whatever, and put it down whenever I please. Not just that though, but I just absolutely love the warm and well, cozy vibe games like these offer. I've best heard them described as a warm mug of tea by a window as it rains outside.
Enough about me, let's talk about you! What "cozy" games do you enjoy? Feel free to lump them all together, who cares, it doesn't matter! We are all cozy games on this day.
A Short Hike is a really sweet game with a focus on exploration and traversal, set on a charming little island full of cute characters.
It always comes to mind as one of the cozier games I've played, and is a little different than the sim or farming type games that often come up in these threads.
For anyone that enjoyed A Short Hike, there are at least two other hikelikes out there: Lil Gator Game and Haven Park.
Each of them is a calm, cozy, chill, cute, cartoony island game.
To add, the art and shaders are beautiful. As a digital space, the islands were very fun to explore. The mechanics are very fun and low stress. The whole game is very low-pressure as well, with a great pay off, small quests and friendly dialogue along the way.
Jumping in on the Short Hike train (hike?). It's lovely.
Not sure if it counts, but my cozy game is factorio. It is kind of like gardening. There is always something to do at different levels of involvement (building the last item researched, fixing a bottleneck, designing a new train station, automating some infrastructure that you are currently building by hand, exploring the tech tree to make future plans, etc). Once you know how to deal with bitters and any other world stopping issue you might have its fairly relaxing.
I love games like harvest moon but only in theory. In practice the ticking clock kind of makes me anxious and I'm urged to optimize my day, then a couple seasons in I have a farm that takes 3/4s of the day to tend to. Then I stop playing.
Factorio is so cozy for me, I'll even transition into a meditative state and then disassociate with the concept of time. If a Factorio player says that they haven't played the game until the wee hours of the morning, they're lying.
It's a mechanical garden that you keep tending to. Always finding ways to better solve problems you solved before, while also trying to tackle new problems that came up as you began to expand. It's always challenging you and your ideas and forcing you to improve. As an optimizer, this game is my paradise. It is my cozy heaven and no other factory game I've played has come remotely close.
And this is why I played Factorio twice: my first time and my last time.
Me at 22:00: "Let's see if Factorio is any good..."
My SO at 06:00: "Did you sleep at all?!"
Me: uninstalls Factorio
I have issues with games that don't end and have endless possibilities for tweaking :D
If you like the idea of farming games without much of a clock Wylde Flowers is like Stardew+plot, but you control the season changes so they don't happen until you're ready. Plus in the settings you can adjust how quickly the daylight time goes by (and as there's a magic plotline, you can brew speed potions and other quality of life benefits) and there's an unlimited $ hack that you can turn off or leave on (buy food, cook food, sell food, profit!) as you like.
It's so much less stressful other than the NPCs sometimes being like "Sure is a LONG spring don't you think?..."
Is that last part stressful because the NPCs are passive aggressive and judging you? If so, I've found kinfolk!
Haha yes! But it's not directed at you. The plot is that there are secret witches in the woods, and your grandma is part of it and thus so are you. You don't actually know for sure (at first at least) who the witches are among the NPCs and the normies don't know that you are personally responsible. So it's like general passive aggression not targeted!
Life happened so I stopped at Spring but I should go back to it as life slows back down.
Will give it a look, thanks!
Would like to add in Satisfatory to this list, and I feel like it's even more cozy than factorio. Factorio you'll need to turn off the aliens otherwise they will be creeping up on you and be a pressure that you need to keep going with enough ammo for your guns. And even with them off, your nodes will eventually get mined out (after many hours) unless you dial the up in settings, though I think you can make them effectivly unlimited too I guess.
I find satisfactory is the more chill and build style. The nodes don't run out and the wildlife doesn't come at you unless you are exploring, but even then you can turn them off also. Plus the 3d view of the factory I feel like encourages more building for looks and style. While I ultimatly think factorio looks neater and plays neater at scale, satisfactory really is fun to build cool looking buildings in.
Overall satisfactory really doesn't push you at all, MAAAYBE getting fuel burners restocked in the early phase but that is over pretty soon. I've left it idling all day while working without any issues and it overall is a pretty nice place to relax in.
But you honestly can't go wrong with either game, and really, play both, they are both excellent!
If you like those, I can also recommend Astroneer! It’s definitely not quite up to the level of automation of Satisfactory or Factorio, but it adds terrain manipulation to explore deep into the core of the planets, and you can build a rocket to go to other planets which all have a different aesthetic. There are no hostile creatures, but there are hostile plants and plenty of opportunity to die from fall damage, so if you’re exploring it’s not completely safe and relaxing in that way. But I really enjoy it, and it’s got a cute art style and a fun story plot if you chase that! (No spoilers, but you can start by applying power to the unusual purple structures if you find one…)
Factorio was the absolute first thing to pop into my head when I saw this thread. Seconded.
Valheim is my cozy game. Even though sailing off the coast of the plains or getting rekt at nighttime by a mob of draugr and wraiths is terrifying, the game is beautiful. There's something extra special about just chilling with the boys in your grand hall or listening to your boar farm right outside your little room while the rain is pouring down. I wish I had a real dragon bed like I do in the game.
This is my vote as well. Sitting with your friends and drinking in-game mead and IRL beer in your castle before casting off to more shenanigans cements this is one of my favorite multiplayer games of all time. Its still fun solo as well, but it definitely loses some fun.
I only had one friend who briefly played, and he'd only join my game... wouldn't level up and get his own stuff/make his own world for me to join or whatnot. It was good fun, but I did kind of like the solo version as well, though I totally see how friends could make the game way more fun.
Definitely my vote for the thread!
Definitely "The Art of Rally" a chill lo-fi electronica sound track, a simple clean art style that renders the countryside beautifully, and some solid twin-stick driving through rally stages. So relaxing.
This looks right up my alley. Challenging, but on your own time.
I'll be sure to check this out. Thanks for the recommendation.
Minecraft, but with peaceful mode and keepInventory on. Especially skyblock or a world with a smallish border.
Add some ambiance and aesthetic mods, and yeah. Cozy imo.
Hard to get a lot cozier than Minecraft. Watching the sunrise on your hilltop fort, or standing under an awning on a deck or balcony and watching the rain in comfort is just chef's kiss.
Recently I started playing Palia - how can I describe it? A bit grindy, free, online 3D Stardew Valley with elements of Genshin Impact. Can be played as single player or somehow as Mmorpg with (actually in paralel) other players. So far so good, you can build a home, grow crops, hunt, cook like in StarVal. Climb, do a quests for NPC like in GenImp. There some criticizm of the game, so its definitely not for all, but there no forced "login everyday" quests so I quite like it.
And honestly.. my cozy game is Dead Cells. Nothing beat quick and fun dance of killing monsters across levels :) No need to think, plan, or decide, just go with flow and kill them all :).
Palia is my current game of love. The game is absolutely lovely, and exploration is honestly its these. Not just exploring the world, but exploring the people who live in it.
Oh shit, I got into the beta and completely forgot about it. I'm going to install it first thing tonight and try it out!
Potion Craft is nice. You put stuff in a pot to wander around the 'potion map' to brew things you sell. They've been pretty consistently updating it too.
I'm excited for the upcoming updates to the garden, talent tree, and storefront in Potion Craft.
A bit on the darker side, but I'm currently playing Graveyard Keeper. Was billed as similar to Stardew Valley, and it is in some aspects but different in others. Basically you get transported to a medieval fantasy village and are in charge of the church and graveyard. The gameplay loop is surprisingly addicting, it has six-day weeks and no seasons so there isn't any pressure to get crops planted before a certain day. If you miss talking to an NPC one day, it doesn't feel like a hassle to wait for the next week to roll around to progress the story.
You might be interested in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. It's a remake of a GameCube Harvest Moon game. Some people have been critical of it for not updating mechanics to be more "modern" and too slow paced, but that's part of its charm in my opinion. It feels like I'm playing the original, but slightly better.
Meanwhile, I haven't played these yet, but I only hear good things about Sun Haven and Roots of Pacha. They're both supposed to be very similar to Stardew Valley, one is a fantasy setting and the other is an ancient caveman era setting. They're both at the top of my list.
Moonstone Island just dropped this week, and I see that one recommended a lot too! Haven't gotten it yet, but it's been one of the more anticipated ones in the cozy game community. The graphics are cute, and it has some card game elements for combat.
Those are just the ones off the top of my head that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Cozy games are my preferred genre, so I'll take a look at my libraries and wishlists later to see if I have more recommendations!
I sunk a ton of time into Graveyard Keeper, but I have to say, it doesn't feel like a very well done game. Addictive, sure, but there are whole skill trees that are completely useless, and it generally feels really unfinished. Gotta look into the other ones though - thanks for the recommendations!
I have another recommendation in the same veins of the games you listed here. My Time at Portia and its soon to release second game (currently in early access) My Time at Sandrock.
Both games are chill and cozy games that has their own brand of charms to them. Its less farming related but there are farming involve, albeit more simplified and not the focus of the game. Instead you play as the role of a builder, in charge of creating stuff for the NPCs. Its a cozy game with no time pressure (
unless you are like me and likes to create super efficient workshops that can churn out items and finish commissions within the day of accepting them)(I recommend to just enjoy the relaxed nature of the game and to go at your own pace when playing these games)I actually have My Time At Portia! It's a fun game, but the crafting can get tedious at times. A lot of the bigger stuff needs multiple levels of crafting: craft item one and two, combine them to make item three—repeat this for like four items needed for the final object. Overall the game is fun, but that's my biggest nitpick.
A tip to anyone who gets it: don't get it on the Switch. That's what I have it on, and the game can run pretty rough on there sometimes. Looking it up, found a reddit thread from just 30 days ago where people report it crashing a lot. It's also missing the slots at the Gaming Hall since that counts as gambling, so you need to play a LOT of darts to get certain items from the prize corner.
Also worth noting some stuff is missing from console versions in general. An update in 2021 added most of the missing features, but there's still a couple things only found on PC like some clothing and a television.
That's why you always want to over make items. If you need 3 ore for 1 thing, grab 12 ore and make 2 of the thing, then you always have leftovers which usually helps in a pinch for rarer or harder to get to resources.
I do, but it feels particularly tedious in Portia to me. I think it may be partially because there are time requirements for crafting the next level of components such as plates and pipes. You have to wait for each individual one to be crafted.
So for example, if a blueprint calls for 10 steel plates, that would call for 24 in-game hours and 30 carbon steel bars for the industrial cutter, or 30 hours and 150 iron ore and 90 wood for the comprehensive cutter. Getting 30 carbon steel bars would need 150 iron ore and 10 charcoal, and can range from 81 to 108 hours total depending on the furnace. Everyone has multiple furnaces, but it still takes a lot of time and base materials to gather 10 steel plates.
What I'm saying is I'm pretty sure I went through one thousand carbon steel bars by the first autumn and had furnaces churning those out almost 24/7, and I'd still run out or not have enough. A LOT of stuff calls for carbon steel bars in the game, either directly for the final build or as components for OTHER components. It gets tedious to just be constantly restocking iron ore, refueling everything and trying to hulk-craft next-stage components to stock up. I'm not sure it's even the most commonly needed component.
It has been a long time since I played Portia and I played Sandrock much more recently, but I remember churning out Carbon Steel 24/7 as well.
Once you get the ore deposit option and can upgrade that I upgraded it a ton and just got oodles of ore delivered everyday. So worth it to cut down on the gathering process
I don't think I unlocked the ore deposit yet, that sounds like a huge time-saver. Still, I would prefer we didn't need so many in the first place. I'm okay with gathering and stockpiling resources, but so many things call for those specifically. The constant waiting for them to finish smelting (because you'll always need to smelt more) just stalls the sense of progress.
Is Sandrock better in regards to that aspect?
I haven't gotten super far into Sandrock yet, but the way they handle resource collecting is vastly different. You get everything from recycling junk scrap, it's kind of interesting.
Very different though
Islanders, it's a really nice, minimalistic game that I can do for hours if I just want to relax. Just placing buildings to get points and seeing pretty islands forming.
I was going to say that sounds a lot like Dorfromantic — and it is! There’s even a bundle on steam that includes both (and a few others) so there’s definitely recognition of their similarities there!
It's basically Dorformantic, but without the set tile size. Islanders makes more out of the nuances of fitting things in a small space, whereas Dorf is more matching the correct edges.
I like Slime Rancher. Dave the Diver was also pretty cozy.
Does Microsoft Flight Simulator count? Once you're on autopilot and just enjoying the (mostly true-to-life) world scenery passing by below you, it can be a great way to just sort of appreciate the world as it is.
Of course, you can get really stressful situations in it, too, but if you seek out the right type of plane and flight plan, it can be very relaxing.
Definitely counts. I came into this thread to mention pilot wings 64. The vibe and nostalgia together are really relaxing for me!
Cozy Grove! It's a game where you play as a little Spirit Scout (think girl scout/boy scout/girl guides but with witchcraft and psychopomp elements) who is going for her badge but ends up on an island of ghost bears who all have really challenging traumas from their lives and deaths that they haven't dealt with.
You can just run around and explore the island, talk to Flame, your campfire (I adore Flamey and all of his phases) and discover bugs and fish and arrange your campsite decorations. It is great for ADHD and losing time because you can always see your real time right on the game screen, and it has a calm day/night cycle. The environment sounds are pleasant ASMR and there is no up selling, real money at all, or gaming pressures. The item descriptions are all cute and have clever depth. I love falling into the calm environment of Cozy Grove. I've literally sobbed from some of the stories, and also used it to decompress after hard days.
My girlfriend has been playing this a lot and really likes it, I think she would recommend! I haven't played it myself but casually watching her play, I think it would qualify.
Thank you so much for the recommendation! I'd heard of Cozy Grove but haven't really looked into it for whatever reason, and you have really sold me! I'll definitely be checking this one out.
+1 for Cozy Grove! I loved the changing of the seasons. Just know that once you get towards the end game, it can get a bit grindy and repetitive.
I've been playing an early access game called Coral Island which is a blend of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing and wears its influences on its sleeve. They definitely have the philosophy of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The game has enough heart and love put into it to feel like its own thing. Plus it has merfolk.
Starbound is a 2d action game that plays like a lower stress version of Terraria with multiple planets, and it was developed by the same studio as Stardew Valley so it's got that cozy aesthetic. Upgrading and decorating your little spaceship just feels so nice.
It was published by Chucklefish, who also developed it, but not made by ConcernedApe, who made Stardew Valley.
I played a bit and think it's a good recommendation, however.
That's funny. I looked Starbound up to make sure it was developed by them and not just published, but didn't look up Stardew. Nice correction.
It has some fantastic music as well. However I will never totally forgive/forget how much fun the beta was and how they stripped away so much for the full release.
Art of Rally came up, but Funselektor's previous game, Absolute Drift, is also a great, lower-stress recommenation. It is a large open world you drift across completing challenges and events with a slightly silly Asian-inspired backstory.
Not that Art of Rally is particularly stressful, but the rallies can get rather difficult in later events. The open map mode is similar to Absolute Drift with challenges to complete on maps as you unlock them.
In that vein, I like Descenders, a downhill mountainbiking game with procedurally generated routes. Every map gets a condition to complete for an extra life, and you unlock the next area by completing the last. You can see others on tracks if you're online, but you are only competing with yourself.
I posted in a reply about satisfactory, but I want to possibly throw out genshin impact out there. This is only if you can find yourself immune to gatcha pressure though. It took me a while to come around to even installing the game, but I have come to really enjoy having it around on my computer as filler time.
I love the art, charcaters, enviroments, and the music. For me the primary gameplay is generally going around finding little do dads in the world. This is a great recipe for a saturday morning chill out session. Just fire it up into a painting with great music and tromp around. There is zero danger, you can warp out of any situation, virtually zero penalty for dying anyway, and the difficulty is honestly trivial for 90% of content.
I don't find the gatcha element that bad, you can burn through their daily tasks in about 10 to 20 minutes of gameplay if you want, or just ignore it. You honestly measure progress in chars in months, at least at the speed I play, which fits the just calm down and enjoy the time you are here.
However warning as usual if you get pressured/hooked and want to get something NOW, the prices are stupid high. But for the cost of nothing it's a cool world to explore and highly reccomend as a chillout game.
Previous thread about the same subject
Procedural Realms is new to me as I learned about it on Tildes on a recent thread about MUDs.
But if you can get past the text interface it really scratches that cozy itch and could be considered a modern rethink of the classic MUD.
Combat, farming, crafting, building, fishing, and exploration in a chill turn-based text environment with a web interface available.
Best of all, no ads, and no payments of any kind. Just a labor of love from a clever dev who cares about his passion project.
I am not affiliated in any way but this is my new cozy game.
https://proceduralrealms.com/
After playing and loving Baldur's Gate 3, I decided to go back and play the first game, Baldur's Gate 1, for the first time ever. It's very relaxing and I'm shocked how much fun I'm having playing a 25 year old game. Modern games can be a bit overwhelming with how much stuff it has, so it's been nice to play a retro game.
Maybe not quite the answer you were going for, but recently Hades has been filling this niche for me. It's not quite "cozy" in the sense that it's definitely a more frantic style of game... But I find the art-style cozy (particularly in the House of Hades), and most importantly it's something I can just pick up and play for ~30 minutes and know I'll have a good time... I have a big backlog of games to get through, but lately I've had less time for games and it's kind of daunting starting something new when you have to get everything set up, learn new things, and you don't know when you'll next have the opportunity to play.
I like the idea of cozy games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, but I've been really struggling to enjoy them lately :(! I find them kind of daunting and stressful because there's a lot of choice for what you can do, and I don't like feeling the decision fatigue and running aimlessly for 30 minutes and leaving unsatisfied with what I did. Also I guess a lot of these kinds of games are kind of "job / work" games that subconsciously make me feel like I should be doing something more productive instead, and since they're more relaxing it's harder for my mind not to wander to those kinds of thoughts.
Oof that last sentence. Yeah, for me it ends up being "if only I could work as hard irl as I do in-game..."
Yeah, I feel you! I guess it's important to realize that enjoyment should be a part of life, and that while games may resemble work they often remove a lot of the barriers that stop us from enjoying work... At least for me a lot of the time when I struggle with work it's when I don't feel appreciated. Pressure and a lack of compassion / humanity in the workplace can make it really hard to stay motivated, whereas games are usually designed to be enjoyable / motivating, and a lot of the rough edges of real life are shaved off... I guess my point is, you should try not to feel bad about that. It probably means that you enjoy the core of that kind of work, and other factors in life may be getting in the way of that, and maybe that's worth reflecting on?
This might be a bit ironic, but lately I've found that Inscryption has fit that bill for me. After beating the main game, I've been replaying the Kaycee's Mod add-on which turns the first portion of the game into a sort of replayable roguelike card game. The game has a horror aesthetic, but it's "cabin in the woods" horror which, once the tension is removed, is just a cozy candle-lit wood cabin (you know, besides the teeth pulling). It's easy to hop in and out of, it's turn-based so there's no rush while playing, and the atmosphere is engrossing.
Inscryption is such a great game. The main story is interesting and engaging even without understanding the ARG elements (I cried at the end, no joke) and the main card game is genuinely super fun (though I'm not skilled enough to get too far in Kaycee's mod lol).
For me it's some of these games:
Fable TLC (beat the game and just walk around)
Sims 1 (the music brings me back to a worry free childhood)
Sim city 4
Runescape 2007 version
It’s unfortunately exclusive to Apple Arcade, but I recommend “Japanese Rural Life Adventure”. It’s very much like harvest moon, animal crossing, etc. But it’s more casual: instead of ruthless economic calculations, you follow a pretty linear set of tasks (while having some freedom when farming, foraging, etc). The coziness is dialed up to 11.
Mine was always SimCity, for Super Nintendo. I really enjoy the series and play 4 pretty regularly, but sometimes, when it's late at night and I'm headed to bed, I'll load the snes game on my phone and mess around. The music is what gets me with it, it's very mellow and charming, and because it's the old version of the game, there isn't just a ton of management aspects to juggle around. Disasters can be difficult but they also, don't have to happen if you don't want them. I like to build a little town and just see how it goes until I get sleepy.
That sounds absolutely lovely. I do something similar with Pokemon Crystal (Clear, a romhack) on my Gameboy. You really captured a nostalgic vibe with this comment, thank you for sharing that with us.
Dorfromantik is a great Catan like tile laying game with pretty calming graphics and music. There are challenges to be completed or you can just create whatever landscape you wish.
Carto is a game that I haven't heard anyone mention yet. It's a game about maps and when you change a map, you change the world represented by that map. It's a quite interesting puzzle game.
I highly recommend Fae Farm. It just released recently for PC/Switch. Been having a blast. Great quality of life tweaks to the common farm sim mechanics.
I am playing Atelier Sophie right now and thinking it is pretty cozy.
In most ways it is a typical JRPG but it is a personal story as opposed to a quest to “regenerate the world” and it is not at all grindy actually it has some mechanisms that gently discourage excessive grinding. Events are well paced so you get one frequently when you come back from a gathering expedition, you get cued a lot about what you have to do to discover things, it is not like Dark Souls. If your party gets wiped out you wind up back at the Atelier only having lost some of what you just gathered. It has various ways to make sure you are engaged in various game mechanics and not miss events, it has deadlines but I don’t find them at all stressful.
Recently I've been playing 'Smushi come home'. It's an extremely cozy lofi platformer, in a way similar to A Short Hike. The challenge level is very low, and it's relatively short (about five hours), but it is exactly the distillation of what I'd call a 'cozy game'. You're a smol mushroom collecting things, exploring and doing quest with the goal of going back home.
That looks absolutely lovely, I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation! I love the resurgence of short and enjoyable platformers such as these.
Journey is my therapy. Every once in a while I'll meet someone that shows me how to break the game and explore off the map too.
It makes me feel better when I feel bad.
I recently picked up Mars First Logistics not entirely sure what to expect, but what I got was a laid back and light-hearted physics puzzle game. A couple of days ago, I built a speciality designed Mars rover to deliver pizza.
You've inspired me to create a thread. Thank you.
That makes me happy to hear, you are very welcome. I've only had good experiences in asking Tildes for recommendations on things, and if we're lucky it can create some good discussion to boot!