Played it on PC and it’s really cool, although I was hesitant at first considering it looks a bit like those cookie cutter role based rpgs that just want to rent a spot in your wallet.
I’ve watched the trailer and it doesn’t look good enough to justify buying the remake I think.
I also fear that I may just be too old for Metal Gear. I used to love them though and I’ve played all of them at least 3 times, except the fifth one which was just a huge disappointment.
I feel like Paleo Pines is a decent mix of Animal Crossing and Stardew, with just a tiny bit of ARK thrown in (Dino taming). The art style is honestly so freaking adorable and I can’t get enough of the dino buddies and all their little noises. I think the dev team might all be women, but I’m not 100% on that.
There’s a demo on steam that lets you play through the first three weeks, and you can save and continue, and your progress will transfer to the full game if you decide to get it.
Probably the best cozy game that I’ve played in recent times has been Thank Goodness You’re Here. It’s an incredibly quirky and zany romp through a northern British town full of lively characters and great visuals. The soundtrack is honestly probably one of the best OSTs around in recent years, too. Your only controls are movement, jumping, and slapping things to interact with them.
The entire game can be finished in about 3-ish hours depending on how often you stop to just interact with the world. I honestly can’t recommend the game enough, and I’m not even English.
What are we talking about? Stardew Valley like farming sims? Zero-gameplay diorama builders? VNs with happy contexts? These are all so wildly divergent.
IMO, a lot of them suck as games because they’re not really games in the traditional sense. They are experiences. Or even just art pieces. What annoys me most about them is they are usually touted and tagged as being “experimental” and yet don’t do anything new or unique or anything one could legitimately say is experimental.
There’s this concept in game design called game flow, which in simple terms is essentially what happens when a game is both engaging and challenging at just the right amounts to the point where you get immersed in the experience. You can’t have good flow without both some challenge and reward.
That’s why games that are too simple and/or easy are boring. I feel like that’s a very fine line you have to walk if you want to make a “cozy” game. How relaxing is relaxing enough without being boring? You need a minimum of challenge and stakes, because that’s makes good games good.
Imo what’s key to a cosy game is that you choose within the game how much you want to challenge yourself. Take stardew, for example. My mum was content just farming crops. I went into the difficult mines with lots of combat etc. You can enjoy the game if you don’t do the hard parts, or you can do them sparsely, or all the time. You choose, and that’s what makes it so relaxing.
Cosy games are meant to be relaxing, almost stress-free experiences that revolve around repetition and reward playing them in small doses each day. I can understand why hardcore gamers don’t like them, but at the same time they’re not made for them.
I’m not a hardcore gamer, but usually mostly in RPGs. But I’ve also got hundreds of hours in stardew and thousands in the Sims. When I play one of those, I’m always low key scared to grow bored because I LOVE those games and I know that there won’t be another good one right around the corner.
When I got bored of Skyrim, I played the Witcher, and when I got bored of that, I played Fallout. Repeat ad nauseam, because there’s more playable, entertaining RPGs out there than any one human could play in a lifetime.
With cosy games, not so much. When you grow bored of one, chances are, there won’t be another one that’ll be enjoyable to you at all, and you’ll have to hope and wait that something good will come out at some point.
They’re not really for me, as I find it difficult to relax while playing them, but I’m glad they exist.
Gaming had a real identity crisis around the 2000s, when every other game was a brown military shooter.
Now we’ve got cute games and cozy games and artsy games, and I feel like that opens up the genre to more people and enriches the whole medium.
Cozy games are more difficult to make, though, because the gameplay is not anymore just “point cursor at screen and click in the right moment”. So, yeah, you will get some worse examples, especially as the genre is still figuring itself out.
Ultimately, these cozy games are so often Indies with a limited scope and budget. The fact that this sort of genre has found the following is a good thing for gaming and Indie devs.
Of course once we reach market saturation and people are fed up with them, they won’t sell as well and new twists on the genre will have to be developed in order to stand out. This is a good thing for gaming and indie devs again.
There is a steam group called “Wholesome Games” that lists cozy games. They also do nintendo direct style twitch streams. There is a ton of amazing cozy games. Of course there are some not so great ones. But the video seemed to focus only on stardew valley clones. Even though there are so many unique ones out there.
These trailers have started to blend together for me, and I think that’s the issue. They might have a “nice vibe”, but that alone isn’t enough. What makes your game unique and fun to play? Sell me on that!
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Aktywne