There is a certain style of mobile game that locks the player out from progression by either making them wait an obscene period of time (which can be mitigated by microtransactions) or require them to use a certain item in order to progress (which can also be mitigated by microtransactions.) For the most part, this dropped out of vogue in favor of gacha games, with the difference primarily being that resources were used for things other than making your gacha team stronger or getting better pulls. Cozy Grove adopted this style of gameplay but is utilizing it in a way that ensures the player will only play in short bursts.
Cozy Grove
Developer: Spry Fox LLC
Price: $15
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a Nintendo Switch code for review.
Cozy Grove starts you out with creating your spirit scout, a girl scout analogue that is sent to a ghostly island to return it to its former glory. No wait, you’re just going on your first solo camping trip, you went to the wrong island though and now you’re in charge of helping ghost bears! It’s as adorable as it sounds and the driving narrative keeps you going by giving you new items, allowing you to craft, and return the ghostly bears to life, possibly.
In Cozy Grove you’ll find yourself digging, setting things on fire to smelt or cook them, and completing tasks for spirit bears. At your camp, your campfire will request ghost logs. These logs will cause the campfire to grow, revealing more of the island and thus, more ghost bears! The bears are friendly and have adopted different personalities. One is the ranger bear from the scouts, another is the mayor of the island, they all have their roles and give you jobs related to what part of the island they’re most apt to contribute. I found myself finding pages for the scout manual for scouty bear and maker bear was giving me jobs to help improve my tools.
Immediately I was pulled into the game as both the art and whimsical humor allowed me to have fun immediately. I was given simple tasks to grow my campfire’s influence and find more spirit bears to help. Eventually unlocking the sea captain bear who gave me an encyclopedia to donate my items into and reward me for finding them. I’ve seen some players comparing Cozy Grove to Animal Crossing but I’d find that a bit reductionist for both games. Any parallel between the game veers off into its own separate style. You can build things around the island of Cozy Grove but it’s primarily to spread light from the fire. Prettying up the island is an option, and encouraged, but not necessary to progress the game.
Still, I did spend a decent amount of free time cozying up Cozy Grove. I find the art style very appealing. With the angled, fixed camera it’s possible to completely miss something in the world, I found that it did a pretty good job of making sure I could see both my spirit scout and items obfuscated by bigger set pieces in the forefront.
My biggest issues with Cozy Grove come from some of those time locks. Getting a time lock that basically says, “Come back tomorrow for more Cozy Grove,” is something I’m actually okay with. However, I did hit a point where I was trying to either craft a meal for one of my birds or create a dish required to complete a quest, and both required items that I would have to wait several days to acquire. For the most part, the questing is spaced out enough that once I had more than a handful of spirit bears unlocked I always had something to do. But this irked me. I was making progress in other areas but couldn’t move this one forward.
As requested by the developers, I would play roughly a half-hour of Cozy Grove a day. In my case, I was playing my half-hour before bed and found it to be a very pleasing and somewhat zen-like experience. From gathering someone else’s mail to setting fire to fish to collect fish bones, I am enjoying my time with Cozy Grove. I think Cozy Grove is a game everyone could enjoy if they allowed themselves to fall into it.
The Final Word
Once I found myself hitting my stride in Cozy Grove, it became a before-bed ritual.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
