Cozy Games: Bringing Wholesomeness to Kids' Games Article

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Cozy Games: Bringing Wholesomeness to Kids' Games

Jan 14, 2023 | 0 Votes

by Mel - rate Your vote Designed for players to simply “chill out,” you will hardly find any aggressive, bloody first-person shooters or unnerving apocalyptic scenarios on most cozy games. In this article, we list a couple of the best cozy games for all ages to enjoy, most of which can be found on the Steam platform. Games Educate Kids - Cozy Games: Bringing Wholesomeness to Kids' Games

Games Educate Kids - Cozy Games: Bringing Wholesomeness to Kids' Games

Cozy games is a genre of video games for all ages that is focused on relaxed, wholesome, feel-good, and clean fun no matter the content of the gameplay itself. With picturesque worlds, delightfully soothing soundtracks, and uncomplicated gameplay that is intuitive enough for everyone to master quickly, some developers view cozy games as an offshoot of the life-sim genre first made popular by The Sims in 2000. But instead of adult human characters, cozy games generally feature cute, anime-style characters, such as anthropomorphic animals or child-like humans, who engage in player activities such as farming, building, gathering, growing, and nurturing, with a core goal of fostering self-expression, creativity, and in-game social skills in outcomes that are often open-ended.

Designed for players to simply “chill out,” you will hardly find any aggressive, bloody first-person shooters or unnerving apocalyptic scenarios on most cozy games. In this article, we list a couple of the best cozy games for all ages to enjoy, most of which can be found on the Steam platform.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

A massive 2021 update to the grand-daddy of all cozy games, 2001’s Animal Crossing; Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its subsequent release, Happy Home Paradise continues to chronicle the original adventures of your human character who lives in a village inhabited by various anthropomorphic animals who can do various activities like fishing, bug catching, and fossil hunting.

With the current update adding new items, more NPCs (including a few old player favorites), and new ways to spruce up your home with accent walls and ceiling décor, Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise has built on the classic game play even more with yet more items, a new currency, gameplay challenges, and interior design details like the ability to shine furniture and add partition walls and counters.

Stardew Valley

If you’re yearning to leave the hustle and bustle of city life by starting a new life on a farm, Stardew Valley is the perfect game to explore your dreams. Inspired by the agricultural simulation role-playing video game series Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley players take the role of a character who quits a mindless job at Joja Corporation after inheriting their deceased grandfather's dilapidated farm in a place known as Stardew Valley. Equipped with a bit of money and some tools, it's up to you to bring the overgrown fields back to life and help repair the local town's infrastructure by growing crops, raising livestock, fishing, cooking, foraging, socializing with the townspeople, or, if you're feeling brave, venturing into the town’s mines to combat monsters and hunt for treasure. You may even find an eligible bachelor or bachelorette in town to wed and start a family with. Stardew Valley can be played solo or with up to three other players on a co-op farm.

Unpacking

In real life, few things are more stressful than moving house and unpacking. But in a video game, unpacking and rearranging your stuff to start a new life in a new home can actually be pleasantly cathartic. Unpacking is a multi-awarded isometric puzzle game from Australian indie studio Witch Beam where you simply open up boxes, empty their contents, and fit them into a new home. Part block-fitting puzzle, part home decoration, you are invited to create a satisfying living space while learning clues about the life you’re unpacking.

Each of the game’s eight levels play out during a pivotal move in an unnamed woman’s life. One moment, you might be opening up boxes in a dorm room; the next, you’re taking the step of moving in with a partner. As you move through the levels, you discover the character’s life story through the items that come with her to each new home (and the items that get left behind), learning about her friends, family, interests and hobbies, and quirky habits along the way. Be forewarned, however, that Unpacked is not as open-ended as most other cozy games: in its final act, Unpacking packs a surprising emotional wallop.

Journey

Less a video game and more a work of interactive poetry, Journey is a unique game in that, while you play it with other people, you don’t actually speak to them. In the game, you travel to a mountaintop and while doing so, communicate through a series of chimes, working together with other travelers to try to solve puzzles and figure out who you are and why you are there on your journey.

Reviewers of the game praised the visual and auditory art as well as the sense of companionship created by playing with a stranger, calling it a moving and emotional experience, and have since listed it as one of the greatest video games of all time. Journey has won several "game of the year" awards and received several other awards and nominations, including a Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media nomination at the 2013 Grammy Awards for its haunting music.

My Time At Portia

Another farming sim game, My Time at Portia also incorporates aspects of role-playing video games into its world, with its most striking feature being that it is also canonically set immediately after an apocalypse.

The game takes place long after civilization has been destroyed, where humans have emerged from underground and begun rebuilding society. The player is cast in the role of the child of a famous builder, who inherits their father's workshop in the independent city state of Portia. With the help of your Pa’s workbench and the few things he left behind, you seek to become the indisputable best workshop in town. You can also interact with the town’s wacky cast of characters, making friends, fighting enemies, and uncovering long-lost secrets about the world pre-apocalypse.

Spiritfarer

An emotional and breathtakingly gorgeous single-player game that seamlessly weaves concepts of both life and loss into its gameplay, Spiritfarer stars the character Stella whose job is to ferry spirits of the deceased to the afterlife.

With an adorable cat named Daffodil by your side, you'll embark on quests, explore a beautiful world filled with humorous characters, pick up, care for and get to know the spirits on your vessel and play fun minigames related to farming and crafting all while uncovering more of each spirits backstory and granting their last wishes as they sail their way to crossing over to Everdoor, the gateway to the afterlife.

Spiritfarer was nominated for a Games For Impact and Best Indie Game award at The Game Awards 2020. It was also a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Game Writing and the Hugo Award for Best Video Game.

Coffee Talk

Coffee Talk follows a barista working in a coffee shop in a fantasy version of Seattle as they listen to the patrons’ (human and non-human alike) problems and help them out by serving a warm drink out of the ingredients at hand.

Developed and published by Indonesia’s Toge Productions, this visual novel-style game was inspired by the calm feelings of drinking warm drinks in the middle of a cold rainy night, alone or accompanied by friends. The game features visual aesthetics that are inspired by 90s anime, classic pixel art adventure games, and the chill imageries often associated with lo-fi chillhop music.

The game's plot is experienced over the course of two weeks, with each day acting as a vignette in which various characters visit the coffee shop and discuss their concerns with the barista and with each other. Immerse yourself in the stories of alternative Seattle inhabitants such as elves, orcs, mermaids, and many other fantasy races who live together with humans in a modern world we are familiar with. From the inter-species love story between an elf and a succubus to an alien visiting Earth with the mission of breeding with its inhabitants; Coffee Talk features story lines where the decisions do not come from the dialogue options you choose, but through how you treat and serve the customers of your café.

Cozy Grove

Fans of the Animal Crossing series are sure to love Cozy Grove, a wonderfully mellow game that draws on the same style as the Nintendo series—with the only difference being that you’re on a haunted island!

But don’t expect brain-eating zombies or vengeful ghosts out for blood at Cozy Grove. As a Spirit Scout, you'll wander the island's forest each day, finding new hidden secrets and helping soothe the local ghosts. By checking-in daily, doing a lot of crafts, running errands, and dressing up, you'll bring color and joy back to Cozy Grove as you encounter the local ghosts along the way.

New Cozy Games to Watch Out For

Naiad: Explore The Beauty Of Nature

Enjoy the beauty of nature in NAIAD, a one-player journey exploring a river as it flows towards the sea. Gamers play as a naiad, or water nymph, and explore the many environments the river moves through on its path. They also assist animals living along the river in overcoming obstacles.

The Spirit And The Mouse: Help A Village After A Storm

After a thunderstorm, the inhabitants of the charming French village of Sainte-et-Claire have many problems on their plates. Their electrical system is plagued with issues from lightning strikes and mischievous spirits called Kibblins.

Gamers play as a sweet mouse named Lila as she assists Lumion the Spirit in helping the village and setting everything right. They befriend the Kibblins through mini-games and do good deeds for the villagers as part of their quest.

Witchy Life Story: Save The Harvest Festival

In Witchy Life Story, the player is a member of a prominent magical family who's struggling with their witch training. They're sent to Flora to help the townspeople host their annual harvest festival and prove their readiness to continue their training. With several story-impacting choices, magical features, and potential romance options, it's up to the player to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch in this serene game that combines life-simulator mechanics with the player-choice elements of a role-playing game.