Relaxing simulator games have been my go-to genre since I started gaming. It all started with Animal Crossing: Wild World and basically escalated from there. Before I knew it, I'd spent thousands of hours rebuilding communities, cultivating crops, and generally pouring more energy than I realised into these stereotypically cosy and comforting games. Over the years, even though I have broadened my horizons and expanded my genre list, I still fall back on my faithful relaxing games, and I probably always will.
But the "cosy" tag gets thrown around a lot, and lately I feel like more and more games are being branded with a title they don't necessarily suit. Don't get me wrong, a huge amount of cosy games have launched this year, a lot of which I've played, such as Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Fantasy Life i, and even Tales of the Shire (despite not enjoying it). Which are all honest additions to the esteemed tag. But these examples all have a lot in common. There are characters you spend a lot of time with, goals to complete at a leisurely pace, and there's an element of breathing a new life into something. Be it an island, a town, or just a small stretch of land.
I don't think every single one needs to follow this formula to earn its keep. Otherwise we wouldn't have 'cosy games', we'd just go back to calling them life sims. Typically, a cosy game describes something with low-stakes content and no violence. They tend to be more relaxing, and can be played at a pace you decide. But I feel like so many games, especially things like Leaf Blower Co and Cash Cleaner Simulator on PC and Chillin' By The Fire on Nintendo Switch are being marketed as "cosy" because it's so trendy at the moment or their standard genre doesn't seem enticing enough.
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By sticking a buzzword which so many people are now incredibly familiar with, you pique the interest of a group of people who won't necessarily go out of their way to research it much further. And now they're stuck playing whatever half-baked game has been sold to them. Cosy games are popular right now, so marketing your campfire building simulator as one is probably your best bet at appealing to that audience. After all, the vast majority of people scrolling through a digital storefront are probably going to read the brief description and scroll past.
Not every single task that can be simulated is going to be relaxing and fun (or more importantly, worth playing). Farming and life simulators are popular for a reason, but that's not just because of the time you spent doing things like farming or gardening. Most of the time, the thing that separates a good farming sim from a great sim to me is the characters you meet along the way. This aspect of community in a virtual world really helps you feel connected to a game and is something that so many new "cosy" games are missing entirely.
It now seems like the format of typically wholesome games is straying away from the actual experience in favour of looks and audio. Soft colour palettes, lo-fi beats, little to no direction, these are all elements of a lot of games I've been seeing with the tag lately. Of course, these elements do apply to a huge number of relaxing games and they certainly help pull an experience together, but they shouldn't be the whole selling point. If the actual content or story of a game is boring or half-finished, slapping some light colours and some lo-fi tunes in the background isn't going to fix it. Adding "cosy" to the title because you've decided to not add any sort of purpose to what you're doing also isn't going to be your saving grace. Just be honest, you haven't finished your game.
It's particularly frustrating as these games have been a jumping off point for people starting to show an interest in gaming for the first time. Games like Stardew Valley, a pioneer in the wholesome gaming space, are fantastic for these sorts of players, but it has inspired a flurry of farming, life, and mundane task simulators to be released and clog up storefronts. If you've just started investing your time and money into gaming, a handful of bad games are probably enough to put you off. And there are plenty of bland cosy games you'll probably have to sift through before you hit gold at the moment.
But as much as I can complain about how that's not what I consider to be cosy, thanks to how hard it is to define the genre, it's something that I'm sure so many people will be fighting for years. Especially since cosy isn't a thing, it's a feeling. It's a personal connection that brings a feeling of comfort at the end of the day, and while a lot of the things I'm seeing aren't experiences I'd go out of my way to connect with, I know that some people will find joy in the sheer amount of niche games released. I just hope that it can eventually go back to a tight knit bunch of games that are actually fun to play and not just a desperate attempt to sell whatever project you've half-finished.
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