Cozy games are getting darker

Fun games are hard to define. There is no single aesthetic line that runs through the entire genre. There are qualities we’ve come to associate with cozy play, sure – soft colors as in Little witch in the woodsfarming or life simulation as in Crossing animals: New horizonsand very little violence, like how Magic Potion Craft is mainly brewing potions. But those qualities aren’t actually requirements; fun games are more about how you feel. You know it when you see it.

And now the subgenre of cozy games is delving into new territory: the dark, cozy game. Cozy game expert Kennedy Rose, who goes by COzy K online, sees the nascent subgenre as a response to an increased interest in socializing in gaming. “[It] makes the subgenres within cozy games flourish even more,” she told Polygon. “Yes, we want to relax with some cozy task management mechanisms, but we may also want to uncover a gruesome mystery while doing so.”

It may seem like a cozy dark game complicates the idea of ​​a cozy game: how can a game be fun Dredging, which delves into psychological horror, be considered a fun game? But dredging is much more than the mutilated, grotesque fish that players retrieve from the depths and the red-rimmed eyes of the fisherman protagonist from his sleepless nights. It’s in the slow, methodical pattern of Dredging‘s gameplay and the nature of fishing itself. These qualities mesh in varying degrees with the game’s other themes – the mysteries and horrors of the sea – throughout the game. There are monsters to find – or to find you – and the consequences of sleeping too many nights. Hallucinations can do actual damage; unknowable sea monsters can tear your ship apart. Almost in spite of itself, Dredging has a warmth that draws it into the cozy genre. It’s the loop of his simple fishing mini-game that leads into a freighter-sized game Tetris. It is the fishmongers and fellow seafarers who buy your fish and repair your ship. These are the elements of community and consistency that are maintained Dredging from getting too dark.

“Friendly gamers […] wanting something that’s entertaining and engaging, but not something that puts us in that stressful, competitive state that some games can have,” Rose said. “That might look like an island full of cute animals or a dark boat expedition with mutated fish.”

Based in New Zealand Dredging developer Black Salt Games didn’t necessarily intend for the game to feel cozy; developer Alex Ritchie told Polygon that unease and curiosity were the two feelings he wanted to carry through the game. “If you had asked during development if I thought Dredging would appeal [fans of] fun games, then I probably would have said no,” he said. “But now I think you can get that experience out of it.”

The repetitive structure of fishing, both in games and in real life, always attracts Dredging back from the edge when it gets too close. It’s also a pastime that developer Joel Mason happens to enjoy. Likewise, Dredging Developer Michael Bastiaens added that it’s easy to be pulled out of the game’s quieter moments, but that perhaps it’s the “tension and dread” that make the cozy and more mundane bits more impactful.

The dark, cozy game genre can be traced back years or decades; Don’t starve may just be the original example, depending on who you ask. Canadian studio Klei Entertainment’s 2013 survival video game is notoriously difficult. Its aesthetic definitely says cozy with its muted colors and cute cartoon world, but the gameplay is uncompromising; cozy inside Don’t starve is more of a mindset. If you get used to failure – or you use one of them Don’t starve‘s creative modes – you can fall into the feeling of coziness. It’s a game that’s definitely more dark and fundamentally difficult than cozy, but that doesn’t detract from the warmer aspects of playing it.

Rose emphasized that cozy really is what you make of it. “Some people find farming simulations to be the epitome of fun, while others get stressed out by the fast-moving days and endless to-do lists,” she said. “Really, whatever game makes you feel cozy, it’s a cozy game.”

Developer Infinite Fall’s 2017 game Night in the forest may have defined a more traditional take on the dark, cozy game than such Don’t starve, However. The setting of Possum Springs and its beloved Maple Street exudes nostalgia, despite being fictional, and provides the kind of comfort that makes the game easily fall back even years after you last closed it. But like Dredging, Night in the forest has a head start on its themes of mental health issues, death, and the decline of late-stage capitalism; the contrast of coziness and darkness makes Night in the forest to something more as a whole.

Image: Bad Viking/Iceberg Interactive

In the years after Night in the forest was released, and even before that, the dark, cozy genre started to emerge in full force. That’s easy to see with people like Cozy forestthe 2020 mix between Don’t starve And Animal Crossing: New Horizons; Ori and the Blind Forest, a 2015 creepy-cute platformer from Moon Studios; and, perhaps the most fully realized example of the genre, Strange horticulture.

In recent years Strange horticulture settles the player in a small plant shop with a purring cat. As a new shopkeeper, you must label and learn about plants, then sell them to the people of Undermere, a dark and rainy town on the edge of a forest. The twist is that Strange horticulture‘s plants, as you might guess from the title, are rather strange: some will lure people to their deaths, and others can be used as incense that screams as it burns. It’s a slow game that progresses with each new customer and the ringing of the counter bell. There is a mysterious element to it Strange horticulturea curious attraction similar to that of Dredging. The route Strange horticultureThe cozy and dark elements that weave into a nest are both comforting and unnerving – it’s a feeling that feels good to be inside, without having to unravel it.

“It makes perfect sense to me that this combination would work,” says Ritchie, MD Dredging developer, told Polygon. “But I’ve never really explored why. I think it comes down to this: you need good contrast to make any experience meaningful. You can’t make something look loud if it’s never been quiet, and like in art, “complementary” colors are the ones that contrast the most. A cozy game that you know isn’t always fun makes the comfortable parts even more meaningful.”