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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Review, part four

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I’m back to talk more about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Review (Spry Fox). I am aware of the irony of me calling it a quick review when I’m on the fourth part, but it’s funny (at least to me). Plus, the new season started today so let’s goooooo with new items! The game was released on July 15th, and the new season (fall) started on September 1. That makes me wonder if they shortened the seasons in this game (again, in the first game, a season was two months with a month between two seasons) or if it’s just because of when the game was released. My hunch is that it was the latter, but we’ll see when the next season starts.

I really like the start of a new season because it means a ton of new resources. New critters (bugs, insects, and butterflies), new trees and flowers, new seashells, and new fish. I had not gotten anything new in a while. The thrill of seeing that ‘new’ in the deescription in bold black ink really perked me up just when I’ve been dragging my ass in the game.

It’s the same as it was in the last game, yes (new resources at the change of seasons) except they cut out the in-between month this time. Again, we’ll see if that’s just because of the release date or if they choose to cut the seasons short. I think it’s the former because they like to have things link up with the real world. Which, again, I appreciate for the most part.

I talked in the last post, well, mostly about plats and why I hate them so much. It was related to this game, yes, but it was more me just needing to go off. I hate plats, and yet, I feel compelled to get them after I obtain a certain percentage of the achievements. Usually it’s around the 65% that I start noticing what I need to get the plat.*

Back to all the delicous new resources in a new season. If this game holds true to the first game, this means I’ll get new bears and new recipes, too. I’m not sure about the latter because the specificity of an ingredient doesn’t matter. What I mean by that is you don’t make anything with, say a blueberry. It’ll use fruit jam, wnhich you make by burning the fruits. Same with nuts. No recipe will ever ask for a pecan, for example. It’ll just need nut flour, which you get from burning the nuts.

I actually like this because it makes the cooking fairly simple. I just have to gather all the resources and burn the ones that can be born. Easy-peasy. I don’t like how intensive some of the  master recipes are (highest tier), but that’s not unexpected.


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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Review, part three

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I have more to say about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox). In the last post, I mentioned my issues and frustrations with the resource gathering/management as well as my excitement for a mystery thhat is happening.

I do think if someone has not played the first game, this is a fine place to start. But, I also think overall the first game is better.

Here’s the thing with sequels. They are in a Catch-22 because they need to have the same charm as the original to appease the fans, but they also need enough new and fresh ideas in order to expand that appeal. I saw it happen with Dark Souls II (FromSoft) (which was a good game, even if ti wasn’t a good Souls game, per se), and I have seen it with other games, too. I liked Torchlight (Runic Games) better than Torchlight II, and I liked Hades (Supregiant Games) better than Hades II. Dark Souls is a more original game than the successor, obviously, but is it better? I would say the first half is, but not the second half.

All of that is to say that so far, I would say that I prefer OG Cozy Grove to the sequel. It was so fresh with its real-time gameplay, and I really gelled with the format. I couldn’t wait to play every day and to learn more about the bears. Even the excessive resource gathering (and the tiny inventory space). I only started getting frustrated when I went for the plat, which had some truly egregious achievements. So far, this game has tedious ones, but not any that are terrible. There are four locked achievements, though, which means that I’ll hold out as long as I can before giving in and looking them up.

Side note: I don’t really like hidden/locked achievements, though I understand why it evolved for them to be a thing. It’s because they are related to the story, and the devs want the players to be able to have those moments organically. At some point, though, I start worrying that I’ve missed an achievement–which means I will usually look up the full list before I get too far in a game.

FromSoft games have scarred me in this respect. I like to experience them unspoiled as much as possible, but I also don’t want to miss out on NPC questlines. Which are byzantine, obtuse, and really difficult to figure out without a guide–at least fgor me. But if I look up an NPC questline, I will get spoiled on other questlines. That’s just how it works.

It’s the same for locked achievements. I will hold out as long as possible, but at a certain point, I will give in. Otherwise, I’ll hit the achievements and get mad at how I wasted time by not looking them up earlier. That happened in Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock) with a very specific achievement that meant I had to play the whole game again just to get it. Well, not all of it, but a good chunk of it. Which infuriated me and left a sourr taste in my mouth. I still loved the game, but my enthusiasm for it was very subduued by the end of the plat run.


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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Review, part two

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I’m back to talk more about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox). This is the second part of A Quick Review, and we’ll see how many posts I write about it. I have a lot to say, so strap in and let’s go.

In the first post, I voiced some of my frustrations at the way the game deals with inventory and resource management. It’s similar if not exactly the same as the first game, and it frustrated me then, too. I detailed how the upgrades work, and it’s tedious AF. As I said in the first post, give me a permanent upgrade to an unlimited inventory. Make it astronomical like a million coins, but just do it. I hate having to go back to the  fire (Flamey) to endlessly stash things, usually after burning them. (That upgrades a lot of the items to a higher tier.)

Also, and, yes, this was also something that happened in the first game–the placement of items is so frustrating. It starts with being hard to click on the item or the NPC if the NPC is near lots of items. And, given how limited space is, most of the NPCs are near a lot of items*.

I said yesterday that the cooking machine was the same as in the first game. That is not quite true. In the first game, you had to talk to an NPC bear in order to cook things. This is much easier, and I appreciate that I can just go to the cooking machine to make what I need/want. That’s a definite upgrade from the first game.

Let’s take a minute to give praise to the changes that I appreciate. One, there are ghosts/apparyitions of your troop members (who are also lost somewhere like you) that show up to help you farm resources. They help with the same chores you have to do anyway, but if they help you, you get a ton more resources. I like that.

I also like some of the different things that you can turn your basic resources into via fire or recycling. In fact, I wished they had done more in this vein.

One thing I’m very curious about is…hm. How do I put this so that it’s not spoiler-ific? There is a mystery that started at a certain point of me doing one of the new things. Which I’m not going to say exactly what it is because it’s very different and unexpected. After doing it for several days (like weeks), I got a letter in the mailbox admiring my work. And encouraging me to do more. Which, despite my misgivings, I did. And I got another letter commending me for what I was doing. And I felt even worse about it. They said they’d send me another letter soon, but I have yet to hear from them.


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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Review

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I have played Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox) every day since it came out on Steam (July 15th). I have enough time with it to review it in A (not-so) Quick Review.

First of all, let’s talk about how it feels. It’s very much in the same vein as the first game, which means it feels very familiar. I have a routine set up that I started in the first game, and it serves me well, here, too.

I wake up and got to Mr. Kit, the main merchant in the game.

Note about Mr. Kit: I really wanted to learn more about him in th efirst game, but that did not happen. I am not holding out much hope that we’ll get more in this game because nothing is pointing that way, but it would be nice. He just appears out of nowhere selling ihs wares, and I’m supposed to trust that he has my best interests at heart?

Well, I do, actually. I just want to learn more about him for his sake. Meaning, I find him an interesting character aand would like to know more about his background. Was he a scout once? Does he have a family? Why is he on the campground selling his expensive wares? I assume because he’s a big fox that he’s meant to represent the company?

I sell all the stuff that I can. I have around three hundo (thou) right now, and I’m trying to save up to expand the store for the third time. I think that’s 450,000 monies, which is a lot. I’m getting there, but there are other things that I want to buy, too. In fact, that’s what I do when I got to Mr. Kit’s store. He sells clothing, and I like to see what I want to buy. One of the issues, though, is that they have expanded the clothing–but….I’ll get to that later.

After I viisit Mr. Kit’s store, I go to the cooking machine and make all the foods I need to feed my animals. This is also the same as in the first game. The animals need to eat so they can level up and give me better rewards. The thing is, though, it can get overwhelming to see that I need to make seven to ten dishes, especially if I don’t have the ingredients for some of them. There are different level to the cooked foods, and when you get to the higher tier, it takes so many resources to make a dish once.

The problem is that it quickly feels like a burden to do the daily chores. This was the same in the first game, and it carries on to this game. One of the biggest issues is the item-carrying capacity, and the storage space capacity. This was also a problem in the first game, and a top-five issue.

You start with something like twenty-five or thirty spaces in your backpack. I’m not even sure it’s that many. You can buy another four spaces for…I want to say it’s 200,000 monies. Ok. I just looked it up, and it’s way more complicated than that. The first extra four slots are 4,000 monies. Then, you have upgrade the store (which, as I said is pretty pricy). With each upgrade of the store, you can buy one more packet of +4 slots, but it goes up exponentially each time.


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The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games): A quick (?) look and review, part two

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I 100%ed The Spriit Lift (prettysmart games) today. The immediate feeling I had was relief. Relief that I could quit playing the game and move on with my life. This is something I hate about trying to 100% a game, by the way. How much I hate the grind and tedium by the end of the game. Dark Souls III (FromSoft) was my favorite game until Elden Ring (FromSoft again) dropped. When I went for the plat/hundo chievo, I was naive as to how much it would take out of me. By the end, I was hating the game with all my heart. And this was a game I played every day as my comfort game. When I got the plat*, I exhaled slowly, put down my controller, and did not touch the game for several months.

I did eventually pick it up again, but it was a journey. That plat was brutal and trash, by the  way. I have a completely unsubstantiated theory as to why the From plats are so terrible. It’s because Miyazaki did not want to do them, but he was pushed to do so. So he made them awful as his way of retaliating. Again, I have nothing to base this on, but it’s a theory that makes sense.

And the reason that Elden Ring‘s is a dream in comparison is because it was meant to be a mainstream hit/breakthrough. That’s not a diss on the game, by the way. It’s my favorite FromSoft game by a hair over Dark Souls III. Something can be a massive hit and still be unique to the vision of the director. I really hate people who act as if something that has mass appeal is automatically a sellout.

Ahem.

Back to this game. Here is part one to my review from yesterday. When I realized that I was close to the plat, I should have just shut down the game and walked away. Why? Because I knew what it was going to do to me. I knew that I get obsessed and my brain turns weird. I knew that I would keep on grinding until I got the two or three meaningless items I needed to get the plat.

I did not want to do it, but I knew I would.

Did I walk away? Of course I did not. I got into that flow state that I hit when I’m focused on an objective. Here’s the thing, though. With the Dark Souls III plat, I knew what I needed to do. I did not like what I needed to do, but I knew each grueling step. The worst was ten hours grinding to get a certain covenant item. Anyone who went for the plat and didn’t want to do the online PvP knows what I’m talking about.


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The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games): A quick(?) look and review

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I have been obsessed with a game for the past three weeks or so. It’s called The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games), and there’s a demo on Steam. Full disclosure: My good friend, Ian, is on the marketing team, which is how I heard of it. It’s a roguelike/lite deck-building ’90s teen-starring game that has ghosts and monsters in it, and it’s lots of fun.

I tried the demo, and I vibed with it immediately. I really dig the nineties aesthetics with the saturated colors. I also like that the teens are very diverse as far as race and ethnicity. Yes, some of them border on stereotypes as characters (the hunky jock that is obsessed about his next meal rather than any big issues; the goth girl who is miserable all the time; the nerdy photographer who is always snapping pics, but I’m fine with that.

The demo hooked me, and I bought it immedaitely. I played run after run as it had that ‘just one more run’ feel to it. Now, three weeks later, I almost have the plat. I just need to find two pieces of evidence, which is frustrating the hell out of me. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The launch trailer, which I have included below, has an appropriate grainy/scratchy VHS feel to it, which is not really what I felt playing the game itself. That’s not a slam on the game, by the way. If anything, it’s a testament to how absorbed I get when I’m playing that I don’t really pay attention to the graphics. Which are great!

Here’s the basic premise. The class of whatever year it is are paryting at the Vexington Hotel their senior year. Three of them stumble into the elevator and go floor by floor, fighting monsters along the way. Then, of course, they meet the big boss up in the penthouse, and that’s the end of the run. One run, if it goes the distance, is about forty-five minutes.

It’s funny. I would say that I’m not a turn-based kind of person. And yet, I played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) and this game. As I said to Ian, I had more fun with this game than with CO:E33. I drive people crazy when I say that one game is more fun than another while also saying that it doesn’t necessarily mean the former is a better game than the latter. Which, I admit, is jerk behavior on my part–but I have to have my fun somehow.


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Duck Detective, both games–A Quick Review

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I’m still on an indie dev kick, and I decided to play Duck Detective: The Secret Salami (Happy Broccoli Games). It’s about a duck who is, yes, a detective, and it’s very Sam Spade about the whole thing. Except with animals as the characters, and a very cute pop-up book, cut-out characters visual style. The whole thing is very snappy, and I loved the vibe.

The basic premise is that you play as Eugene, the duck detective. In this game, he gets a call from a mysterious person in the bus company complaining about their lunch being stolen. Eugene goes over and starts interrogating everyone. You get clues from your talks, and the I really like how simple the mechanics are. You hover over an object, and it has three exclamation points you have to find. Each one has a relevant word/phrase for your case files. Or, you could ask suspects questions/observe them, and you would get clues in that way as well.

I will say that some of the ‘deducktions’ (yes, that’s what they were called, and yes, it’s pretty cringeworthy every time I saw/heard it)  I had to make weren’t intuitive/did not seem to be what the clues was telling me, but I don’t know how much of that was my fault and  how much was the game.

In general, I was able to mash it out because the way to solve each issue was Mad Lib style. There were sentences with blanks, and every time I clicked on one of the blanks, a list of words would pop up. It would tell you helpfully if you had ‘2 or less’ words wrong or ‘3 or more’. There’s a story mode, too, in which it will tell you which answers you got wrong, but I did not turn taht on.

I will admit I had to look up one answer online because I just could not get it. When I looked it up, it turned out that I was looking at the puzzlse (figuring out a safe combination) in the completely wrong way. That’s just because my brain is weird, though, so I’m not mad about that.

I loved the characters, even the most annoying one. Who, I found out later, was voiced by Brian David Gilbert. He used to work for Polygon and now does really crreative and weird vidieos about once a month. He’s also in the second game, and he’s just as annoying in that game! And yet, somehow, he became endearing by the end of the second game. Not because he’s voiced by BDG, but just because of how well-written the games are.

Each game took me about three hours, and I easily platted both of them. I really appreciated that you could get the ten or so achievements in each game mostly just by playing the games. I loved the atmosphere and how the games were just oozing with charm. And the fifties feel to the dialogue with the effortless nods to modern time.


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Beacon Pines (Hiding Spot)–A Quick Review

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Beacon Pines (Hiding Spot) is another indie game that has been been in my backlog for quite some time. It’s also about dark themes and a mystery surrounding a sleepy little town. It came out to rave reviews, and people who like it really like it. I remember the ravings, so I was cautiously hyped when I decided to try it out.

A note: I am a visual person in that if I don’t vibe with the look of a game, I’m going to have a hard time getting into it. Same with the audio to a lesser degree. If a game is harsh on my ears, then I am not playing it. This game was pleasing to my eyes and easy enough on my ears.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re a kid, Luka, whose father died in a terrible accident six years ago and whose mother disappeared…I want to say several months ago. His grandmother comes to live with him, and this is where we start.

Side note deux: I have created the new category of A Quick Review for games I’ve finished in less than five hours. I’ve actually put more time into this game, but that was for cleaning up the trophies. There were a few that were a pain in the ass, and my god, I was not happy to be doing them. But since I only had two of ten left, well, I was going to do it, wasn’t I?

In addition, I probably won’t give a number to these shorter games because it doesn’t feel applicable. Or rather, I don’t think it’s fair to give a number to a game that’s only a few hours long in playing time. I may give up numbers altogether, but I’m not willing to go quite that far yet.

The main gimmick of the game is that you can make different choices at certain important points in the game. You do this by choosing a charm to put in the slot. Each charm has a word on it with the appropriate emoji/item/whatever on the charm. So if it has a picture of a pile of shit, well, then the word/charm is shit. And, yes, that’s an actual charm in the game. As are fight, flight, struggle, crooked, weep, and many more.

It’s a neat concept, and I really enjoyed being able to change what I did at certain points in the story–and those choices actually mattered. Except, they really didn’t. I’ll got to that in a second. And I will say that in trophy hunting, I really wish they had a skip button once you heard a dialogue for the first time because my god, some of the dialogues go on foreeeeeeeeeever.

At the beginning of the game, you’re at your father’s grave and musing about how it’s been exactly as long that he’s been gone as it was that he was alive in Luka’s life. (Six years and six years). Things quickly turn into an amusing romp, and this is the tension that continues throughout the game. Sadness and grief battling with snark and humor. I liked the vibe, and it never felt too heavy-handed in either direction.


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