Talking more about games. I am an extremes person in general. Take drinks. I like them boiling hot (burning my tongue) or ice cold (brain freeze). I either love something or I hate it. I’m not often tepid about something. Take movies. I love: Once, The Station Agent, and Japanese Story. And, yes, I realize that none of them are from the last decade. Movies that are beloved that I absolutely hated: Pulp Fiction, Titanic, Se7en, Amelie, and most recently, Knives Out. I could write two thousand words on each of them (and I have on at least the first) and why I hated them.
By the way. I am very careful about not saying that something is trash (except the last of those movies. That was trash. I’m just bitter because I was honestly expecting to like it when I watched it, though I had my doubts from the trailer). I prefer to talk about pop culture in terms of what I like and don’t like because unlike some people, apparently, I can see that something is good while simultaneously not liking it.
Side Note: I really don’t understand how some people are so into their own viewpoint, they can’t imagine someone having a different one. There was one content creator I used to watch before it turned out that his girlfriend was a racist, sexist asshole (and, apparently, that brought out the worst in him), and I quit watching him. He argued strenuously with one of his cohosts that if something was good , he would like it. So if he didn’t like it, it had to be bad. That made no sense to me. I don’t care for the Mona Lisa, but I can acknowledge that it’s art. I don’t like Bach, particularly, but he certainly could compose. More contemporarily, I did not care for Breaking Bad, but I recognized it was well-acted.
More to the point, if I like something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. I adore the music to Grease and will happily sing There Are Worse Things I Could Do at the top of my lungs, but I am the first too admit that the plot and themes are hot trash.
In the case of the cozy games I like, though, I think they are good games. I’m grading with a generous curve because they are all indie games. The three that spring to mind, Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall), Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), and Cozy Grove (Spry Fox) have quite a few things in common.
One, they all have animal characters. Night in the Woods is my favorite non-FromSoft game, and I have played it three times. I would have stopped with one playthrough and been quite satisfied, but I watched an Errant Signal video that pointed out why it would behoove you to play the game more than once. As I was watching the video, I noticed that he was walking on the telephone lines–which I hadn’t done in my own playthrough.
Holy hell. You can do that? I immediately started a second playthrough and let me tell you that I missed a ton of content because I did not realize you could walk on the telephone wires. Plus, there was a scene that the first time you try to go to the left, you can’t. But, if you go back later, you can. So I missed a whole NPC questline because of that.
The story is written in such a way that if you just do the basics, you get one story. If you explore more, you get details added to the story that adds pathos and heart. There are details you can completely miss–like the fact that Mae, the main character is bisexual. When I got the bit of dialogue that made me realize she was bi, I cried. I’ll admit it. I already felt connected to her because she was a black cat (love black cats best!) who was sarcastic, snarky, and had low self-esteem. She was bipolar, which I’m not, but she also had anxiety issues–to which I could relate. She dropped out of college after an episode and went back home to lick her wounds.
I have never felt as connected to a protag as I have Mae. She had issues with her mom, which played out in a poignant way. I will say that in all three games, there is a supernatural element that is not needed. I think this game and Spiritfarer would both be stronger without it. It’s neutral in Cozy Grove, but I wouldn’t miss it if it were gone. I like the helping characters to the other side aspect of Spiritfarer and Cozy Grove, though. Both of these tackle death is a way that is both gentle and heartrending.
I don’t know why I find it easier to relate to animals who are acting like humans than actual humans. I don’t think it’s the fact that they are animals, but that they are well drawn (both literally and metaphorically). In Spiritfarer, my favorite was Gwen, a hard-bitten city deer who chain-smoked and constantly drank black coffee. She had an abusive father who made her childhood very hard, and she was unable to show love because of it. I fell for her and refused to take her to the Everdoor for a long time because I did not want to let her go. I cried taking each character to the Everdoor, but especially her. I felt bereft once she turned golden and went up in the sky to be a constellation.
In Cozy Grove, my favorite character is one of the DLC characters. Her name is Lillian McQuill and she is a mouse (bear. All the characters are some kind of bear) who is made of origami. Or wearing an origami outfit. She is a writer, obviously, and riddled with anxiety. I can read her thoughts, which makes her uneasy. She is just so precious. I also like Ben Hiberneczek, the brown cat. He’s very money-grubbing (which I don’t like), but he was also devoted his wife and now a passel of kittens. Still. Lillian is near and dear to my heart. I visit her last every day because she’s my favorite.
All of these three games have such heart. Because they are indie games, I am much more forgiving of them than I would be a triple A. I will say that in the Cozy Grove DLC, there is a puzzle that is a variant of an already-existing optional puzzle. It is so glitchy that I almost quit playing because I could not make it work. I finally did, only to have it come back a few days later. Since it’s mandatory to make progress with one of the new characters, I have to do it. And I hate it. But I’ll put up with it, begrudgingly, as long as I can eventually ‘solve’ it (solve in quotes because as I said, it’s broken).
Cozy Grove 2 is coming next year. I don’t know what Scott Benson (Infinite Fall/The Glory Society) or Thunder Lotus Games are doing next, but I cannot wait to find out.