Underneath my yellow skin

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

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Let’s talk more about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox). By the way, I don’t know when the 2 was dropped from the title and why. My hunch is that Netflix wanted it dropped because they did not want it emphasized that this was a sequel. I have no evidence to back it up, but it makes sense. Netflix is new to games and it seems to me that they want to make their mark. However, they don’t know how to do it as evidence by the fact that they opened and closed their AAA game development studio without actually producing a game.

I don’t want to tell them to stay in their lane, but I don’t NOT want to tell them that, either. I don’t know how the movie-renting business is going, but it’s gotta be going better than the games business (which is in shambles right now). Again, I don’t blame Spry Fox for taking that mad Netflix money (which I’m sure was hefty), which I wrote about in the last post.

I will be candid. I was disappointed to hear it was a mobile game because I don’t play games on my phone. I don’t do anything on my phone other than surf the web. In addition, as I mentioned in the last post, grinding for the plat in the first game and the glitches in the DLC really cooled my ardor for the game.

Is it fair to judge this game by the last one? I would usually say no, but…and again, I’m going to be very honest. While this game is a sequel, it’s more like a reboot/remake of the first game. To be fair, all the bears are different and new. New stories and new abilities. But.

I feel very churlish for waht I’m going to say because I loved the first game so much, but I have to be honest. This game–ok. I’m going to build up to it. First, I menioned yesterday that Spry Fox went too hard in the other direction when it came to the resources and how available they are. In the first game (and, yes, I will be comparing this game to the first game because they are very similar), it was very slow going to get the resources you needed because the game had a real-time 24-hour cycle. Things only showed up during certain seasons and for certain times. The first few weeks were excruciatingly slow, and I despaired that I would ever get enough resources to build up my island.

Of course, I did. And by the end of my time with the game, I was swimming in everything I could possibly need. And, weirdly, it felt a bit hollow. Like, I could do buy anything I wanted, so there was no reason to actually do anything. I’m not complaining because I wrung every drop of content out of the game. That’s the way I do when I really like something. I just keep at it until there is nothing left.

That’s not the best way to start this game, however. Because I had played the first one so thoroughly, this game fell flat for me. This is the curse of the sequels, by the way. When a game really hits you, you want the sequel to have the same things that you love about the first game, but you also want there to be enough differences to, well, make a difference. This was something that got rehashed ad nauseam when Dark Souls II came out (and I won’t get into it again here), but I maintain that there was no way the sequel was going to live up to the hardcore fans’ expectations.

I could say the same about this sequel. Not that Cozy Grove was anywhere near Dark Souls when it came to impact or reach. I’m just saying that for the fans, it was going to be hard to–well, wait. I’m not sure that’s true. I was going to say that for fans of the first game, it would be hard to top it with this one. I don’t know if that’s true, though. Cozy game lovers aren’t as brutal as hardcore fans, I feel. When I had issues with the Cozy Grove DLC, I went into the Discord and got some really good advice. And people were really nice and helpful. Unlike most FromSoft forums. Ahem.

I did not play the game today. Why? One. I felt overwhelmed. There is just too much going on. Yes, the pacing was too slow in the first game, but they over-corrected for the second game. There’s just too much. I was getting exclamation points (quests) faster than I could clear them. I don’t like that.

I also felt that I didn’t have to work for the stories the way I did in the first game. I came to truly  care for the bears in the first game because their stories unfolded across the whole game. My favorite bear in the whole game was in the DLC, but that was because I related so hard to her, not because they gave me enough of her story to flesh her out.

To be completely honest, the DLC was when I lost my enthusiasm for the game. The glitch I had really impeded my progress and made me really frustrated. If it had just been a side quest, I would be fine with it. But because it was the main quest, I felt I had to figure it out so I could finish the DLC.

My biggest issue with this game is that there are very few innovations, and the ones that exist are not interesting to me. Also, they’re frustrating to do with a mouse/keyboard. As far as I can tell, you can’t use a controller to play the game. There are a powers you use (there were some in the first game, too) that are awkward as fuck. One is a pufferfish that you squeeze in order to wash dirty areas. Cool, but it’s backwards of what I thought it would be. You have to move it away from the object you want to clean in order to use it. Also, you have to double tap or hold down the left mouse button to engage it.

These kind of objects weren’t fun to use in the first game, but they were at least manageable. Not so much in this game. Another thing is the critter net, which was in the first game. In that game, you could cast it pretty far away from you. In this game, not so much. At least I have not figured out a way to do it if you can. So you pretty much have to be standing on the critter in order to catch it.

In the end, the game has left me feeling pretty empty. If you have not played the first game, this one will be a solid entry point. Still, though, I would actually go back and play the first game over this one. I liked what I played of this one well enough, but there’s nothing there to make me want to keep going, sadly. It pains me to say that, but there you go.

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Look

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Cozy Grove (Spry Fox) is…was one of my favorite indie games. It’s a cozy game, yes, but it also dealt with some heratbreaking issues. The main gist of that game (and this one) is that you’re a Spirit Scout who has to help deceased bears (who are people, but bears) move on to the afterworld. The interesting conceit of the original game (and this one, I think?) is that there are real 24-hour days in the game. If you do the quests you need to do for any given day, you have to wait a literal day to get new ones. There are daily chores you can do (harvesting, planting flowers and trees, digging, etc.), too.

When I heard there was a sequel, I was thrilled. Then, Spry Fox was bought by Netflix and announced a Cozy Grove mobile game, which is this one. Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit. Since it’s a mobile game, I ignored it. I don’t play games on my phones because I find it frustrating to do much of anything on my cell. I assumed there would be a real sequel to the game at some point down the line. Because Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit was a mobile phone game, I assumed it was not the sequel.

Apparently, I’m wrong, but I’ll get to that in a second.

Last night, I went to Netflix to cancel my membership because they added ads to the base membership. “You’ll be pleasantly surprised how few ads you get!” they said. I cursed at them because anything more than zero is not a pleasant surprise. Of course, I can upgrade to the next tier to remain ad-free, but I watch something maybe once every three months or so.

Much to my surprise, Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit popped up and there was a button I could press to play it. I decided to take a look. At some point, it said that it was the beta and blah blah blah. I pressed through all that quite quickly because I did not care.

Before I get to the game itself, I have to say that today, I went to look for the game so I could play more. Much to my surprise, I could not find it. I went to the Netflix games page, and while it was listed there, I could not play it on my desktop that way. I Googled it and found out that if you’re in Beta, there should be a game menu on the home page of Netflix. I did not have that. I told Ian about it and he said maybe there was a toggle button in my account settings. I checked it out, and a big noooope.

I shrugged and decided that I had been put in beta by accident. And maybe that was why I was allowed to do so much on the first day. I put it aside and then later, decided to try to do a bit more Googling. I found the direct link to the game that way, and now I have that link open in a tab  because I don’t  want to have to spend twenty minutes to find it again.


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Imitation without innovation is irritation

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I like TV shows that I call gentle competition shows. It started with the OG Great British Baking Show or whatever it was called when Mel and Sue were hosting it. I adored them because they had an obvious synergy (you can’t fake it, and they had been friends for decades), and the format was fresh and new at the time. I really loved that they would cuss or start mentioning brand names whenver a competitor was having a bad moment (melting down, crying, etc.) so that it could not be used in the show. I loved that bit of information when I read it (they were protecting the competitors), and I was so upset when they were fucked over by…the BBC? Is that who owns the show?

I hated the new people and never watched the show again. Luckily for me, the show spawned a spate of imitators, a few that were good, but most of them were middling to utter horseshit. Why? I’ll get to that in a second.

I like the gentle competition shows because they showcase creativity in a way that is competitive, but not cutthroat. I prefer when they highlight the creative art itself and not just throw around tired old jokes and try to make the task outrageous.

One of my favorite of these shows is Blown Away, which is about glass art. In the last season, though, they made a few big changes that made me lift an eyebrow. They got rid of the host who I lked a great deal and replaced him with Hunter March, who used to host Sugar Rush (another one of these shows. This probably means that game isn’t coming back).

Here’s the thing. I love Hunter March. I think he is one of the better hosts of these kind of shows, even though some of the things he says is cringy. I don’t blame him because I’m sure it’s the scriptwriters’ fault.

Side note: That is one of my big criticisms about these shows. The humor is way too forced. I don’t need slapdash and five jokes a second. I would rather they just CTFO and let the contestants do their thing in relative peace. I know that’s not good TV, but it would do more for my nerves and my brain. I also don’t understand why they often have a comedian as the host, but I have accepted that this is just the way it’ll be.

The other thing I didn’t like about the last season of Blown Away was that they placed an emphasis on making everything bigger, grander, and more explosive (metaphorically). They went more for the wow factor and less about the actual art (which I think is why they got rid of the last host). It felt rather shallow and didn’t have the same heft as it did in the previous seasons. It’s not Taylor’s fault as he’s as good as he ever is. Katherine Gray, the head judge is phenomenal. It’s just felt that the powers-that-be were more focused on the numbers rather than the show itself.


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Not blown away by Blown Away Season 4

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As I have written about before, I am a big fan of the genre of TV shows I call ‘cozy competitions’, such as Sugar Rush, the original The Great British Bake Off (with  Mel and Sue), and Crazy Delicious. I don’t like the ones that are designed to make the contestants look mean or hate each other. I liked the first three seasons of Blown Away, a Netflix original about glass blowers. The host, Nick Uhas, was one of the least-cringeworthy out there (I have had a contiunal issue with the shows that they hire comedians as the emcees and have them say very insipid and sometimes wince-inducing lines).

Netflix sent me the notice for the fourth season, and I frowned as I watched the intro to the first episode (which is also the trailer, apparently. I have included it below). The voice was not the same as before, but I recognized it. It turned out to be Hunter March, who was the host for Sugar Rush. Which might possibly be my favorite of the shows–but he did have a few really bad lines he had to say on the show. His teeth are so white. So. White. But he’s a handsome lad, and from some pics of him I saw on his FB when I Googled all this just now, he has abs for day.

The trailer had a vibe to it I didn’t like. One thing I liked about the show wsa that it was very technical, but also low-key. This trailer had that PUMP IT UP! feel to it that I did not appreciate. The word epic was uttered. I don’t want epic. I want the work to speak for itself. I liked the show because it was nerdy and geeked out about blowing glass. I know nothing about glass-blowing, but I could appreciate a good geek-out.

Plus, and this is something that I will always notie about the show I’m watching–the contestants were much more homogeneous than before. In prenvious seasons, there were Asian people, queer people, nonbinary people, and other visible minorities. In this season, there was one black guy. That was it. It felt like a deliberate choice, by the way. The decision to make it less diverse.

In the first few episodes, there was so much harping on how everything was going to be EXTREME!!!! This was the biggest season ever!!!!! And, yes, there was a heavy emphasis on size. The prize was the biggest ever, too, and every day, there was a really good prize given away to the first place winner (of the day).

I was disappointed that Hunter March was the new host for two reasons. One, I liked Nick and thought he did well on the show. Not to say that Hunter wouldn’t because as I said, he had hosted my favorite show in this genre. But that was the other reason I was disappointed–this probably meant no more Sugar Rush. I mean, there was no sign it was coming back, and it’s been three-and-a-half years, but I was holding out hope.


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Drink Masters: an underrated gem

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In the past few years, I’ve been gorging on what I’ve termed gentle competitions (TV shows). Of coruse, the grande dame is The Great British Baking Show, wmich I used to watch when it  was The Great British Bake Off with Sue and Mel. Once they were pushed out, I was done. I felt it was sleazy and of course Paul Hollywood stayed because that’s the kind of man he is. I lost all interest once they were gone, but that sparked my love of competitive reality shows.

Here’s the  thing, though. I don’t like the ones where people are nasty to each other or snippy behind each other’s back. I used to watch Chopped, and while I liked it in general, I started to beccome aware of the pattern that made it easy to gues swho was going to win. Not only who was going to win, but who was going to be cut after each challenge. If someone said they were confident they were going to win, they were gone. Anyone who exceptionally nasty was gone. But, on the other hand, anyone who was mildly brutish stayed. It got boring by the end, if I’m to be honest.

K and I were talking about these shows because she enjoys them, too. She mentioned that she started watching them once the pandemic hit because she  just wanted comfort and warmth. I agreed with her vigorously. With the world being what it was, there was nothing better with hunkering down and bingeing a competition show. I preferred British over American for the most part.

I have watched so many of them, and now I know what I like and what I don’t like in a show. I will note that it’s different for different situations. If I’m working on something else, then I want a show that is lowkey. That means one that has a set amount of competitors each episode and then just whittles them down a la Chopped. One of my favorites in that genre is Sugar Rush. It’s the epitome of comfort food. You can consume it without much thought, and it’ll keep you satiated for an hour or so. There is nothing brilliant about the show, but it’s just a delight to watch.

The other way to do these shows is to have a group of contestants who last for the whole season. I confess, I prefer this to the different contestants per episode format because I can actually develop opinions and feelings for the contestants.

I will also say that when I see a bunch of diverse people on the show, I’m immediately boosted. It’s become the norm, which makes me happy. It shouldn’t even be a factor, but, sadly, it still is. What do I mean when I sy diversity? POC, obviously, but also gender in the competitions considered masculine (which, sadly, are most of them. Even cooking shows are considered masculine because–patriarchy), sexual orientation, gender orientation, and even age.


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Going Down the Netflix Rabbit Hole

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cuff 'em and stuff 'em!
You have the right to remain silent.

When I finished binge-watching Poirot episodes, I struggled to find another crime series to watch. I gave a half dozen a try, but I didn’t like any of them. The gritty, realistic ones were trying to hard, and the quirky one was too twee for my taste. The latter wasn’t bad, and I might revisit it, but it didn’t really hold my interest. Before I went on the Poirot rampage, I had been watching Criminal Minds. I stopped during Season Four when I hit the ‘that darn internet’ episode, but out of desperation, I started watching it again from where I left off. Let me be clear. I think Criminal Minds is a mediocre-to-competent program. Production is slick, and the acting is competent for the most part, but it’s basically the fast food of TV shows. Comforting, deep-fried, and unthinkingly consumed. It’s especially noticeable when you binge-watch the show and see how same-y every episode is. Horrific crime shown in the first five minutes. Obvious suspect introduced within the next ten. The team flies out and is often greeted with hostility. The case touches one of them in a personal way, and they have conflict over how to deal with it. Then, after more gruesome scenes, they figure out who the real culprit is and arrest him/her. The suspect rarely escapes, unless it’s one of the nemesis enemies.

The episode that caused me to stop watching the show actually turned out to be OK. It wasn’t an indictment on the internet as much as it was an indictment on the twisted individual who was using the internet to wreak mayhem and destruction. I started watching again, and I plowed through the whole series.* I noticed that as the seasons progressed, they started running out of ideas. That’s not uncommon with a long-running series, and it’s even more apparent when you watch the episodes back-to-back-to-back in a fairly short amount of time. I would say that when Paget Brewster was written off the show was the time it went off the rails. She was never my favorite character because she was too good at everything, but the team chemistry did take a hit once she was gone.

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