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.
Wait. The next upgrade which is 245,000 monies comes with +8 slots. OK. You start with 32 slots and I now have 44. I can get a total of +32 more (3 more upgrades), and it’s still not enough. Even though you can stack the same items, I still have to empty my backpack every ten to twenty minutes. It’s so fucking annoying. Just let me have unlimited storage! I mean, make it cost a million coins. Fine. whatever. But it’s seriously undercuts the enjoyment to have to run to the fire and store things every ten or so minutes.
It doesn’t help that you also have to upgrade your tent to get more storage spaces, and that is not cheap, either. Give. Me. All. The Space. Oh, and you have to pay to upgrade yourcloset, too. You start with 250 slots, which sounds like a lot, even with 8 of them filled for your scout’s uniform. I just filled them all up yesterday. You can buy +10 slots for 30,000 coins, but that also increases with each +10 slots bought.
Just–why? I’m already paying for the clothing. Why make me pay for the slots, too? I like to have all sorts of clothing, even if I only wear two or three outfits. Speaking of, there’s a new characetr called Taylor Made Couture. And, yes, they are a fashionista who sells clothing specifically made by them. I don’t think they gave their pronouns, so I am not going to presume. It’s funny, though. I don’t know if any of the bears have given their pronouns except one (nonbinary), and many of them have gender-neutral names/nicknames. And yet, I have made my assumptions. Because I live in this world.
I love the bears. Even the one who gets on my nerve is relatable. This was the strength of the first game, too. Every bear touched my heart, even the ones who showed an ugly side to themsleves. Or maybe I should say especially the ones who had really ugly flaws. That made them see real, which is the same in this game. Yes, they sometimes flirt with stereotypical, but I like that they each have heart. Whether I like them or not (and there’s one I really struggle with), I can feel the sincereness to them.
It’s not surprising that my favorite bear is on the specturm (I would say), someone who was overlooked in life because of her gender, bitter, and intensely lonely. Plus, there is an anger to her that runs so true to me. I always perk up a bit when I talk to her because I feel like we’re on the same wavelength.
The bears are the reason I keep playing, quite frankly. It’s on the strength of my feelings for the bears that I start up the game each day. And because I don’t want to miss a day. That’s just a personal quirky, though. I don’t think there’s an achievement for days played in a row–there was in the last game. That’s probably why I’ve carried it into this game.
There is an achievement for playnig in different seasons (I just looked). And for playing on multiple days, but that’s only seven days, and I have that one. There’s one for dressing up a mannequin fifty times which I just did by getting the mannequin naked and then putting on one item (glasse) and taking it off repeatedly. You can’t do it without stopping because while you can press A to wear an item and take it off, you can’t do it again without moving the cursor. Therefore, I just went up and down one spot over and over again until the achievement popped.
More tomorrow.