And the artistry is superb: this is a colouring book where your actions suddenly pour colour over the top, and that sudden enlightenment never gets old.Ĭozy Grove never quite capitalises on its world though, and the story of these spirits can sit too far into the background. We wouldn’t go so far to call it mature or for adults, but it has a darker edge that pushed it to an older crowd. Clearly deviating from Animal Crossing’s toybox look, this is muted and sad a wistful Limbo for spirits. Otherwise, the island of Cozy Grove is beautiful and a joy to spend time in. And while you might sporadically make the island colourful, it all resets back to grey at midnight. Important stuff blends into the background, and – while it makes for wonderful screenshots – it can get you cursing at the telly. A quest for iron ore lay incomplete for a couple of days. We would have given a kingdom for an iron ore, but they look identical to other decorative rocks in the world, as there’s no colour to provide contrast or highlighting. Without colour, it becomes extremely difficult to find anything. That last situation isn’t helped with the monochrome colour scheme. What it often leads to is prolonged play sessions where you’re desperately canvassing the island for a twig, parcel or walnut, and you end up spending longer than the designers wanted you to play anyway. They will take the place of a quest you could have received the following day. Since quests are limited to a set number each day, leaving them incomplete can feel like an utter failure. You will have exhausted the environment and there aren’t enough items left to actually finish the fetch quest. But sometimes those quests are uncompletable. Quests are HUGE in Cosy Grove, as they’re the key to expansion, and you only get a few a day. As a result of this very small and simple difference, Cozy Grove feels unwelcoming when Animal Crossing feels relaxed, and it emerges as lesser as a result. Cozy Grove puts a hard wall in front of you, and none of the makework – donating or making money – feels impactful. Money gets you something substantial, like a new home, while donations can be viewed and appreciated. Although you get diminishing returns from exploring your island, you can still work towards objectives that feel valuable. Animal Crossing’s limits are less hard and more soft. The psychological differences between Animal Crossing and Cozy Grove are fascinating. If you have gained your logs, you might be able to make a bit more money (although not much) by selling things to Kit the fox-bear, and you might find some more items to donate, but the diminishing returns have diminished so much that you can barely (bearly?) see them with the naked eye. But Cozy Grove deliberately withholds the logs and quests that can be gained each day, so there’s very little point to sticking around. If you’ve got spirit logs, then new bears and new areas will open up. Your progress is measured in how many spirit logs you’ve gained. Once everything was rinsed, we’d turn Cozy Grove off and play something else.Ĭozy Grove is even more militant about pushing you away from playing it. We found ourselves doing the routines of canvassing the island, exhausting all of the interactibles, and then putting them into two piles: what’s there to be sold, and what’s there to be donated. Cozy Grove likes to chase the same behaviours, so you will find yourself in similar patterns. Your limited inventory will soon fill up, so you decide whether to sell them, drop them, or tuck them in an expandable camp inventory.įor anyone that has played Animal Crossing, this will all be extremely familiar. A dowsing rod can be used to find artefacts, and leaf piles can be rummaged in for twigs. Xs appear on the ground, which you can excavate with a spade. Shadows of fish move in the water, so you can fish for them. With a larger island comes more expanse to cover, and you will be – again – doing things that are reminiscent of Animal Crossing. Soon, your collection of bears includes a seagull-bear who is your Blathers, creating a library of every feasible item a fox-bear who is your Tommy Nook, selling you goods and a builder bear who helps you gather tools. Collecting a set number of these opens up more of the island and spirit bears. You’ll also get a spirit log from these daily quests, which can be taken to Flamey.
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