Why Cozy Games Aren't 'Real' Games

Cozy games pull everyone into a peaceful fantasy.. but what really sits below the surface?

I make content on indie games and game development!

0:00 Breaking the rules
2:39 A growing audience
5:01 Ethics and indies
6:56 Many cozy games suck
11:01 GameMaker
12:39 Human connection

#cozygames #indiegame #stardewvalley #animalcrossing #acnh #cozygaming #indiegames cozy games animal crossing stardew fields of mistria

[ZoglerGames]

I think a lot of it comes down to depth of immersion. I want to be immersed enough to distract myself from the real world but I’m not so immersed to the point where I am worrying about paying my in-game taxes on time

[TheNerdEra]

“Avengers: Endgame came out when I was in middle school” WHAT DO YOU MEAN MIDDLE SCHOOL???

[ArcaneAvian]

"I was in middle school...
2019”
I'm too young to feel this old.

[Coeurebene]

Stardew Valley allowed me to play the same game as my 8yo daughter for the first time, it's really cool to share a common interest. It's even pretty good for education, it teaches her to set goals, plan their execution over time, search for info, and some small math problems.

[klaibefhuoaiuwehjklbdfsnxnik]

I have a cycle.

Play terraria
Rage
Play Stardew Valley
Calm
Play Terraria
Rage
Play Stardew Valley
Calm


And it repeats forever.

[faerygirll]

playing the tada sound effect when abigail came on screen was the best editing choice in this video

[Vaedyx]

Straight up. The seasonal changes in Stardew valley are amazing. Even the little changes like fall having leaves falling and blowing in the wind is such a small but awesome change. It adds so much charm and speaks volumes to the love poured into it.

[DodgeThatAttack]

My new daily schedule is
- Wake up
- Turn brain off to watch some short form content
- Turn brain off to work monotonous 9-5
- Turn brain off to play cozy game
- Turn brain off to go to sleep

[Green_Guysssss]

my beef with mayor lewis and how i'm basically the whole economy makes stardew valley not a cozy game

[enozlliks]

When she said "I was in middle school when Endgame came out" I was like "Wait I was in middle school when Endgame came out." I assumed she was older than me but now that I know we're the same age it made me realize that I really need to start getting shit done lol.

[Wagnerbaum]

First time ive ever seen a gamemaker sponsorship lol

Man I doubt I would have ever gotten into game dev if not for gamemaker. There's a tutorial for EVERYTHING :o

[speedmilesgood]

No pressure on Stardew Valley ?? My days are full up by constantly life-threatening choices 😭

[isaaclee]

Stardew Valley is anything but cozy and I'll die on that hill

and I'll die in the skull caverns

[ProfDev]

By the way, when I say video *game*, I think that is something that should be entertaining, and the way of achieving it should be secondary (for the sake of the people who know what entertains them the most), and not a way of measuring its "goodness".

[e.c]

stopping a moment to share a spontaneous thought. In developing games, every small and minute detail being crafted is felt with a depth and breadth the player usually won't and typically shouldn't feel. So some encouragement for a certain kind of perspective is in order; people who play games and want to make them are trying to reverse engineer an end result that is ultimately demoralizing due to this perspective. I have no real solution, other than reapproaching perspective to respect the tiny worlds of each and every detail, allowing them to go unnoticed so that the grand machine you are building (the game) may continue to operate and flourish. idk that's all I really got, but realizing that contour of why so many people burnout on making games when they love playing them, is what I wanted to write.

[matthun]

Well, The Sims series were basically cosy games before the label existed and they were all about making money from expansion packs and Microsoft is trying to find ways to exploit Minecraft Bedrock players.

[DCatGameDeveloper]

Very nice video! I avoid videos with titles like this because as a beginner indie cozy dev (developing my first project!) I need to filter some things to avoid getting discouraged by pessimistic videos.

My project is still very early, only 7 months old, but I have reserved the next 2 years to work on it and make it as complete as I can. I believe a spam of quick "cozy" games can saturate the market a little, but one thing I believe is that the market will never be saturated of good games.

[Bekah_Penguin]

I’m so glad cozy games is it’s on genre now and we get a lot more of them. Before I had to wait years for a new harvest moon or animal crossing game to come out.

[Gbrown]

"man I'm low on chimes, i should probably go to the small crevices store and sell the old bones brathors inspected."

- a creature street player probably

[Evoleo]

I can't believe it's the real Juniper from JuniperDev!