13 Cozy Video Games for Hard Times
These are the hard times. If you're playing games, it's worth to use them to improve your mood with a nice, positive message, rather than shouting over the microphone at random players. Here are some heart-warming video games!
Table of Contents
- 13 Cozy Video Games for Hard Times
- The Sims 4
- Stardew Valley
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Spiritfarer
- Flower
- Mutazione
- A Short Hike
- Haven
- Bastion
- Wingspan
- Death's Door
- Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Mutazione
- Genre: adventure game
- Developer: Die Gute Fabrik
- Year: 2019
In Mutazione , we find ourselves in a small, gated community on a tropical island whose inhabitants have turned into mutants after a meteorite has hit the area. We play as a young, 15-year-old girl who arrives at the facility to care for her sick grandfather. It gets even weirder further on, with the creators referring to their work as "a soap opera with mutants."
Everyone praises the consistent, very interesting visuals, as well as beautiful music and the overall atmosphere of the game, which is both intriguing and relaxing. This is one of those stories where you absorb every bit of dialogue and want to know everything about the characters. It's worth giving it a chance yourself, even if you're not a big indie games lover.
WELCOME TO ELK
Welcome to Elk was made in a similar convention to Mutazione, although with a much heavier atmosphere. This title can be easily compared to Spiritfarer and To the Moon - it's a real emotions swing, in which humor is mixed with sadness. We play as a woman named Frigg, who starts a new life in a small local community. It quickly turns out that living in the province is not boring at all, and the locals lead quite a colorful existence. With the help of an artistic cartoon with colorful characters on a black and white background, the creators present real stories of real people, including the not so cheerful ones. An interesting graphic style is combined with a great soundtrack and stories that include murder, alcoholism, prostitution, violence and vulgar language.
The unusual narrative is aided by imaginative, somewhat surreal mini-games, and the fact that we are watching a truly authentic story adds spice to the entire production. The creators took advantage of their contacts, people they knew could tell them everything using their own words. Names or places were changed, of course, but the facts remained the same. The excellent narrative is aided by well-written dialogue that improves the characters' personalities and makes them more natural. You'll meet characters who you'll come to like right on the spot or, quite the contrary, you'll feel antipathy against them. One word reappears in a number of reviews of Welcome to Elk: "unique." It's not a game that perfectly fits the term "nice", but it has enough in common with other productions described in this list for it to be worth mentioning as well.
