At the Netflix booth at Summer Games Fest, we got to cozy up next to a delightful little campsite, make s’mores, and go hands on with with Spry Fox’s delightful little life sim Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit. The cozy game genre has definitely been ramping up over the past few years, and Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit fits that moniker perfectly. The developers said that this game is like Animal Crossing with more of a narrative focus, and you can definitely see that.
The game starts out with you joining the local Scout troop and a going on a trip. However, on the bus ride there, you fall asleep and the next thing you you’re waking up alone on an unknown island next to the bus that has been completely wrecked. You then have the ability to explore around and see come little fantastical creatures around before meeting a sentient bonfire. After a short talk with the fire, you meet your first other scout. However, they aren’t human, but a bear!
Interacting with the bear, shows off my favorite part of Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit with the game’s dialogue. The game gives you a plethora of dialogue options to choose from during conversations, and the writing is full of quick witted mid 2000s Internet humor and I kept laughing as I talked to characters. While talking to the bear, they eventually give you a quest, and quest they provided me wasn’t too in depth, as it was mostly a fetch quest to find something and bring it back, the reward was key. A spirit log which you then take back to the fire when gains power and illuminates more of the island for you to explore.
Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit fits perfectly on mobile devices as I played the demo entirely on a tablet. The UI and interface weren’t clogging up the screen nor was it difficult to control just using a touch interface compared to playing elsewhere using a controller. Still the game is sure to be a very cozy little experience no matter where you play. Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit is set to release very soon to those who have a Netflix subscription.