Developer: RedDeer.Games
Publisher: RedDeer.Games
Platform: Switch
Tested on: Switch
Cozy Land – Review
Even though the weather is getting less dreary, we still enjoy playing cozy games when it’s dark outside. It’s nice to just wind down after a stressful day to play something that simply makes you feel warm inside. This brought us to Cozy Land, which is advertised as a game but feels more like a small puzzle title in which you make your own cityscapes. While this title did have its relaxing qualities, it felt a bit too basic.
Cozy Land is a small tool to make your own city or landscape dioramas. You can choose your starting building ‘plate’ and then you can begin adding tiles, objects, people, and so on. It’s very basic, and there’s hardly anything more to explain. There are over 400 items to pick from that you can mix and match on your diorama-to-be. Most objects are completely static, safe for a few animals that slightly move, and cars that pump out exhaust gases. Cozy Land utilizes low-poly styled visuals, which work well, especially in combination with the very vibrant colors of all the items. All of this is accompanied by what could not be called anything other than elevator music. We quickly turned off the fairly upbeat music to pick our personal soundtrack. This is a title to zone out with, after all, so we wanted to listen to our favorite tunes while building a nice cityscape.
As relaxing as Cozy Land may be, it also lacks quite a few comfort features and has even more rough edges. You can’t quickly duplicate items, draw roads, or place longer fences. Fences aren’t even built to be bigger than one piece, as linking parts causes them to clip through each other. The controls also make it slightly harder to do precision work, except for tiles that snap neatly next to each other. We would have loved touchscreen controls here, as it would make Cozy Land even more accessible and easier to relax with. Even with over 400 decorative items, this title still feels very limited. There are no color options for items, and there are no proper scaling functionalities. All of this makes for a shallow experience. If that’s what you’re looking for, that’s perfectly fine, but it does limit the overall replay value. Cozy Land also suffers from extremely long loading times, which is odd, given the simplicity of the visuals.
Conclusion
Cozy Land is ideal for zoning out for a bit, but it’s expensive for what it’s offering. With some more basic functionalities added to the mix, this could have been a must-have for fans of cozy games. Don’t get us wrong, you can still create original, picturesque cityscapes, albeit limited in scope. As it stands now, it’s still a relaxing title to unwind with, but we’d still suggest waiting for a discount. If you’re a fan of earlier entries in the series, we reckon this one will still be worth it for you.
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