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| Designing the Spirit Scout. |
Once that was done, my Spirit Scout made her way to an island where it gave a small tutorial about what to do. Essentially a Spirit Scout's job is to help spirits with their afterlives. The spirits on the island happen to be ghost bears. Cozy Grove gives a good introduction into this with the first ghost bear being a park ranger named Charlotte Pine and they give easy to follow instructions on what to do for the first task.
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| Spirit Scout reporting for duty! |
One of the first things I had to do was set up my camp with my sentient campfire named Flamey. Flamey acts as a guide giving hints about which ghost bears need help. Initially, the island is drab and grey, void of any colors. As I did tasks and favors for the ghost bears, they would give me spirit wood which I could feed to Flamey and then Flamey would get bigger and illuminate the island, bringing vivid colors back to the world of Cozy Grove. This also unlocked more areas on the island and allowed Flamey to give me more hints about new ghost bears that needed my scout's help.
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| Spirit Scout with Flamey. |
Most of the tasks and requests are finding lost items for the ghost bears. They're not terribly challenging so I never had a hard time figuring out where to go. They only take a few minutes to do and sometimes, the ghost bears would reveal things about themselves from their memories. The writing in the game is well done and charming. I found myself wanting to know more about each of the ghost bears. There's also a delightful merchant named Mr. Fox who yes, is an actual giant fox. Here, I could buy decorations for my campsite from him, spirit wood, and sometimes items I needed for quests. I could also buy outfits for my scout from him and what he had in his shop changed each day.
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| Buying things from Mr. Fox. |
There's fishing in the game which is a lot of fun because you can take your time and it doesn't punish you if you lose a fish. Some of the requests wanted me to catch certain types of fish and I learned a lot of patience in the game because sometimes I wouldn't always get the fish I was looking for right away. I found I really enjoyed fishing because it was relaxing and definitely fit the relaxed vibe of the game.
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| Fun with fishing. |
Cozy Grove is meant to be a slow burn and encourages taking your time with things and runs in real time much like Animal Crossing. Each task takes about thirty minutes to do and then you're done for the day. Flamey will even encourage coming back the next day by telling you that there aren't anymore people that need help. I do appreciate the fact that Cozy Grove gently shows that taking breaks is important and that it's okay to not do everything all at once. It takes off a lot of pressure and allows you to appreciate the game itself and the delightful characters. There's no rush and you can just enjoy. If you're looking for a relaxed game, Cozy Grove is perfect.
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| Taking some time to just enjoy the moment. |
*Cozy Grove is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch,
*Come hang out with our community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer
