Cozy Games - Food for the Soul?

I've been sick this week with a sinus infection. If you've never had one, they're not the most fantastic experience you're ever likely to have in your life. So I've spent a lot of time on the couch doing my best slug impression.

As I mentioned last week, I recently set up an Nvidia Shield Pro TV for some Moonlight goodness on my media room TV, and as a result, finally finished Cyberpunk 2077. So it was time to pick something else off the pile of shame to play.

Infinite Backlog selected Dungeons of Hinterberg as next up, so I installed it and gave it a go. Honestly, an amazing little game - it mixes the dungeon crawling, loot dropping loop of games like Diablo with the cozy social aspects of a game like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing.

But where did these cozy games come from? There's always been a few of them around, but they seem to have exploded over the last few years. Was it the isolation people felt during the lockdown years of the COVID pandemic? Or perhaps as the gaming community expanded and encompassed a more diverse group of people, there was a greater demand for games that were just unashamedly fun. Or maybe as the roadblocks towards developing and publishing games reduced, developers just started making games they liked - which in some cases has unexpectedly paid dividends.

Do you like cozy games? What's your favourite?