Cozy Grove is recruiting more Spirit Scouts as the PC game expands to physical releases for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 later this month. The life-sim game follows a Spirit Scout who uncovers the bittersweet secrets of Cozy Grove through tasks, crafting, and more, with the goal of helping the island's deceased denizens move onto the afterlife.
In a recent interview with Game ZXC, Noemí Gomez teased what's in store for Cozy Grove 2, analyzed the rise of cozy games, and explained how staple cozy games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and animations like Spirited Away inspired the in-game mechanics and art style. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: For our readers, can you tell me a bit about yourself and Cozy Grove?
Gomez: My name is Noemí, I turned 30 last month, and I'm the Lead Artist of Cozy Grove. I have a background in Illustration, which I think shows a lot in my work. I'm from the always sunny Spain and I have three turtles—that's important.
A thing I always like to mention is that Cozy Grove was my first experience in the video game industry. I'm so happy I get to work on something I'm so passionate about, and being able to see it released, how well received it was, and how far it's taken our studio are things that make me feel super proud!
Cozy Grove is a cozy casual game with the motto, "All those who are lost deserve kindness," where you'll be meeting Bears who are stuck in the afterlife, and your job as a Spirit Scout is to get to know them and help them out. We want to spread this kindness and make the world a cozier, safer place. Art-wise, it's a 2D isometric view game in which you get to color the world as if it was a sketchbook and see it grow as you play.
Q: The name “Cozy Grove” sounds cute, but the backstories of the game’s characters are actually quite dark. How were you able to illustrate something that combines these two elements?
Gomez: As an illustrator, I find it's actually pretty common for these concepts that otherwise may clash with each other to combine and create a sense of interest and contrast. For example, there are lots of children's illustrated books with appealing styles for kids that talk about how to understand their emotions, death, or loss. After knowing Cozy Grove was going for a similar route–cute style with some mundane and dark themes–I just felt in my element.
We like to call Cozy Grove's style "Adult Cozy" because of this. I remember, in the beginning of development, our spirits were going to be represented as just that, spiritual creatures, but we thought sticking with Bears would be more interesting. This created a great contrast between how the characters look and their personal struggles, as Cozy Grove touches on some heavy topics. It was super fun to see people's first impressions of the game as well as their surprise and amusement after experiencing what it's actually like.
Q: Each area is tailored to the ghost that’s roaming around there. What was the process of deciding how these areas should look?
Gomez: The very first step is to design the Bear in question, and as an artist, I really appreciate being aware of that Bear's story and personality before brainstorming what its area should look like. To me, it's super important that each Bear's area reflects things about their life and afterlife.
We like to keep things organized and all the Bears receive the same treatment as they get more or less the same amount of focus when developing their stories, which really helps the art team stay focused on the amount of content we should strive to create around them. The last step would be to sketch those ideas and plan the color palette of the set piece before rendering the final assets. We are also careful of the amount of mundane versus whimsical elements we want to use for the Bear in question, balance is key!
I don't want to say too much, but compared to how these areas were procedurally generated in Cozy Grove, we have something else planned for our next game that will make the Bear's space feel more alive. It will feel as if these areas hold the full story rather than only a picture of the Bear's life, which makes me super excited!
Q: Cozy Grove is often compared to other "cozy" games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. Did those games or other games inform the art design at all?
Gomez: Of course! To make a good game, the most intelligent thing you can do is appreciate and value how other games touch on the points your game will be sharing with players, and games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley were a great inspiration for our in-game mechanics, even if not so much our art. However, it's still worth analyzing these games and media, so we can design fresh characters and worlds that the player can connect with. Don't Starve was also one of our biggest references style-wise, as we landed on similar character proportions.
Q: Did any non-video games (like movies, TV shows, books, anime, etc.) influence Cozy Grove's design?
Gomez: Outside of games, animation films like Ghibli's Spirited Away or Over the Garden Wall were my biggest inspiration for Cozy Grove. I think these represent a great example of those contrasting ideas I touched on and we as a team really wanted to showcase them. Both Spirited Away and Over the Garden Wall have a fresh, young, or cartoon-like style that aligns with the kind of animated movies we grew up loving, but also have a contrast that breaks the initial good feelings they give off as they touch on darker elements, mature themes, and varied color palettes. Of course, the whimsical and the mundane coexists beautifully in these too.
Q: Many players have praised Cozy Grove for its art style, were there any challenges finalizing the final art design?
Gomez: I know and I appreciate that so much! I’ve had so many uncertainties with some of my art decisions around the game, but seeing the outcome and how warmly it was received by players makes me feel more confident about the choices I made then and even now on other projects. If I had to pick, I would say something that proved to be a technical challenge for the art team was deciding on the isometric view game.
Perspective is always tricky in 2D games when dealing with so many visual elements. We have a lot of hidden object quests that turned into a challenge art-wise and Cozy Grove has almost no visual contrast just so these objects are easier to spot. At the same time, we didn't want to make things too easy, so we went for a heavily detailed style to balance things out. We tried our best to make this feature work nicely!
Q: Spry Fox's mission statement is to make the world a happier place using video games. Did this inform any art choices in Cozy Grove?
Gomez: Absolutely! It's my hope people can actually see this the moment they start playing Cozy Grove.
It is why we decided to stick with a rich and vibrant palette. As you start your journey the world looks blank and empty, similar to a sketchbook, where everyone feels distant and sparse in the way that they and their surroundings interact with you and each other. But as you get to know and help these characters, listen to their stories, and spread kindness, the world turns colorful as a direct result.
Q: What were the biggest art design lessons you learned with the first game that you will apply to the sequel?
Gomez: Less is more and don't be afraid of contrast and use riskier colors.
Something that sticks out to me is how worried we were about the game being too cute. The team really wanted to appeal to a wide audience where, no matter their age, would enjoy the art of Cozy Grove. It seems we achieved that! So in conclusion - cute shouldn't be feared as it proves a great contrasting element against a mature story.
Q: “Cozy” games have been on the rise over the last few years. From a visual perspective, what do you think makes this genre so appealing?
Gomez: I think that cozy games are so appealing nowadays because they force you to stop and appreciate the beauty of the mundane. After all, life often feels stressful and cozy games allow you to chill and appreciate things we usually take for granted or don't have the time to observe. Like the last few rays of sunshine hitting your room in the afternoon or the different colors of the sky on a given day.
It's something that has been embraced by the indie side of the video game industry and I think people find these teams treat art in their games with a lot of love and care, often using it as a way to experiment and express emotions rather than its commercial purpose.
Q: Is there anything we didn’t talk about that you’d like to discuss?
Gomez: I wanted to thank you for giving me this opportunity! Also, I want to thank the amazing and enthusiastic Cozy Grove community. I love to see their fan art and suggestions on our dedicated Discord channel and other social media!
Something that makes me super excited is that Cozy Grove has its own physical edition for Nintendo Switch made by the amazing iam8bit team. I remember being a little kid and keeping my video game cases as if they were little treasures, and now I have been given the chance to make one for my own game! I'm especially proud of the Exclusive Edition, I'm always in charge of the key art for Cozy Grove, but this time I gave extra love and attention to this special cover art included in that version of the game.
The cover was made using both digital and traditional mediums, as the line work was entirely made by hand using pencil and later on colored digitally. I was given the chance to customize the interior as well, it was an experience that I don't know if I will ever get to do again, so I'm glad I could do it for Cozy Grove.
I'm super happy we could grant our Scouts the wish of having a physical edition of Cozy Grove. We are currently working on Cozy Grove 2 and I can confidently say that it's going to be beautiful and magical. I hope to see you all in our next Spirit Scout mission!
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Cozy Grove is available now on PC, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox.