2022 was a bumper year for wholesome and cozy games and if you are wondering what game is worth playing then do keep reading as I have created a list showing you my top five from 2022.
The Wandering Village
First off there is The Wandering Village developed and published by Stray Fawn Studio. It is available to buy on PC.
It is a city building game with a unique touch.
In a world where mysterious plants are spreading all over the earth, emitting toxic spores as they grow, a group of people are driven from their village. Searching for a place to stay, they seek shelter on the back of a giant, wandering creature they call ‘Onbu’.
In it you become the leader of a human settlement and build a symbiotic relationship with your gigantic host to survive together.
Even though your villagers will need to harvest materials from the creatures’ body, you’ll have to keep it strong and healthy to make sure that it keeps on walking, away from the spores and, hopefully, towards a safer place.
Build a village on the back of a giant creature.
Farm various crops to feed your villagers.
Send out foraging missions to gather rare resources.
Build a relationship with Onbu and command its actions
Potion Permit
Next up is Potion Permit developed by MassHive Media and published by PQube.
Become a small town chemist and heal townsfolk of their ailments in this beautiful pixel life sim.
The town of Moonbury has always been wary of the advances of the outside world, preferring to rely on their traditional methods of healing. Until one day, when the mayor’s daughter falls ill, and the local witch doctor can do nothing to help her, they are forced to look outside their small community for help.
Once you’ve decided on a potion, ointment, or salve, gather ingredients from the surrounding environments using your upgradable tools. Explore each unique region through rain, blizzards, and the baking heat of the desert
Gathering materials isn’t easy, sometimes you’ll need to turn your trusty tools into weapons. Engage in real-time combat and brew various concoctions to buff yourself or inflict status ailments on your adversaries and tools.
The ingredients you gather can be mixed in your cauldron to brew medicine, vitamins, and more. The more experienced you become, the more you may advance your cauldron … and the stronger your potions will get.
The small town will develop and improve further as you build some relationships with townsfolk Help others by fixing facilities spread across town and fields around Moonbury Island to unveil more secrets and ingredients that may benefit you. You can also craft and buy new furniture to give your home a personal touch!
Potion Permit is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and PlayStation.
Dorfromantik
The third entry is Dorfromantik a relaxing soft-strategy city builder game developed and published by Toukana Interactive for PC and the Nintendo Switch.
It is a relaxing building strategy and puzzle game in which you place tiles to create ever-growing, idyllic village landscapes. With Dorfromantik, you can immerse yourself in a quiet, peaceful world at any time and take a break from everyday life. At the same time, the game offers a challenge for those who are looking for one: To beat the high score, you need to carefully plan and strategically place your tiles.
On some tiles you will also encounter special objects that give you a quest: For example, the windmill wants to border 6 grain fields, the locomotive wants to be connected to 10 tracks or the deer wants to inhabit a forest with at least 50 trees. Fulfil these quests to get more tiles to continue the expansion of your landscape. The game ends when the tile stack is used up.
As you expand the landscape, you can advance into new, colourful biomes and discover pre-placed game objects that give you long-term tasks. Through these tasks you can unlock new tiles, new biomes and new quests.
Ooblets
My penultimate entry is Ooblets. It is a game about farming, creature collection and dancing! It is available on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox and PC.
You can spend your days renovating your farm, raising weird little pals, participating in card-based dance-offs, designing your house, and helping the mayor save Badgetown!
If you want to find out more about the game then do not forget to check out my video on it which can be found here.
Beacon Pines
My final entry and a personal favourite is Beacon Pines. Developed by Hiding Spot and published by Fellow Traveller. Beacon Pines is a cute and creepy adventure set within a mysterious book.
You play as both the reader of the book and its main character, Luka.
Something strange is happening at the old warehouse, and Luka and his friends seem to be the only ones taking notice. Sneak out late, make new friends, uncover hidden truths, and collect words that will change the course of fate!
While helping Luka investigate the strange goings-on in Beacon Pines, you’ll collect special golden charms, each with a word engraved on it. These charms can be used at certain turning points in the story to fill in a blank word and drastically change everything that follows.
As the book’s reader, you’ll navigate the story’s turning points using The Chronicle: an interactive story tree that branches and grows along with your choices. Exploring one set of events can unlock new charms to use on another branch, leading you to jump back and forth between entirely different versions of the story in order to unravel the mysteries at the heart of Beacon Pines.
If you want to see gameplay of Beacon Pines then do check out my playlist here. This game is just brilliant and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
And there you have it…
My top five cozy games to check out from 2022. Let me know in the comments your thoughts on the list and if there are any other games that you think I should have mentioned. If you would like to see the games listed above then do check out my video on it here.
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Can’t shoot straight, don’t understand maps, shocking memory &…. what was I saying….! 🤔
I am a Content Creator who also Live Streams. I love playing video games, talking about video games and I also write about them as I am an editor for a gaming magazine.
What genre of game do I play? Indie games & story driven games mostly.
Other than that my time is taken up being a Mamma. Yes, I am half Italian and you will find the odd Italian word or phrase being dropped into my streams. Particularly when I become excited 😎
Too many games not enough time!