Ophelia Payne

I briefly covered the Cozy Sanctuary demo during the Steam Next Fest, where I quickly highlighted a few Idle Game gems I had played. You can find that article HERE. I have since had access to the full idle game and wanted to dive into some more info after putting more than 20 hours into it as of the time of writing this.

If you are not familiar with the idea of an idle game, it’s a game that sits at the bottom of your screen as you do anything else, work, game, watch content, it’s just there.

In this instance, Cozy Sanctuary is a game where adorable animals live on your screen. It asks you for very little but makes you care a whole lot. You start with 1 duck. As you care for this duck, you will earn ‘coins’, and you will then be able to buy another duck, then a hare. When any of the animals reach high enough on their happiness scale, you can ‘release’ them, earning you double the amount of coins they cost to purchase. Each animal has their own sounds when you interact with them, and, spoiler alert, the turtle still makes me laugh every time. You must keep them clean, fed, and happy to achieve the goal of releasing them. There is a good variety of animals in this game to build a sanctuary that fits with your vibe.

Progression is slow, but satisfying, everything I expect from an idle game. These games aren’t meant to keep you engaged all the time; you should be able to check in as you wish. The more attentive you are, the faster you progress, but there is no reason to rush through the game. Certain animals require you to complete different tasks to unlock them, like releasing 3 of a particular item, or harvesting a set number of a particular crop, or even collecting poop. Yes, you will collect this to compost and fertilize the crops you grow. You are able to purchase and upgrade tools to help you with watering and harvesting crops, collecting the fertilizer components, and cleaning the animals. You can add decorations to your sanctuary as well; these things increase the overall happiness of all animals in your sanctuary.

This game is developed by OverPowered Team and published by Isolated Games Publishing and is sure to find its way to a place on your desktop and in your heart. If this sounds interesting to you, there is a demo available on Steam with a full release planned for April 16^th.

Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.

**Thank you to Isolated Games and Press Engine for the review code**