Ah, camping. The sound of nature on your doorstep, an outdoor fire flickering in the night, and a cold beverage or two with mates. It doesn’t get more cosy than that, right? Aussie developers 5 Lives Studios has come up with the ultimate comfy adventure with Cozy Caravan, which entered early access this week.
Cosy games are a hugely popular genre, with dozens releasing every month! So, when you put the word “cosy” (or “cozy” for you Americans out there) into your title, it’s setting some clear expectations.
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One thing I love in my cosy games is a good character creator — I was very happy to see that Cozy Caravan gives you access to a very cute one. There is something special about tweaking your appearance and style and making it your own.
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First off, you can select from 12 different species of animals – ranging from your typical bear, cat, and cow to more exotic ones like an axolotl – I went for a stylish fox. From here, I could cutomise the fur colour, select an outfit (a tee and suspenders for me), and finally pick a voice. There was a moderate range of options and no specific gender for characters — meaning you can look and sound however you like.
Once you have designed your cosy little critter it is off into the big wide world for you. A basic, but familiar premise, starts this game. You and your best friend, Bubba, receive a letter from your Aunty asking you to help plan the annual fair. Being the new enthusiastic guild members, you readily agree and set off on an adventure in your rickety caravan. Just like old times, you and Bubba will travel the lands helping townsfolk, forming relationships and crafting goods to sell at the weekend market.
A Cosy Setting for a Road Trip
There are multiple towns to visit across the Farmlands with different plots of land where various crops grow. Each town is connected by a dirt road that you travel along in your trusty caravan. Currently, the Farmlands is the only explorable area in the game, but more are expected to be added in future updates.
As I drove through each town I witnessed many cute and unique NPCs working hard on their farms and maintaining their homes. The world felt very alive and the trips from each village were not too bothersome.
The game was pleasant to explore and observe and had a good ambient vibe. Though, it was a little repetitive at times; I am looking forward to what new areas unlock as new paths open up throughout the early access period.
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Gameplay Loops: Questing
As you travel around in your Cozy Caravan, alongside Bubba and his trusty steed, Rigby the Bee (yes, you may pat him), it’s as if you’re traveling with a close childhood friend making new memories. Together, you buzz from one townsfolk to another fulfilling their mundane requests and harvesting crops to cook or craft objects to sell at the weekend market. I love it.
As you enter a new town, its name is displayed on screen — an absolute necessity as there’s no mini-map. It is easy enough to pull up a big map with a press of a button to see where you are, except it can be quite cumbersome having to do this over and over again just to get your bearings.
The NPCs are constantly asking you to do favours for them, usually requiring you to fetch something or someone from somewhere. By doing this, you build relationships with characters, which grants you points used to upgrade your caravan. This can all become a little overwhelming as quests begin and end in different locations, I found I would often forget my original quest as I travelled around from town to town.
Questing Suggestions
In the future, to add to the cosiness of the game, it would be nice to have a quest list that you could use to remember where the heck you were going next. This was particularly a problem when you left the game for the night and had to come back the next day. The developers explained they had made the game this way so you have to talk to the NPCs as they give you clues on where to head next. However, even with this mechanic, for me, it was hard to remember where one quest began and another finished.
Being in the cosy genre, Cozy Caravan should allow players the option to turn quest hints on or off – but that feature is missing. I’d also love to have the ability to pin quests on the map, display NPC names, or have a mini map on screen at all times — these would add to the overall snuggly vibes and I’d love to see 5 Lives Studio look into it.
Gameplay Loops: Crafting
The second major aspect of this game is cooking, crafting, and selling goods at the weekly market. The game runs on a weekly schedule with a day/night cycle. For the first five days of the week, you are completing missions and stewing up delicious meals. Then, come the weekend, you can set up your caravan as a travelling market. It’s giving Mineko’s Night Market vibes. Selling goods on the weekend creates heart tokens that assist you in upgrading your caravan.
There is no traditional farming in this game; you can collect crops from the various farms around the area, from carrots to sugar cane — which can all be used to make recipes. Each recipe is created by playing a simple mini game. Take cutting for example, push the button when the line enters the green zone a few times to cut your veggies perfectly.
By using the tokens you earn to upgrade your caravan you can add a kitchen bench, more market tables, and even an oven. This expands the kinds of dishes you can cook and craft to sell at the market. However, this is a slow grind. Building up enough relationship points to even gain one token can take time and most of the decent upgrades cost 2 or 3 tokens. So be prepared to complete a lot of quests and harvest plenty of food.
Hitting the Side Roads
There are some small side quests you can take on as you explore the various locations. I randomly found one tiny frog hiding in the grass and he asked for help to find his dad. At this point, I had no idea where his dad was but I eventually found more frogs, which led me to a swamp and eventually the giant frog!
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There were plenty more surprises along the way, adding another dimension to the game; it gave me a purpose to explore every nook and cranny.
Graphics That Make You Stop in Your Cozy Caravan Tracks
Cozy Caravan has a very cute art style, with the animations looking like stop motion. The characters don’t necessarily move smoothly but this was an artistic decision and I think they nailed it.
If you are a 90s kid like me, then you would know the Sylvanian Family animals — I feel like they have brought them to life. This brought so much nostalgia as I saw these cute little creatures wandering around the world going about their business.
The game is set in an isometric view and you have no control over the camera – a perfect fit for casual and new gamers. Overall, the world is bright, has nice aesthetics and environmental effects — excellent attention to detail. One example I found is that when running over little mushrooms, their tiny spores fly throughout the air. The 5 Lives Studio team has done a lovely job crafting this world.
I did run into some bugs along the way, which is easily forgiven with the game currently in early access. A few times my little fox character got stuck in a thinking animation and no longer “walked” around. The game crashed a few times, which seemed to happen once completing a quest and the NPC had nothing left to say. Also, some characters had not been fully programmed yet.
Performance was good, however, there was some frame tearing and small framerate hiccups. Adding to this, the graphics menu was quite confusing. I didn’t really understand what I was changing when I was trying to get the game to run smoothly on my ROG Ally. For example, there’s an anti-aliasing option, but you could either have it off or select SMAA and FXAA. This is overly complex for the average cosy gamer and I think they could make these options a lot more accessible.
Lo-fi Beats and the Sounds of Nature
The music in Cozy Caravan is very chilled with lofi beats playing the majority of the time. There was a slight change in pace and tune when you started driving the caravan which was a nice addition. However, these did feel a little generic and the soundtrack mostly faded into the background.
The sounds of water running, frogs croaking and birds tweeting were lovely. I truly found it relaxing in some places. The NPCs spoke a garbled language akin to Banjo-Kazooie. I thought this was a good addition to the game and gave each character their own little personality. Also, it is super cute when you wave at a villager and they wave back.
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So, Was I Feeling the Cozy Vibes?
I enjoyed my time with Cozy Caravan and I see great potential in this game. It has an interesting concept and could be another “cosy game hit.” However, it still has a way to go to reach this status. With some quality of life improvements such as quest lists, some more direction on where NPCs are, and faster movements — I could see this becoming an addictive gameplay loop.
I am excited to be here at the beginning of this adventure. With the promise of more areas being open soon, more roads to travel and more crafting to be done there appears to be a bright future ahead.
Cozy Caravan is available now in early access and can be purchased on Steam for $29.50 AUD.
Are you going to grab your sleeping bag and come travelling in Cozy Caravan? Let us know on Instagram or over on the Quest Daily Discord server.
A copy of Cozy Caravan was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this preview.
