0:05

Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff

0:07

I ever told your prediction of iHeartRadio.

0:18

And welcome to another Monday Mini where

0:20

I take over and talk about

0:23

cozy gaming. Yes, y'all is still

0:25

around. People still love it. We

0:27

need to we need to bring some experts on here. Actually,

0:30

the creator of a cozy game has

0:32

been doing a campaign because her game,

0:35

I think was being released at the same

0:37

time a huge studio was releasing

0:39

their stuff, so it kind of like

0:42

out coveraged her stuff to

0:44

the point that she's really upset about it. But she's got

0:46

a one point one million views and

0:49

the game is named Potions

0:51

Curious Tell, which I am interested

0:54

in looking at getting and

0:56

it's an indie game. I want

0:58

to download it and I want to get it. She's talking

1:00

about how EA has been releasing a

1:03

lot of games at the same time that she had planned,

1:05

and she's been talking about it for a minute, like I've seen this

1:08

game. I've seen her do really cute ads

1:10

TikTok videos to try to advertise

1:12

it. She's done live action interpretations

1:15

of what the game looks like. So it's like a witchy

1:17

game to Potions, and

1:19

I do want to try it, so I just want to shut that game

1:21

out there. I don't know much about the developer. I don't know

1:23

what about her. I think her name is Renee,

1:26

and I don't know everything

1:29

and the details behind it. I don't know about much

1:31

about the game. I do, like I said, I want to look

1:33

for it. It's available now, so

1:35

I will be looking for it. But

1:37

you know, it does make me sad when I see someone

1:39

who's worked so hard at content

1:42

like this and gaming like this, especially for

1:44

an industry that is not welcoming to

1:47

women or marginalized people. So

1:50

you know, I'm going to look into it a little

1:52

more. But just that put

1:54

that on so sideline as a beginner, because

1:57

I feel like I need to remind myself of

2:00

going into.

2:00

These games, you know what I mean?

2:03

Mm hmm, yeah, okay, But today I'm

2:05

pretty much just talking about cozy games, not

2:07

necessarily phone games, because you know, I'm obsessed

2:09

with phone games and I play that a lot.

2:11

But I've picked back up the switch, y'all.

2:14

I'm not gonna lie. My

2:17

Island from Animal Crossing looks

2:19

really bad. Flowers

2:23

everywhere, all the weeds

2:25

everywhere. I here's

2:28

the thing, and I've confessed to this before.

2:31

I've figured out two things about

2:33

my dislikes in video gaming

2:35

and gaming in general. You know, if it's

2:37

too complicated and I have to compete and

2:39

have to kill things, I'm not good at

2:41

it. So I don't like that. If

2:44

you don't give me objectives,

2:46

I'm not good about creating.

2:49

I am not a very creative person.

2:52

Like there are things that I'm like, yes, this is what I want

2:54

to do when it comes to speaking and writing

2:56

that makes sense to me. When it comes

2:58

to actual like art

3:02

visual arts, I am not good.

3:04

I really wish I was. I'll like some of the pictures

3:06

that I do as a kid probably looked

3:09

made me look like a manic uh serial

3:12

killer. But it's okay because I'm not just

3:14

say that's how bad they are or eccentric.

3:16

They may seem to be all

3:20

of that to say. So, now

3:22

that I finish all the objectives with

3:24

animal crossing, you know they tell you to do this,

3:26

they tell you to fill the museums.

3:30

So I've gotten all of the bones. All the bones

3:32

are there, I'm done with that. I haven't

3:34

gotten all the bugs, and I haven't gotten all

3:36

of the uh like

3:39

creatures see creatures because

3:42

you know they're seasonal, and so since

3:44

I'm not on it every day, like for

3:47

a minute that I was, I can't get to them.

3:49

Like we're back to the season I originally started

3:51

with, which I've gotten all of those things,

3:53

so now I could do the time jumping, which

3:56

is a lot, or I just

3:58

have to wait. So like with that, and

4:00

then you're supposed to build the island and make it look

4:02

pretty, I don't know how

4:04

to do that. My friend shout

4:08

out to Matt, he has

4:10

the best island I have ever

4:13

seen, like it is, so I

4:15

did bust up his rocks and he got mad at me, as

4:17

he should, because I didn't know how to get

4:20

the material out without busting

4:22

it because I didn't realize when you eat the fruit, it makes you

4:24

super strong. I figured it out now, but

4:28

like one of the best islands I've seen, and then when

4:30

you you know, when you can go to sleep and go visit

4:32

other islands, they

4:35

put my island to shade.

4:36

It's so bare.

4:38

But I don't want it to be too built up. I

4:40

wanted to be a retreated like island.

4:43

But yeah, so my animal crossing

4:45

is not great.

4:46

Danny, you

4:49

should see my island.

4:50

I need to come visit. Did you build it up? Is it built

4:52

up?

4:53

Its built up? I got the five stars, I

4:55

got the flowers.

4:56

Yeah, five stars. You want to come build my island?

4:59

It's Star Wars based island.

5:02

Surprise.

5:04

The only thing I have before

5:06

I complete. I just have four,

5:08

no, three, three art pieces left.

5:11

I've done everything else you've done.

5:13

I haven't gotten the art pieces either, now

5:15

that you say that art pieces take forever, yeah,

5:17

because you have to go buy the and then you

5:19

have to, like I do the cheating and try to make

5:21

sure they're real. So I go through the phone

5:23

to find which ones because I've been I've been duped,

5:26

You've been. I've been duped twice.

5:30

It's not nice.

5:32

It's not nice.

5:34

You know if I ever

5:36

told you this, but.

5:40

One of your I never

5:42

have had the heart to kick someone

5:45

off my island.

5:47

One of your people that you kicked

5:50

off your islands.

5:51

Came to me. How did you find that out?

5:54

Because it said they came from

6:01

there.

6:01

Now I did kick them off. I think

6:03

it's like they are asking. I just want to try. I

6:05

just wanted a grand adventure, and I didn't know

6:07

what that meant. I was like, yeah, go for it. Because

6:09

that's that's the way you respond and like it's

6:12

an encouraging thing. And I didn't realize

6:14

what it would do.

6:15

And she left.

6:16

I'm like, oh, damn, I did kick

6:18

off a wolf because he was mean to me.

6:20

It was.

6:22

Like just criticizing me.

6:24

I was like, damn, what's

6:26

wrong with you?

6:29

I will not have that on my island, bad

6:32

energy.

6:32

Going, You've got some standard, You've got some standards.

6:35

You can't be mean to me on my own island.

6:37

How dare you? So?

6:39

I did?

6:40

I think I kicked out two people, and

6:42

like one of those on purpose. One was on like, oh, I didn't

6:44

know what this does type of moment.

6:47

So it sounds like the one you didn't

6:50

know what it does?

6:51

Is it the dogs?

6:53

No, it's a oh

6:56

would that be sheep of some kind?

6:58

I'm trying to remember.

7:01

Maybe you've kicked out more people than you know.

7:04

I didn't really.

7:06

Well, that's what it said when she showed

7:08

up, like this, Wow.

7:11

They're telling on me. You know.

7:13

That was the thing.

7:13

Now that is like a whole shape factor.

7:15

Okay, okay,

7:28

okay, Well.

7:28

So that is my animal crossing update because

7:31

I'm really I'm really bad about trying

7:33

to build up the land and island and creating

7:36

things and pathways, like I have random things

7:38

just hanging about. There's a locker in the middle of nowhere

7:40

because I just give me things. I just want to get rid of it. There's a

7:42

table with a book on it, like I was like, I don't know what to

7:44

do with this, just why so

7:47

we have that on my Island's.

7:52

Funny because when I visited your island, I was like,

7:54

I'll never be I still

7:56

but memory I have of your

7:58

island is better than my islands.

8:00

No that's not true. I don't

8:02

know why. But it is sparse

8:05

and all a little bit sad. I like

8:07

it that way.

8:08

That's why.

8:09

Well, I liked it too.

8:10

Maybe I would be motivated one day, but like, it's

8:12

just I'm bad. Like there's a game

8:15

that I played on my phone that you also

8:17

build your island and that, and

8:20

it's just crowded and it makes no sense. But

8:23

I have to have all this stuff on there so I can get points.

8:27

It makes no sense, but

8:29

it's okay. But here are some of

8:31

the favorites that I have been playing recently, and

8:33

one of them is called Lemon Cakes by Cozy

8:37

b Games. Super Cute, super cute.

8:39

So this is the description that they

8:41

have about their game. It says, while the bakery

8:43

might initially be broken, and it is broken,

8:46

overgrown, and even haunted, don't

8:49

worry. You'll be able to repair, furnish

8:51

and decorate every room in the bakery. Gather

8:54

honey from your beehive, raise a cow

8:56

to collect fresh milk, and adopt a few chickens

8:58

to add eggs to your rest. You'll

9:01

also be able to grow trees and

9:03

plants to harvest a variety of fruits,

9:06

mix ingredients together to prepare all kinds

9:08

of recipes, including baked pastries,

9:11

candies, and frozen desserts. Be

9:13

sure to serve your customers quickly and keep

9:16

your window displays well stocked so you

9:18

don't miss out on any order. Serve

9:20

coffee to impatient customers

9:22

to keep them around the bakery a bit longer, and

9:24

build an adorable cat cafe

9:27

to make everyone's day brighter. So

9:30

I have been playing this game essentially

9:32

every day. It's like you quickly wake up,

9:34

you quickly bake things, put things in display,

9:36

and try to keep up, and it's pretty hard. I definitely

9:39

had my thumbs sore trying to keep

9:42

up with all these, but there's really cute cats

9:44

that you can pet. I do

9:47

have some plants in a very

9:49

broken greenhouse, but you know it's working. You

9:51

have to, like you don't get a lot of money, or maybe

9:53

I don't get a lot of money because I'm not good

9:55

at it. This

9:58

is about based on the sale of

10:01

the day, so I don't

10:03

like I've gotten four Like I've just gotten four

10:05

recipes that are pretty well

10:08

done, two ovens

10:10

that work, and then like two

10:12

ghosts that come to see me. One

10:14

ghost is the former owner Bond

10:17

Bond, I believe, and one

10:19

ghost is a is an inspector and

10:22

health inspector, and he often tells me to catch

10:24

bugs, and I have to catch bugs, and I'm

10:26

not really good at that either because

10:28

my aim is off apparently like what

10:30

I think I'm supposed to be aiming, I'm not supposed to. It's

10:34

kind of hard, but it's really

10:37

cute. It's really bright game. It

10:39

has a daily objective for me

10:41

to like give out, so it's kind of like could be monomonous,

10:44

except you do get to buy

10:46

cows to do like the milking

10:48

and such, and then you have

10:50

the fruits to add and then having

10:53

the customers come through. It's

10:55

quite cute, and the thing is just

10:58

mindless enough with just the of activity

11:01

that it's fun to play, So it's

11:05

not as it's it's Overcooked

11:08

without partners and as much stress

11:14

I every time I've ever played Overcooked with

11:16

my partner. Thank goodness, he knows he's

11:18

trying to make me like games, so he would

11:20

never be mean to me. But because I'm like, I'm

11:22

done, I'm over this.

11:24

Once when I was I was hanging out with

11:26

you both, it came up that

11:28

you might play it, and I was.

11:30

Like, wow, because

11:33

that's that's a game that can't get

11:35

Really.

11:36

I got so mad about the other game.

11:38

What was it? The robot robots one Florence.

11:41

Oh, Portal Portal. Yeah,

11:44

Florence.

11:45

This is the name of that robot that's mean to me?

11:48

Why?

11:48

Why are robots? Why are these games mean to me?

11:50

Annie? Oh? Wow, that's

11:53

a great question.

11:54

You know.

11:54

I think you need that.

11:55

You need a villain or someone to

11:59

to.

11:59

Be to someone else, not me.

12:04

But yeah, so that's one game that I'm playing. Portal

12:06

is not that game. I will never play with Wortal again. I'm

12:08

still angry about it. I hated

12:11

with the passion you know what I've discovered between

12:13

this game and a Short Hike, which I highly

12:15

recommend to me and I did play

12:18

on the on the Steam deck. It's

12:21

games that where I can fall off that I really hate

12:24

because I'm really bad at it. So

12:27

for the beginning of the Short Hike goes fine,

12:29

find these things you have to jump here, I'm

12:32

like, I'm pretty bad about figuring out how to

12:34

jump because I don't understand the

12:38

dual usage, the multi usage of all the buttons,

12:40

and I'm like, why am I doing all these things that if

12:43

there's a chance that I can fall off of a thing, I'm

12:46

gonna fall off of that thing, and it's

12:48

gonna take me forever to get

12:50

to that objective to not follow that

12:52

thing, and I'll figure it out. I don't like

12:54

that because it makes me very angry

12:57

and impatient and so ill

13:00

off of it more, which we've seen in

13:02

our Mario party

13:05

ate that that game, well, yes, Mario

13:08

Carto, Annie, sorry,

13:15

you know where that one objective you have to co cross

13:18

the way.

13:19

To exactly

13:21

what you're talking about.

13:22

Every time I fall off, and

13:24

I hate it so much, and like my partner and you because

13:26

you're used to like just being able to go fast

13:29

go and I'm like inching, like not even

13:31

inching, like just tiny steps a

13:33

time to try not to fall off,

13:36

and I still fall off.

13:38

Yeah I have I have another friend who

13:40

has made this exact same complaint about

13:42

jumping and the falling off,

13:44

So you're not alone.

13:46

I'm not good at it.

13:58

But another game that I do like that I don't fall

14:00

off, thank you, is

14:02

a Cozy Grove by spry

14:05

Fox, which I feel like I may have talked about

14:07

before. It's actually one of my favorite games. I did start

14:09

playing it at the same time that I played

14:11

started Animal Crossing, so it's similar

14:14

in that level of like you have to get the

14:16

fish you can get, but the collection

14:18

is different, so there's no museum. And

14:22

this is how they describe the game. Spry

14:24

Fox says, Welcome to Cozy Grove, a

14:26

life sim game about camping on a haunted,

14:29

ever changing island as a spirit

14:31

scout. You'll wonder the island's forced each

14:33

day, finding new hidden secrets and

14:36

helping soothe the local ghosts. With

14:38

a little time and a lot of crafting, you'll bring

14:40

color and joy back to Cozy Grove.

14:43

So the ghosts are all bears,

14:45

but they're like themed bears, so

14:47

like they'll dress up as other things. So

14:50

I think one looks like a pelican, but it's

14:52

still a bear. That

14:55

makes sense. So one looks like a

14:57

daisy, but it's still a bear. But

14:59

you know, I was trying to recommend

15:01

cozy games to my

15:04

partners co worker for their kids,

15:07

and this game came up in my head because it's

15:09

super cute, Like the whole scenery is really

15:11

cute, the music's fun.

15:13

I don't. I feel they have like objectives per

15:16

game, and you have to get like the spirit

15:18

logs to give to your campfire

15:21

and it tells you like where

15:23

to go essentially. But

15:25

the stories about these bears

15:28

that died, they're intense.

15:31

Like one of the stories had talked about how

15:33

he was being blamed for his family's death

15:35

and like that's always haunted him, and I was like, what

15:38

the hell. So,

15:42

like I took a moment and I was like, do I recommend

15:45

that to kiss?

15:45

Is this for like? Is this?

15:47

I know some games are just for adults. Is

15:49

this game for adults only? Like it doesn't

15:52

the coloring, the animation

15:55

wouldn't imply that to me. But

15:57

at the same time, these storylines of some of

15:59

these bears aren't really intense and

16:01

sad.

16:04

Oh.

16:05

I won't go into my whole tension about this, but

16:07

I feel like a lot of stuff we enjoy as kids

16:09

does involve death,

16:14

and when you look back at it as an adult, you're like whoa.

16:16

But when you're a kid, you're just sort of like.

16:19

OK, because you can skip over these stories.

16:22

But as I was like reading some of them, I'm like, dang

16:25

when Bear got killed for his treasure and I was like,

16:27

that seems really intense. But I guess you're

16:29

right, like a lot of our animated films and like, I'm still

16:31

traumatized by Land Before Time and I'll still will

16:34

not watch that or Bambi. How

16:36

dare you?

16:39

Yeah?

16:40

I'm also interested that you've two

16:42

of the games you've listened have

16:45

got haunted.

16:46

I don't know if that's a theme with cozy games. Uh,

16:50

I don't, because I feel like there's a lot of games

16:52

that are like haunted or this thing

16:54

or like dark dark past that

16:57

you need to unravel.

16:59

Huh. I guess you would have more knowledge

17:01

than.

17:01

That, or

17:03

you know, trying to find people, find things,

17:06

uncovered mysteries.

17:08

Yeah, this is we should

17:10

come back and talk about this later then, because

17:12

now you've got me really interested, because a lot of

17:14

the ones you've suggested to me, now

17:17

that they think about it, do have pretty

17:19

like adult mystery murder.

17:23

You've like put like asterisks of like this might

17:25

be we

17:28

need to come back to that. Okay, But another

17:30

game which is kind of that same level, and we've

17:32

already played the first one, which is the Coffee

17:34

Talk uh episode one.

17:37

I have gotten into Coffee Talk. Episode two

17:39

just started, so it's called Coffee Talk

17:42

Episode two, Hibiscus and Butterfly.

17:44

So I'm only in like chapter one or two. Still

17:47

great, the animation is wonderful.

17:50

I just started the dialogue. So we had that big

17:52

mystery unravel in the first one. I'm

17:55

guessing there's something similar to that on this one.

17:58

This time.

17:59

The it's already kind

18:01

of eerie. There was a thunderstorm happening.

18:04

There's a dude who is an influencer

18:07

that has an agent that's coming on.

18:09

And then this siren

18:11

I think is what she is, comes in and she

18:13

is not a happy person thus

18:15

far, like something is to hap happened. I think

18:17

she's I think that's the whole thing about like cyberbullying.

18:20

I was like, oh, okay, okay,

18:24

they've introduced pea flowers or pea

18:26

flower tea, and I've already messed

18:28

up a drink. I

18:30

was already told but I did not get the drink

18:33

right. It was not good, and I was like, okay.

18:39

So for listeners who don't know, we have talked

18:41

about this in previous episodes, but essentially

18:43

coffee talk is like you're

18:45

making drinks while people tell you, and

18:48

there's like vampires and wear

18:50

wolves and yes, and you're

18:52

just making drinks and you're trying to get the drinks right while

18:54

they talk to you.

18:56

So huh,

18:58

right, messed up a drink.

19:00

So I feel like I'm going to go back. But also it's supposed

19:02

to like cover present day Seattle.

19:05

It's around my birthday actually, and I think the last one was

19:07

around my birthday too, and

19:10

uh like twenty twenty three. And

19:12

then this is a very like obvious

19:16

take on like, uh, racism

19:21

and prejudice in general, except

19:23

we have yes, different species, so we have

19:26

like again, last time, we had vampires, we

19:28

had ware wolves, we had aliens.

19:32

On one real alien dude like who was

19:34

trying to pretend to be human so

19:36

he could mate we

19:39

all need to go back on our last episode because this does

19:42

not make sense outside of But

19:44

yeah, so I've started that and it's definitely like has

19:46

like eighties nineties vibe

19:49

of animation and

19:52

the way it speaks to you. It's like typed

19:54

out and such. It's really fun. It's very relaxing

19:56

to me. This is one of those games that I can sit in

19:59

my bed getting ready to go to bed

20:01

and play and not be over the top about

20:03

it. But it has definitely come up as

20:05

one of my favorites, and I'm really

20:07

glad they did have a second rendition.

20:10

I'm hoping that it continues because when it ends,

20:12

it's not one of those replayable games.

20:14

I mean it is because you can try to figure out

20:16

the drinks, but you're not discovering anything new, essentially.

20:20

But I think it's interesting that these games

20:22

are developing and it's still coming out.

20:24

But like I said, because Coffee Talk one

20:26

was so successful, they came out with the second one

20:29

again. I'm hoping that it will continue on and

20:31

I'm still looking for other games to try again.

20:33

I want to try that one we talked about at the beginning

20:35

of the episode because we want to

20:37

talk about indie creators, and I'm

20:40

hoping that we find more indie creators and especially

20:42

those from the marginalized communities being

20:44

a part of this and that they aren't

20:46

going to be overshadowed by the big companies,

20:48

although inevitably it does happen,

20:51

but that maybe we can shine

20:53

more light on that. So with that,

20:56

as you can tell, now you kind of have a

20:58

better feel and I have a better feel of what

21:00

I prefer in cozy

21:02

games. Is there suggestions or

21:05

people out there or games out there that I need

21:07

to be finding and playing and loving

21:10

and putting on my lists.

21:12

Yes, you know listeners. We love those suggestions.

21:15

I have a bunch of board games that I'm dying to

21:17

play that I got based on listeners

21:20

suggestions, So we really do

21:22

take them into account. If

21:24

you have suggestions for Samantha

21:26

or me, or both of us, please

21:29

let us know. You can email us at Stuff Media, Momstuff

21:31

at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us

21:33

on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or

21:35

on Instagram and TikTok at stuff. I've never told you

21:38

we have a tea public store and we have a book

21:40

where we do talk about video games. You

21:42

can get it wherever you get your books. Thanks

21:45

as always to our super producer Christina, our executive

21:47

producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank

21:49

you and thanks to you for listening stuff

21:52

I Never told you. Disrection by Heart Radio. For more podcast

21:54

from my Heart Radio, you can check out the heart Radio app, Apple

21:56

podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,