This article was originally published on Medium. Read this emotional story about Cozy Grove, and grab a Medium membership for only $5 while you're there.
Note: While this essay focuses on the emotions of Cozy Grove, there are light spoilers ahead.
After a near relationship ending argument with my boyfriend over our shared Animal Crossing island, I needed to find a similar game just for myself. While our relationship survived two years of a pandemic, lost jobs, and parenting issues, the shared responsibility of caring for an island without ruining the other person’s goals, was almost too much for us.
So when I saw a cute cozy game, that appeared to have similar mechanics to Animal Crossing, but with a darker aesthetic, I immediately bought the game.
I expected a dark Animal Crossing with very little story. I was just stoked to have a similar game that gave me quests, visible progress, fashion hunting, and exploration. I like to have a clear goal.
Slowly I realized that I had been bamboozled. Cozy Grove is therapy in the form of an unassuming video game.
Cozy Grove is therapy in the form of an unassuming video game.
Behind the images that could have been created as a hand drawn ink and water color painting, I was drawn into a false sense of security. I completed the quests, met the new bears, and planted a ton of fruit trees and flower bushes. (If you decide to play, invest in trees and flowers early.)
Slowly, the story unveiled itself. Each bear on the island is a ghost locked on the island due to grief, death, resentment, and the failures that lock them to this world. They’ve been stuck in an island purgatory for an unknown time. The oldest ghosts have been stuck for centuries, unable to move on.
It was my duty to help these ghost bears reach a peaceful end, move on, and heal the island. At first, it seems like this is done by fulfilling their quests. Provide them whatever they ask for, and they’re bound to be happy right?
Not so. Much like the real world, these bears don’t know what they need. Flowers, ink, food, or other items can’t heal the wound of missing out on your life because you spent it focusing on prepping for the end of the world, or dealing with the guilt that you feel for becoming sick, and having your daughter take care of you in your last years.
Grief doesn’t always look like what I think. Sometimes, it’s a bear missing their late wife. Sometimes, grief is rooted in guilt. Francesca is a spirit artist whose grief has convinced her that she’s a tree. It’s only after she’s allowed herself to feel the grief of losing her father and mother, that she remembers that she is a bear, and is dead.
Decay is as much a part of the essence of the forest as growth. Old things break down and provide the resources for the new to thrive. — Francesca, Cozy Grove
The game started out as a sanctuary to escape from life. I used it to disassociate and mentally survive. The calm of having well defined tasks in front of me, and the ability to fulfill them. I may not have known what I was doing in my life, but I knew what to do with those pixels.
I was stuck at home, and juggling the ever increasing duties of a single mom. Late at night, when Netflix was playing in the background, there was little to distract me. I was left with my thoughts. My thoughts and this game.
Like so many other people, I was struggling with my mental health. I realized as an adult, that my childhood wasn’t exactly easy. I had experienced loss that I hadn’t dealt with.
Left alone to my thoughts and a game that didn’t require my full attention, my brain thought about the story. Instead of clicking through the dialogue, I looked forward to it.
The bear’s stories taught me recognize grief in more scenarios than just death. You can mourn lost relationships, lost opportunities, your own actions.
Night after night, I experienced a light version of exposure therapy to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it’s ok to feel. Even if you’re the ghost of a bear king from centuries ago.
I’m on day 200 now. I’ve finished the game, but I still show up to harvest fruit and buy furniture, just a lot less frequently. Soon, I’ll need to let go of this game. The thought makes me sad, even as I experience boredom while playing after the story. I’ll need to grieve finishing this game eventually. Just not yet.
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