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Disney Dreamlight valley news

I felt like I should have responded to this when the announcement happened but oh well, late to the game I guess.

So there were several things that were announced earlier this month for the game. So I’ll go through each of them separately.

1. Probably the biggest news, no free to play for the foreseeable future.

I kinda figured this might be a possibility when there’s been no mention on when free to play would come out. And honestly. I’m kind of relieved.

I know a lot of people hate the fact that it’s not free to play but guys, have you played free to play games lately? Much of the time, a lot of the most fun and creative aspects of the game are behind a paywall anyway. You’d essentially be playing half (or most likely less than half) of the full game. They gotta get their money somehow.

It’s already kind of bad when the whole second act is behind a paywall (but honestly when you think about it it’s kinda like a sequel because it’s essentially a whole new game), but if this turned into free to play, like half of the items/clothing/characters, etc you could normally get for free would be behind a paywall. Dreamsnaps would probably not be a thing either.

Palia is the only free to play game that doesn’t do this quite the same way, but instead of half the game being behind a paywall, your character and home are gonna just look bland and boring unless you want to spend real money. And that can be a dealbreaker for people, of course. Either way, people are going to get their money anyway. I’d rather spend it all at once in the beginning and then be done with it. Now it’s either half of every aspect of the game is paywalled or you just gotta pay for a “membership” monthly subscription. So the fact that this will continue to be a paid game, is honestly refreshing and I support it. I know it does disappoint a lot of people because they just want to play at least some of it for free. That’s totally valid and I get where they’re coming from. For me personally, I don’t want to see everything in the game I “could” get if I spent real money, and be constantly reminded of it. It’s annoying and distracting, especially when I just wanna play a cozy game and relax.

2. The free updates

I’m glad that we are still getting free updates. I just hope that continues! The only thing that I’m confused about, is that the main story is done, and it seems the second act is behind a paywall. So are the free updates just gonna be characters and new individual quests? My guess is probably. Maybe there will be mini-story updates. I guess we’ll have to see. But I’m super pumped for the winter update on December 5th and all the snow-themes items to turn my valley into a winter Christmas town! Plus the new characters!

3. The expansion

From what I’ve seen, I’m totally going to get the expansion! It’s going to be a Christmas gift to myself. And I guess I’m just going to continue on the switch. It just stinks that you can’t play the expansion across platforms because I was going to switch to PC. Oh well. I can’t imagine it running that much worse on the switch with the update.

But I’m so excited for all the new characters and story and biomes!!! We needed more biomes and they’re so awesome!! The new royal tool is interesting as well. Just so many new concepts being brought to the game, like automation and mini games. I’m so here for all of it!

Disney is slapping with this game. Can they also slap with their movies too? Or is that too much to ask??

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Cozy Game Review: A Short Hike

I didn’t 100% the game but I came pretty close so I think that counts!!

This game is ADORABLE!! I loved it! And while I felt like $8 is a little steep for how much we got, it was a great experience. Let me go through my pros and cons for the game.

The cons are easy because there virtually are none. I just wish we got more of it…

Now for the pros!

There is a story to it but it’s really simple but deep at the same time. They managed to balance out the storyline with gameplay perfectly. It’s doesn’t need to be this big thing. Sometimes a character is just dealing with something in that moment and we can just explore that.

You also get out of the game what you put into it. There are quests and objectives, but they’re not in your face, and not necessary to beat the game. You can just hike right up the mountain if you wanted, or you can take you time and talk with all the characters on the way. You can play the game you want to play and as much as you want.

I was going to put this in my cons but I actually like the fact that you can’t see the full map at once (unless maybe I didn’t unlock something yet). I can tilt the camera slightly and I can view faraway objects from the telescope things, but that’s it. And it’s kind of like hiking in real life (without a map). You’re just going with the flow, and as time goes on you start to map out the area yourself in your head. It’s pretty cool.

I like to think of this as a game I can re-visit from time to time as it’s so relaxing! Sure, I’ll hike that mountain again. Idk, I like starting from the bottom and making my way upwards to the top, and the fact that I can do that over and over as many times as I want is so satisfying to me. Plus the view from the top of the mountain is downright gorgeous! That’s all I’ll say!

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Cozy Game Review: Dorfromantik

This game is a puzzle based game where you build beautiful landscapes and get all the pieces to match up with each other for more points and more tiles. Each tile can have 0,1, or multiple terrains on it, including water, trees, train tracks, wheat fields and houses. When you run out of tiles, the game is over. Simple premise.

But I think that’s what makes it so fun! It’s not the easiest game in the world but I’m motivated to keep trying for a high score of 10k. I’m at 7800 currently.

There’s not a ton to unlock in the game. They have different “biomes” which is really the same landscapes but in different colors. You get a winter-themed one, a fall themed one, a couple spring and summer themed ones, and for switch users, a Japanese cherry blossom tree themed one. The colors are really pretty but I thought the biomes would be a little more dynamic then just different colors.

You can unlock different tiles in the game as well if you beat certain challenges, so it makes the game a little more playable after you unlock all the biomes, which also happened surprisingly quick. I wish it took a little longer to unlock all the biomes. But oh well.

There’s obviously no story to the game, it’s just to get the highest score, which is totally fine! Not every game has to have a deep story. Puzzle games can be just so!

I can see myself getting bored of this game at some point, but right now I’m still itching to get as close as I can to a score of 10,000! And once I’m done I’ll take a big break and maybe come back to it. But this game is veryyyyy soothing and it’s something to do when I just want to turn my brain off and focus on a non-daunting task that I’ll actually enjoy. I still love this game and I’ll probably always love it even if I’m not playing it.

By the way I’m not going to rank or score these games quite yet. I’m sure I’ll create a system at some point but right now I’m just in my exploratory phase of playing cozy games. :) see y’all for the Palia review!

[calmcozycomfy]

Palia controversies…

Oh boy….these past couple weeks have been a lot for Palia.

I’ve been following the Palia subreddit for a bit now and it was mostly empty until the closed beta released. Now EVERYONE has their opinion about the game and they are literally all over the place. Some hate it, some love it, some like it but have concerns. Some see it’s incredible potential but ultimately won’t play it.

Here’s MY two cents, and my opinion is still evolving on the whole thing.

Right now from what information I have, this is pretty much the game that the devs wanted to (or had to) make.

If it’s true that not much has changed since the first alpha 1-2 years ago, then either they ran out of money to implement more feedback, or they are about satisfied with the game and is just ignoring more feedback that they don’t want to implement.

Now, I think we need to keep giving feedback and don’t stop, because at least if we don’t hear anything back then that’s on the devs and not us.

For me personally, I like the game so far. It doesn’t seem like an MMO, but the last MMO I played would I guess be club penguin lol but that might not even qualify. But in any case, it’s not bad! I’m only a few real hours into the game so maybe that will change. There’s also the fact that I LIKE playing slowly, that I don’t like to grind hardcore for anything and everything in the game. I like playing at my own pace for 1-2 hours a couple times a week.

This isn’t an official review of Palia, but I’m just addressing the controversy surrounding it. There’s also the thing where the devs were lying about their prices for their cosmetic items, and how they silence everybody that disagrees with them.

I will say the devs way of communicating is not my favorite. I’m sure they’re amazing people. But they either reply to really dumb troll comments or they don’t reply at all, and it doesn’t seem to be consistent. Just make official statements on your website, make time to answer some questions on social media occasionally and leave it at that!

Im not going to spend any money until I know the devs can implement feedback and that the game WILL improve over time. I did say I like the game now but I can tell it might get old a little quickly. So I will keep at it for the next couple months and see what happens!

Edit: apparently they just released an update. I will say that they also need to give some free stuff away along with the cash shop updates.

Look at Disney Dreamlight Valley. Their devs actually listened to their fan base and made it easier to get free in-game currency so we don’t have to use real money as often. The Palia devs actually made it harder…

You can like a game and want it to be better. You can continue to play a problematic game. It’s my life, my opinions, my choices. Everyone’s different. People are allowed to be obsessed with the game just as they’re allowed to hate the game, and everything in between. And they’re allowed to voice those opinions on the internet. All these posts I’m seeing of people complaining or people trying to defend the game, shouldn’t be meant to sway people in a particular direction. I feel like most people made up their mind. The devs should be the ones dealing with it.

It sucks that I wanted to be part of a new gaming community but everyone is arguing, but there’s nothing I can do. I just suck it up and deal with it. I’ll wait it out until either something happens or I simply stop playing.

In the end, it’s a game. My life’s going to move forward to matter what I do with the game, and I have way more important things going on lol. See you for the official review.

[calmcozycomfy]

Game Review: Disney Dreamlight Valley

Believe you me, I was OBSESSED with this game until just a week or two ago. I still like it but my overall enjoyment of the game has recently been decreasing.

Now I’m not familiar with gaming terminology so bear with me. Also this is my first “cozy game”

I’ve been playing this game since update 2 I believe? The one where woody and buzz were added. And the game is still in early access so I feel like I can’t quite review it fully until we see the actual finished product but we don’t even know when that’ll be so that’s why I’m doing the review now. This is update 6???? Or 5.5 maybe? Update 5 was the end to the overall forgetting story. Let’s start with the story.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

……..

It was surprising how much it made me feel emotionally. I wasn’t prepared to feel how I was feeling when I played some of the final quests of that storyline. It felt SO weird to be in my character’s shoes and not being able to “progress” until I gave Mickey a bad flower arrangement or I gave goofy some rotten shrimp.

The overall story of the forgetting was really clever. Not sure if women over 20 was supposed to be the demographic but I think this story hit us the most. We are so caught up in our adult lives that we forget about our childhood, and we all felt like we had to grow up so fast. This game was a lifesaver for me when I was knee deep in wedding plans and couldn’t have any sort of fun. It allowed me to be a kid again just for an hour a day.

Next, the overall concept. I LOVE having Disney characters be my neighbors in this valley together. I do question some of the character choices and just the villains in general. I felt like maybe the villains should have to be “unlocked” if you successfully redeem them or something. Just enough to let them in the valley.

I love decorating the most. There are countless furniture options (if you unlock them that is). But there’s fishing, cooking, farming, and mining as well. Plus you have a phone camera that takes photos with the characters and it’s super cute. The Touch of Magic feature is great for the really creative ones who can draw anything they want on certain furniture or clothes. So neat!!

I also love doing the quests. Even if they get repetitive and grindy sometimes. But hey, I’m not a serious player. I don’t need to have all of the things all at once. Taking my time to collect everything for a quest is honestly part of the fun for me. It’s very therapeutic!

The newest dreamsnaps update has also been SUPER helpful in getting more free moonstones. But it honestly sucks that the game still isn’t free to play and is taking micro transactions. But whatever, they’re not play to win in my eyes.

So what’s my overall recommendation? I still love the game! I love the fact that even if you take a break from the game you pick up right where you left off, and there’s no consequences (other than potentially missing a star path but those take like a month and a half). So I would definitely recommend taking a break if you feel bored. I feel like I played too much at once starting out. Play like 1-2 hours a day and you’ll have so much to do for a long time!

I’m still going to play the game, just not as much! I now have 2 other games to focus on! Reviews coming soon!

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BRAND new to cozy gaming: Let’s get it started

I guess that statement isn’t entirely true, I’ve loved my Mario games and my Nintendo systems for as long as I can remember. But recently when I got Covid this past January I wanted to try something else. I knew of Disney Dreamlight Valley and the premise seemed really cute so I tried it and I fell in love instantly!

I played it nonstop from January till now (pretty much August) and now I’m feeling a bit bored of the game. So I searched for other games that have a similar vibe and lo and behold I discovered cozy gaming as a genre and my entire world just opened up!

So I created this blog because I would like to try (and complete, if possible) as many of these games as I can!

Obviously what’s considered a “cozy game” can be different from person to person, which honestly isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s cool how we can all have different opinions and ways to vibe that’s all our own. At the same time, I’m definitely going to start with some cozy gaming staples that pretty much everyone would agree are cozy games, and then I think I’ll branch out.

Obviously Disney Dreamlight Valley is going first. And then probably Palia (my rule is to play at least 50 hours of each game. If it’s less than 50 hours, then the whole game.) My next game after that will likely be Dorfromantik. So look out for those reviews. I don’t expect anyone to actually see my posts, this is more so that I can put my thoughts about each game somewhere other than my head. Lol. But hey if people want to follow me I’m not gonna say no. :D