Cozy games
9 Best Cozy Games for a Slow Evening
The best cozy games for winding down: farming, tidy puzzles and gentle stories with no timers, from Stardew Valley and Unpacking to Spiritfarer.
This is for the end of a long day, when you want something to settle into instead of something to beat. The best cozy games don't put a clock on you or match you against strangers, and they won't punish you for putting the controller down to make tea. Mostly they're about small routines in a pleasant place, and watching things get a little better each day.
We went for a few kinds of comfort. There are farming and life sims you could sink hundreds of hours into, a couple of short puzzles, and some gentle stories that are warm without getting sugary. You set the pace in all of them, and most work as well in a twenty-minute session as over a whole evening.
My 9 Games
9 Best Cozy Games for a Slow Evening
The nine picks
Stardew Valley
ConcernedApe · 2016
You quit an office job and move to your grandfather's run-down farm outside Pelican Town. Then the days fill up: crops, fishing, the mines, and slowly getting to know the neighbors. Eric Barone made almost all of it by himself, and ten years on it's still the game every farming sim gets compared to. Friends can join your farm in co-op.
- Best for
- Anyone who likes a gentle daily routine
- When to play
- One more in-game day before bed
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Nintendo · 2020
A getaway package drops you on a deserted island, and over weeks it fills up with animal neighbors, shops and whatever you feel like building. It runs on the real clock and calendar. That sounds minor until you notice it's why people check in for five minutes every morning. Watch out for the museum, too. Once you start donating fish, bugs and fossils, you'll want to fill it.
- Best for
- Decorators and collectors
- When to play
- Five minutes with your morning coffee
Unpacking
Witch Beam · 2021
The whole game is taking things out of moving boxes and finding a spot for each one, across several moves in one person's life. Nobody says a word. You piece the story together from what's in the boxes, and from what stops turning up. It's short enough to finish in an evening or two.
- Best for
- People who secretly enjoy organizing
- When to play
- A calm evening with a cup of tea
Spiritfarer
Thunder Lotus Games · 2020
Stella takes over as ferrymaster to the dead. You build out her boat with gardens, kitchens and cabins, cook for your spirit passengers and listen to them until each one is ready to go. Yes, it's a game about saying goodbye. It's also gentle and often funny, and it never tips into gloom. A second player can join as Daffodil the cat.
- Best for
- Players who like cozy with a little heartache
- When to play
- An unhurried autumn weekend
Slime Rancher
Monomi Park · 2016
Beatrix LeBeau runs a ranch on a faraway planet, where she vacuums up bouncy, grinning slimes and keeps them in pens. Fed slimes produce plorts. Sell those, expand the ranch, explore further, find weirder slimes. It's bright and silly and very hard to put down.
- Best for
- Anyone who wants cheerful chaos
- When to play
- A lazy Saturday afternoon
Dorfromantik
Toukana Interactive · 2022
You place hexagonal tiles one at a time, and a patchwork of forests, fields, villages and rivers grows out of them. Small quests (finish a forest of a certain size, say) earn more tiles and keep the run alive. If even that feels like pressure, creative mode has no ending at all.
- Best for
- Board game fans and quiet thinkers
- When to play
- Winding down after a busy day
PowerWash Simulator
FuturLab · 2022
You run a pressure-washing business. That's it. Vans, playgrounds, whole houses, one grimy surface at a time. Watching dirt disappear in clean stripes is calming in a way that's hard to explain, and the game shows you exactly what's left, so there's always an obvious next spot. Put on a podcast and an hour goes by.
- Best for
- People who find cleaning satisfying
- When to play
- With a podcast in the background
Coffee Talk
Toge Productions · 2020
You run a late-night coffee shop in a version of Seattle where elves, orcs and other fantasy folk live ordinary lives. Customers come in with their problems, and you make them a drink and listen. Getting the order right matters; speed doesn't. Short chapters and a lo-fi soundtrack make it easy to play a little at a time.
- Best for
- Visual novel fans and night owls
- When to play
- A rainy night after work
Wylde Flowers
Studio Drydock · 2022
Tara moves to the island town of Fairhaven to help her grandmother with the farm, then finds out there's a secret coven of witches in town. So between planting and making friends, you're learning spells. Every line is voice acted, which is unusual for a farming game and does a lot for the story.
- Best for
- Life sim fans who want more story
- When to play
- A crisp autumn evening
Make it yours
Cozy is personal. One person's comfort game is another person's chore list. Put these nine into My 9, swap in whatever you reach for when you need to unwind, and share the grid. Your friends might find their next slow evening in it, or tell you what you missed.
Opens the maker with these nine in the grid. Swap any of them for your own.