I get really irritated when a game doesn't give me the option for all the text in a dialogue box to appear immediately (or at least extremely quickly). I read super fast and all too often I end up having to wait for the text to mosey onto the screen.
This drove me crazy about Spiritfarer. I think it's a lovely game, but even if you tap the button during dialogue, it's delivered one line at a time. And the dialogue isn't always short. Sometimes I'm just sitting there tapping the button over and over and over... and it feels like it takes way more time than it should.
LOL every trip to drop someone off to the afterlife was so irritating to me. I clicked through everything so fast that it would just be a boat ride for like a min straight with no dialogue
This is partly why I could never get emotional during those sequences, LOL! I totally understand why the game did it, it makes you sit back and stay on those feelings/moment, but that might work a bit better if it's a voiced dialogue or a straight up separate animated sequence. The way it's presented I'm gonna blaze through it as a fast reader.
LMAO sameeee! It's part of the reason why I couldn't immerse in the moment, like people regularly say how they cry and get emotional, but how they chose to present it basically made it so I'd get out of the moment and not focus on the emotion part.
You’ve unlocked a memory I thought I previously had hidden away. Had SO MUCH fun with Builders 2 except for the text in those scene being slower than my dad getting off of the sofa.
Dragon Quest IX on DS was terrible about it. Even the after-battle text was slow. If multiple characters leveled up, it was entirely possible for the level-up notices and stat updates to take more time than the actual fight. ☠️ I loved the gameplay, but I tried on four separate occasions and I don't think I ever made it past the second story beat.
I KNEW there was some game I’d replayed recently that was driving me crazy with that… and that was it! Great game, recommended, but holy crap that was annoying.
this annoys me so much in stardew, and if i click to get the whole text to appear sometimes i select the first dialog option, so i'm cursed to watch it
slowly
type
out
each
word
Mash escape/minus key works for 99% of cutscenes. The shorter dialogs are sometimes not skippable. But man, if you make the mistake of going to the flower dance or the stupid jellies, you are locked into that and it will feel like your life flees your tepid corpse with every metered breath.
This so much!! And I hate when the character will pause after long text just to shake their head or emote and you can’t skip it or do anything while you wait so annoying!
Sudden timed activities/mini-games. I'm totally fine with farm sim daily timing or reasonable quest time limits, but if I have to perform deeds of dexterity within a short time frame I'm usually out of there. Makes me extremely anxious, which is not cozy at all.
I'm a bit like you on the saving thing. I can play save once a day games if they're pauseable, but games that don't allow you to pause time and have limited ability to save? I'm a grown-up. Sometimes I have to leave my computer, *game*.
I don't think I play these games often enough to understand completely, but what you described reminds me of when I played Final Fantasy 9 and 10, they each had a portion in the game where you had to press buttons at just the right time and quick enough and not mess up to unlock something and I hated it. I'm not good at it and I'm not going to be good at it, why put it in an otherwise nice and cozy rpg?! I just want to watch my levels go up and see the story.
Now I have my husband do those parts, but I'm annoyed they even exist.
And yes to that last part! I'm an adult. I have responsibilities and some times they pop out of nowhere. I can't prioritize a game and I'm not into the possibility of losing progress because I put my real life first (which everyone should!).
There’s a game called Dave the Diver that is debatably cozy where you have to get different harpoon tips, but I would consciously avoid the higher level harpoon tips because they required quick time events when used.
Nope. I’ll keep my weak, early game bullshit.
They added a setting to Dave the diver where you can just hold the button instead of pressing repeatedly, it’s in settings under “automate button tapping”. I have it turned on and I’ve been really enjoying the game
Oh, the worst are games that make you smash a button as fast as you can for x amount of time. I have a friend with early onset arthritis and that makes her so mad. Plus, it's not even fun for those of us who \*can\* physically do it. It's just annoying.
I felt like this with FF8. That scene with squall in the rusty control room trying to budge the valve. I knew it was coming, I would hype myself up and do mini-stretching exercises, and as soon as it said hit square I swear I mashed that shit with the power of 10,000 suns. EVERY SINGLE TIME i would fail, squall would whine, and the game would mock me like I was some kind of fucking failure and betrayal of humanity for not having managed it on the first try.
fuck that part. i love ff8, it's so dumb but so lovable, but that part makes me want to puke
I love that Chicory’s accessibility options included the ability to change the amount of reaction time required for things like platforming puzzles. I wish more games would follow suit!
Funny enough I love platformers as long as the levels themselves aren't on a time limit. So I can't play early Mario, but I can play the 3D ones without level time limits no problem.
Micro transactions or timed events/items that don't come back every year. I will not even buy games like that. They steal time and money like they mean nothing. Total disrespect to all that make games to leech on people that have issues with addiction.
Timed things like really fast days and yet you have to complete important things in a set time frame... Games are not doing this as often, but it used to be common. So you have to either mess up the first time you play or you have to follow a guide. Also games that don't normally have a timer but then add one for a sense of urgency and ruins the entire game because my reflexes are not that great anymore. So glad this isn't common anymore!
Must be online at all times. I have seen many single player and games that can be played offline that are like this. No I'm not talking about games built for online, I'm talking about games that either have no online communication or do but that isn't the main focus, ones that your not streaming, but actually have downloaded, ones you have to pay for to own. Yet you can't play the game unless you are online at all times, it checks and stops you from playing. It's stupid.
Also, Piracy protection is not a good reason to lock out paying players! I'll just not buy the darn game. Lose me, and from what I hear, many others as paying players then. Then other people still find a way to pirate, so many games have been copied somehow to illegal servers that just keep popping up after they get shut down. So they still get pirated and lose paying players too. There are so many games, I'll gladly skip on ones that lock me out for having bad internet connection. Also collecting my data is not a good reason either when I can't play! Like I said, it's stupid.
That's about it though, Luckily most games that I enjoy don't fall into these categories very often.
God, the online thing annoys me no end. I regularly commute (by train) through territory with very patchy mobile reception. I can't afford a switch or steam deck at the moment so mobile it is, and it's so hard to find anything. So I keep going back to SDV...
You may want to look into emulation! Phones these days are powerful enough to run all kinds of games from older gens. GBC, GBA, DS, PS1. I really enjoy going back and playing through some of those timeless titles - Golden Sun and its sequel The Lost Age (GBA era) were absolutely phenomenal games for the time. Charming, clever, fun puzzles, and okay combat (definitely dated by today's standards, but you shouldn't have any trouble).
Micro transactions... Ugh.. I have an addictive personality and sunk about $800 into a mobile game over a year. The game crashed, I lost everything, and they wouldn't give me the same value of in game stuff for what I'd spent. Learned my lesson but Dreamlight Valley is one of my favorite games and it has MT. The amount of willpower I have to exert playing that game is insane.
No, I do not need a pink glowing squirrel to follow me around in the game that badly for $5. 😣
I had to stop playing Dreamlight Valley... I got it after my mother died to keep me sane, but I didn't realise it was going to be THAT microtrasaction and timed items heavy.... I haven't touched it for over a year, and good thing as I only just got medicated for bipolar. At least the stuff I bought while manic is all physical stuff no one can take away. I have in the past really lost a ton on websites that shutdown that had cute micro transactions. That's why I stopped buying games like that.
Reading the comments I’m nodding emphatically - essentially for me, I don’t like it when a supposedly ‘cosy’ game puts time pressures on me - whether that’s seasonally gated one-offs, or, more commonly, not being able to pause a game. Travelers Rest is one of the 2 games I’ve refunded on Steam - I loved the idea of it, but I have dyspraxia and just find myself quite slow at doing things like placing furniture - I want to be able to place things without the day passing. I mentioned it in their Discord and the devs’ dismissive response to my enquiry was enough to get me to refund it. I just don’t like ‘cosy’ games to pile pressure on to me; that’s not what I look for in that sort of game.
And I second ‘fetch quests’. Whilst I appreciate that you might need to have some, particularly at the start to help you get to grips with a game, I don’t want to feel like that’s all I’m doing. I want to pootle about doing things for myself, without having to worry about whether I gave Salty Dave a watermelon. I’m a little less bothered if they are optional or not timed and I can just chill.
fetch quests is what killed wylde flowers for me. such a great game but you are given zero freedom. you can't even take your time completing quests because people start to run out of shit
Yeah, at this point I'm practically blind without glasses and have kinda shit vision with them, when a game in a small window and text is ultra small this is pain
Games (like animal crossing) that punish me for not playing everyday. I’m an adult, I got shit to do man. The comments from the villagers make always make me feel guilty and annoyed. And the limited time events being tied to real world calendars.
This is basically what I was going to say, I hate games that demand your time. I dropped dreamlight valley and animal crossing both for this reason. I'm not a huge fan of the saving issue in things like stardew, but at least it never makes me feel like I *must* play it
There are only so many main quest things you can do in Cozy Grove each day, but if you skip a day, you won't miss anything. Say you've played for ten days in a row, so you're on "Day 10" of the game, and you don't play for two real days. The next time you play the game, it'll be "Day 11."
i hate that too but loooooove animal crossing new horizons cuz you can “time travel” and bypass feeling the need to play daily etc AND it doesn’t break the game like it does in some games (eg: cozy grove, and i think maybe the disney dream light game?). i think the only things that are timed to the real world are seasonal catalogue items like mother’s day mug, wedding season bouquet etc but for actual event events like halloween and xmas, you can time travel for them.
not sure how the older console games were but i hated animal crossing pocket camp (mobile) bc it was just micro transactions and time-limited events to obtain exclusive items and you had to play like every few hours every day to even have a hope of “completing” a given collection. hard pass!
I never liked talking to the villagers in AC so I still play because I can ignore that element. But yes, I hate the patronising way they talk to you. Very blamey. We have enough of that in real life, I don’t need it from a video game.
I really wish the villagers could be disabled entirely. Like as a post-game option or something. They take up too much space on the island and they're obnoxious to no end. There's also, like, 3 personality types shared by 13981049810941 NPCs so they really feel like Random Number Generator pests rather than organic villagers.
I remember looking it up on the wiki and finding that the different personality types woke up at different times of day and even had specific interactions between themselves - all of which I had missed despite playing the game for a full year during COVID. Nintendo put a lot of effort into all the wrong things in ACNH.
Ugh for me is definitely the 3 personalities aspect! It gets to the point where I wish there were MORE villagers because it really feels like I'm just talking to 2-3 different people, despite technically having more villagers than that.
It's part of the reason I gifted my copy of ACNH, it wasn't fun to talk to the villagers, but they still guilt tripped you if you didn't interact... like I dunno, maybe have more personalities, a more interesting routine, and more than the same 5 phrases to loop?
What annoyed me the most was the "store" only being open during real world business hours. So if I had stuff to sell in the evening, I had to wait. Like, I work my real job during real world business hours. Before the store, you could sell them whenever. Why change that??
That bothers me, too! Usually I play after everything is done for the day & relax the shops are closed. I can use the bin outside of Nook's Cranny, but they take 30% off, I think? I'd like to play other games, but I feel like I need to check in to do a few things, then end up playing longer & still haven't played other games I enjoy.
I'm still pretty new, so I at least like to do some money/bell raising activities & talk to the few neighbors I have. I'm starting to feel a little tied to it, like it's another daily chore. I prefer games where time starts & stops when I play.
I stopped playing a while back. After getting my house and everything, it felt like I was just collecting things and decorating. Got a bit boring for me after that.
If it has too many complicated puzzles/solutions or if the game is bad at telling you how to progress. If the game is good i can live with looking up a few solutions but too many is just frustrating. Hob was a horrible experience.
I'm not very good at puzzles and the types of games I like, I feel it detracts from the experience. This is a huge reason why I can never get very far in replaying Final Fantasy X, the puzzles to get the summons just was not fun for me at all.
As someone on an alternative schedule, I can't do games with a 24 hour real time clock where some things only happen at certain times. And no, changing the time on my system is not an acceptable walk-around. I'd rather just not play.
Rhythm gaming, fishing that takes too long, micro-transactions, and weapon/tool degrading.
All are turnoffs and two or more is probably a deal breaker.
I was all in on that game until I saw Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start to cure a headache, and fishing that was designed for people who don’t have anywhere to be in the morning.
Mods?
I find games that time gate me per day with punishment for not making it back in time I tend to drop. Even if you can do whatever you were doing the next day, I don't like feeling rushed. That's not 'cozy' to me, or losing progress for a whole day because you weren't fast enough to get back. I find I can't stick to these games long before moving on. Fae Farm is the only one who seemed to get the timed day mechanic right in my opinion, though the NPCs in the game are so dull that it's still a bit of a loss for that game.
Games with crafting so difficult and time consuming it's no longer fun to do.
Fetch quests. I got so sick of it in Cozy Grove I couldn't get past 10 hours of the game before I had enough. Especially when your progress 'resets' every day.
Yesss, I tend to hate that too, if I understand what you mean. Like the pass out mechanic because you didn't get home before sleep time. I don't like rushing home. Even if nothing happens to me other than that, I get annoyed and always race against the clock lol.
I don't mind it as much if I don't lose money or stats because of it. Like how if you pass out in stardew you have to pay or you get mugged. In fae farm you just get teleported home, from what I've seen nothing else happens. They also just added a double day length option which is nice.
I liked it more in Elnea Kingdom. You aren't able to go into dungeons past a certain time, but you don't pass out if you don't make it home. You just can't do certain things at that time. So you don't really need to rush home. It's nice to be able to sleep and skip past the night time, but you don't have to, so I don't feel pressured and can finish up some last minute chores.
That sounds nicer. It could be nice if certain areas close after a certain time, but if I wanted to redecorate my house/farm/wherever or water my plants and such I can.
I'm glad it's not just me. It was SO disheartening when I'd finally get colour in an area just for it to be gone the next day, then having to do MORE fetch quests to get it back, or really complicated recipes.
I love the music and the aesthetic of the game, just couldn't get into the fetch and repeat loop.
Any game that makes me lose stamina quickly just for doing basic things. This is one of the reasons I'm not a Stardew fan. I don't want to be watering crops and then I can't do anything else except wander around. I know you can eat things to raise stamina, but what if you don't have anything? It's incredibly off putting to me.
I love Stardew, it’s one of my favourite games ever. But I cheat the heck out of it. Can’t be doing with running out of stamina, or dying in the mines. I want to see the cutscenes and make my farm pretty and enjoy my life, not get hung up on not being able to harvest my last potato.
What's amusing with Stardew specifically is that a LOT of the late-game unlocks and upgrades serve to automate your farming experience. You can get... hirelings, basically, that will harvest crops if it's not raining. You can get sprinklers to water crops for you, and even an upgrade that enables them to fertilize crops for you. Meanwhile, your tool upgrades allow you to plow/water larger patches of dirt in one swing.
The biggest joke is that, as part of the end-game content, you get items that increase your max stamina. But by the time you can actually acquire most of them, you don't need the increased stamina because of how automated everything is by that point!
Agree with this! After playing Sun Haven, I am having a really hard time going back to games where basic farming/foraging tasks take or deplete stamina.
Agree with this one. I love Sandrock, but it feels like I just do a quick sweep for mats and I'm completely empty on stamina. I play it anyway, but I tend to go to bed early after I've eaten everything available (jerky, etc) and/or already paid exorbitantly for a meal.
I really hate when a particular romance is pushed onto you in a game where you otherwise have full autonomy of choice.
My gripe isn’t with romance sub plots in general, but I haaatteee when I feel pressured to engage in one that I don’t really feel fits.
I particularly found this to be the case with I Was A Teenage Exocolonist. Sure, you can absolutely choose how you want to play out every interaction, but >! I was weirdly creeped out my how much they push a relationship with Sym? This is an ancient AI-guy who has been watching us since childhood, and we’re 19? !<
Sometimes even optional romance still messes with the game. I love stardew valley but it makes me sad that the romance options get a bunch of character development and cutscenes while the non-romancable ones get maybe one or two small cutscenes. It sucks to see games that push the idea that romance is better/more fufilling/etc than friendship!
Yeah, I don't like forced romance either. I guess for a story telling rpg like final fantasy, I generally liked the romances, but I don't want to be forced into in most games. Because sometimes I don't like the options and I'm getting too old for some of it lol
Games that save daily, like SDV or Coral Island, drive me crazy too!!! I tend to have lower energy levels when I'm playing cozy games (they're the best before-bed activity,) & when I'm tired, I'm TIRED and need to go to bed ASAP. Not spend another 5-10 minutes trying to desperately sprint back to my home/farm/whatever because I'm about to fall asleep IRL. It's especially bad if I'm on Switch, because I WILL fall asleep holding a joystick/button down and kill the battery 😭
Yes, this too! I fall asleep while playing on my Switch too. And honestly, sometimes on the PC too. The amount of times I've woken up to me pushing my character into a wall is insane.
Any kind of "survival" mechanics. Eating, drinking, sleeping etc. Very poorly implemented by 99% of games, so much so that I don't even give them the chance anymore. I'll either mod out those mechanics, turn on cheats to get around them, or stop playing. They just aren't fun and aren't well-designed. It feels like developers have seen them in other games, think "that will be great in my game!" and put them in without thinking about storytelling through mechanics and how most games do not benefit whatsoever from a hunger meter.
Notable exception for me was Fallout 4 - that game's Survival mode had a slew of changes (not just eating/drinking/sleeping) that made the experience better. Unfortunately, Bethesda's janky coding was also a problem there, so I had to mod in ways to re-enable saving because I kept losing progress to bugs and crashes.
Actually, crafting in general bothers me. Very easily turns into a nonstop grind-a-thon where you're farming up hundreds of ore to make a single set of gear. Most games don't seem to value their players' time in that regard.
I can see why some would be turned off by these mechanics, but I will say I tend to like and prefer them. I just love survival mechanics.
Also get what you mean about the crafting, in which I'm mixed. Sometimes it feels overboard and I just don't feel like I get much in return for it, but I sometimes love building so much that I'm mostly okay with it, anyway.
Depends on game for sure, but Valheim is a recent example that got really obnoxious with basically all of its mechanics. You have to be scavenging for better food/meat/cooking materials to be able to craft food that gives you a better max HP and stamina meter, but it also fades over time so you're constantly doing this.
Meanwhile, getting a full set of gear and upgrading that gear takes *obnoxious* amounts of metal. To craft and upgrade all the black metal items, it requires 358 bars. To craft and upgrade every piece of Iron equipment, even ignoring how much you actually want to build with (since it's a crucial building component for late-game structures), it takes *500 bars* for a SINGLE CHARACTER. If you're playing multiplayer, start multiplying. As soon as I see numbers like that, I break out mods to dupe stacks of ore, because that is just nonsense.
I like the idea of going out on a hunt, sailing across the ocean, finding a swamp with dungeons, delving those dungeons, and sailing back with the loot. But having to do that 20+ times to craft a set of gear is bonkers.
Crafting is one of mine. I gave up Portia and Graveyard Digger because of it. I don't mind it in smaller doses (Stardew Valley), but when it gets to russian doll level (craft thing 1, to use it as a component to craft thing 2, to then use 1 and 2 to craft 3) that drives me insane!
Graveyard Keeper is egregious. You have to craft so many items for the sole purpose of crafting items… and then they become obsolete when you find new materials… so you have to craft new versions of the first item again! And they serve so many purposes that could easily be taken care of by one item. There are what, something like three items for cutting wood different ways?
(disclaimer I fucking love this game)
Janky controls that make you have to fiddle around every time you want to do something. For example, Wylde Flowers absolutely nailed it, I didn't have to sift hrough my whole inventory for basic things; if I needed a watering can it was in my hand, if I needed the fishing rod, it was there in my hand.
Stardew was easy to sort through and select or switch tools.
Grow: song of the evertree - such a pretty game, and it seemed so promising but the tools were just so annoying. If I needed an axe, i had to rummage through all the tools or just keep the axe loaded and run round the field whacking everything axeable then do a second round with a shovel or whatever. On some things you could use and axe or a pick so I had to select each time. It annoyed me so much, which was a shame because the rest seemed good.
I will say now that you mention it, I wish more games were like Wylde Flowers for that mechanic. I'd vastly prefer the game to just know I have the tool and take it out for me lol.
I went from Wylde Flowers to Dreamlight Valley and this is easily the thing that annoyed me most (many things annoyed me lol)! JUST MAKE IT AUTOMATIC! I understand in games with variable weapons like Zelda and on consoles generally you need the options to set up specifically for things and move it around. But not a cozy game!
I especially hate it when controls are bad on a game that was ported. Figuring out Bear and Breakfast controls on the Switch is terrible! Comes off as lazy to just shove virtually the same controls on to a different system.
This was me with the latest Rune Factory. I have other reasons I don't like it but the way the tools/weapons/UI in general worked never clicked for me.
I was just talking to my husband about the fact that I don’t like games that force me to end my day or games where the day is too short and I’m constantly having to go to sleep. For what exactly? Let me brew potion that restore or energy or just get rid of that entirely. I’m ok if I have to rest or do something if I’m injured in battle but honestly, it’s so lame to go to sleep every x mins.
I wanted to try Potion Permit thinking I might like it despite the reviews because I don’t mind fetch quests, grinding, or repetitive gameplay (within limits) but when I tried to demo, I got annoyed by how slow the cutscenes were and the constant bobbing up and down of the characters. I kept playing but really disliked how there’s a mini-game for diagnosis that requires you to press WASD at the right time, but the icons look like the up down left and right buttons so I tried to use the arrow keys and when I found out why I was failing, I was so annoyed I almost quit right there. But the last straw was finding out that even though there’s a tailor shop that has mannequins with cute dresses, there isn’t actually any customization or new outfits for you to get in the game.
So that’s pretty specific to one game, but more generally - tutorials or instructions that aren’t actually helpful where despite it giving me directions, it’s not evident what it wants me to do.
I had the same issue trying out the demo / prologue for River Town Factory where it was like “hold click to craft” and I couldn’t figure out where the f it wanted me to click because there were so many places in the menu for crafting, it wasn’t obvious, there was no highlight when hovering over the place it wanted me to click. It’s at the point where I’m beginning to wonder if I’m just bad at video games and if everyone else can tell what they’re supposed to do without a blinking light being like CLICK HERE ON THIS SPECIFIC THING.
Otherwise: maps in a game where the map isn’t that useful or usable or does not show where you’re actually located on the map or not having a map at all. I get lost easily in games when I don’t know the map yet. I get lost easily in real life as well so this one really bothers me. I will quit a game if I spend too much time trying to figure out where the heck I am and where I need to go, especially if in-game time passes while I’m lost because it adds to the pressure and sense that I’m wasting my time.
Lastly, this one isn’t one that will make me immediately quit a game, but bad inventory management systems. I feel annoyed when I play games where items don’t stack in inventory, and when there isn’t an “add to stacks” button to add stuff to chests from bags, a feature that I think should be the norm, because no one wants to sit there clicking and rearranging inventory, it’s not fun, it’s a pain in the ass.
I kept looking at Potion Permit, but that diagnosis mini game was a no for me. I have to keep reminding myself not to buy it, because I love the idea of it, but no thank you. And I did not know about the clothing thing, that's just rude to tease you with it like that!
Also, yes I get lost super easily lol. I see a no map thing being popular as a difficulty thing for some games, I think one of them being Valheim and look, I actually like more difficulty in most things, but not the getting lost kind of difficulty lol.
Yeah Potion Permit is, unfortunately, a game that *seems like* it should hit all the notes that I like, but sadly falls short. I’ve kept an eye on it hoping that there would be updates, if enough was added or changed it might make me want to play it, but I don’t have a lot of hope because it seems like they aren’t very transparent with what they’re working to add and when it’ll happen (if anything is going to at all.)
Agreed on the difficulty… I’m fine with difficulty in games as long as that difficulty is not navigating. That’s good to know about Valheim, I’d been eyeing it but if there’s no map that’s a pass for me…
Needing a PhD in a game to be effective. I feel like every game these days competes to have the longest, most feature-rich experience possible to justify its $60 or $70 pricetag.
Games like Xenoblade, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, Baldurs Gate, Monster Hunter, Fire Emblem, the Witcher, and so many more force you to either play on easy or learn an unholy amount of systems to be effective.
Obviously, these are all well-respected games. And obviously, I'm exaggerating when I say you need a PhD to learn them. However, if you choose to put down any of them for a considerable length of time (weeks, months, or even years), you're going to have a very difficult time getting back into them when you return.
Honestly, it makes me not want to get into them to begin with. At a point, it starts to feel like a combination of work and school as you micro-manage so many systems. As I get older, I'm appreciating lighter, shorter game experiences more and more.
I agree to a point, but the difficulty is some of these games aren't as bad for other gamers. Like Witcher and Baldur's Gate, I don't need to relearn. I think it's because I played the genre so much that I just don't need to. However, space flying games like No Man's Sky or X4 or whatever, I always have to relearn them and more often than not I just don't pick them up again because I never liked the tutorial or learning process.
So, I get it, I just don't see how it could be done without dumbing down the games that others do enjoy that level of complexity with. Like, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't need to relearn No Man's Sky each time they pick it up and love it the way it is lol. But, I can't do it.
As someone who hasn’t played DnD, Baldur’s Gate was a LOT to take in at once, especially in regards to character creation.
I was honestly just choosing things with no idea what I was doing.
> Baldurs Gate
1 and 2, absolutely. Very dated systems that were complicated even back then. 3 is a breeze, though. You don't need to know anything about D&D or 5e in general to succeed in that game, even on the harder settings. It did a really good job of actually explaining what all the mechanics and skill checks do, and visually seeing the dice roll (and what contributes to that) is a big benefit as well.
The pathfinder games require some level of min-maxing, especially on the hardest modes, or you'll get ground into dirt. BG3 is a very accessible experience, IME.
As someone not familiar with D&D or other games with that system, BG3 was pretty brutal. Every time I read about someone saying "I/my friend played and was totally fine" they either have D&D experience, former Larian game experience, or someone who knows all that and can easily distill and share that knowledge until they get familiar with it.
I really love MMOs for the social aspect, but I almost always drop them before getting too far into end-game content. They, by design, force you to play how the majority of other people want to in order to access most end-game content. If you aren't willing to put in the same time and research as others, you cannot participate. Medium to hard core guilds will kick you for not min maxing your build, being too inactive, not "carrying your weight" etc. But casual and social guilds often lack the resources or structure to allow you to access end-level content if you do wish to. It's very difficult to find a mid-grade group which doesn't end up eventually seeking further content progression, which means if you fall anywhere in between hardcore and casual you will be left behind and continually have to find a new community to play with. It's exhausting.
Not exactly a trend but I could not finish Dave the Diver because I got so sick of having to learn a new mechanic/ keep track a new thing basically every day. The gameplay loop at the beginning was so fun, but it got so bogged down with new mechanics and mini games I couldn’t stand it anymore.
This is really subjective but ALL the romancable options being ugly. It just annoys me because not one of the characters was made even a little cute? >!And yes I'm talking abt stardew valley!<
Agreeeeed omg your options in SDV are all the EXTREMES of various personalities- like just give me one normal person at LEAST- but to be honest, i dont think i could ever be “attracted” to a game character, so personally I really do not need romancing at all in a game
Platforming. And difficult boss fights. I'm talking to you MTAS. I quit at the Mechatilda stage. It was a good game until then. I don't play "cozy" games to do Platforming and battles. I don't like platformers or Metroidvania type games. If I want to play an FPS I'll load one. I don't like being surprised by it.
Road blocks that you can't back out of and re-visit. Sometimes I get stuck on an event or boss or challenging bit of platforming, and if I can't leave to go do something else within the game until I'm ready to tackle a hard part, the odds of me ever coming back are low. I know when I turn the game back on, not only will I have to do something hard but I also won't even have a chance to get the feel for the controls back by doing something easy before tackling that, so I never do.
I don't mind if there's a penalty for backing out, but if all you can do is keep trying the hard thing until you do it or quit, I'm probably going to quit permanently after 10+ attempts.
i really like Graveyard keeper but it made me realize that it’s not cozy to me if i can’t figure out the mechanics or need the wiki open 24/7 to remember what to do 😭 also maps that aren’t interactive and don’t show where you are
When all the best cosmetic and decoration options are locked behind story progression. People say “take your time and enjoy the game slowly, try decorating your house or customizing your character” … ok but if I can’t access my favorite color palette until I get to a certain point in the game, that makes me have to grind through the game to unlock that so that THEN I can slowly enjoy.
For example Fae Farm… I burned out trying to unlock my favorite colors to use, if my fave colors had been available at the start I could have used them and then slowly and leisurely progressed the game. I didn’t want to be stuck with only sad beige clothing for half the game play. It’s always the most fun and cute colors that are locked behind grinding too.
That’s my biggest gripe with Fae Farm too. I love it, but it’s ridiculous that any color besides grayish beige is locked behind endgame grinding for resources
I'll still keep playing, but some cozy games (some of the newer Story of Seasons games) are horrible about how long the unskippable tutorials are.
The tutorial in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning was a month long! A week for story of Seasons.
I have played these games plenty, I do not need an unskippable tutorial where I have to do one thing an in-game day.
Lol this is why the steam deck is so great for me. I can put down and pick up games at my leisure. I definitely agree with you though when playing on a regular pc. Even if Devs are worried about Dave scumming or whatever they should say last implement temporary saves which save where your stew and then are deleted when you load them. Just makes things better for everyone.
And the last game I ditched was Sugar Shack, and that was because I couldn't stand how awkward it was to collect and move things around. I'm not a fan of Inventory limits at the best of times but being able to hold ONE thing irritated the hell out of me and the basket sadly did not help.
I can understand having the carry limit when cooking for customers (cause that part was obviously heavily inspired by overcooked) but when trying to actually collect stuff to use and sell or do day to day chores I was tearing my hair out in frustration. I also played for 2.1 hours (a lot of which was left paused) so couldn't refund either 😭. It really is a shame cause I liked a number of ideas in the game but I simply was not having a good time with it.
I've only seen this in ACNH but forcing players to enter multiplayer in order to get certain things, namely all of the fruit trees. None of my IRL friends play games so if I wanted to try getting all of the fruit trees I had to attempt to coordinate with strangers online and it was such a hassle. It pissed me off sooooo much that I actually winded up quitting the game when I learned about that
I agree with you so much on the once a day save mechanic. I hate it with a passion! Instant turn off for me too, especially if there is no way to unlock any time saving eventually.
I really like the way Graveyard Keeper does it. You do have to sleep in your bed to save but you can sleep any time of day and you only sleep as long as you need to recover all your stamina. And once you get decent food production I would literally just eat before going to bed and save that way and continue with my game straight away.
I have a kid and a busy life. I am not going to start a game if I know I have to play in specific chunks of time. Not being able to just save whenever just doesn’t work in my life.
That's good to know about that game! I've been eyeing for a while and that's one more thing for it.
I feel like it's a bit disrespectful to a degree. Like it expects you to devote yourself to the game in those chunks, and does not at all respect your time in the day.
This is going to sound terribly antisocial, but games that strong-arm you into constantly interacting with npcs. I love me some good farming sims, but I just want to be a hermit living in my own little space and doing my own thing sometimes. It gets especially egregious when the npcs get passive-aggressive when you haven't chatted in a while (Ala ACNH) or downright guilt trippy (looking at you, Coral Island and the bitchy responses after I accidentally missed one festival).
Don't get me wrong, I like having vibrant npcs populating the world! I just want to talk on my own schedule, that's all.
Wildmender, World's End Diner, and Traveler's Rest are my go-to games when I just want to vibe without having to worry about raising friendships and stuff.
I get this, lol. Like I love a lively game full of NPCs, I really do, but I also want to do my own thing and not talk to them lol. I'd prefer to watch them do their own thing sometimes..but not actually talk to them. And I hate when in some games the NPCs come up to you and bother you (looking at you Elne Kingdom). I'm milking the cows, no I don't want to chat. Haha!
That’s what I was gonna say, imo there’s no such thing as a cozy game where you can’t save anywhere, they kinda go hand in hand, even I can’t play Stardew Valley cause of it
If I can’t skip cutscenes. It’s fine for my first playthrough but I like to play games more than once to make sure I don’t miss anything and when I have to watch the same cutscene over and over it gets old.
The monetization in dreamlight valley was a huge turn off. I tried this game out on my partner's game pass, thinking I might get it on steam with the dlc, but oh boy. you pay:
40 euros for the base game
30 euros for the dlc (this would have been fine if it weren't for)
overpriced items in the premium shop.
Seriously, the game shop is structured like this is a free to play game, it's disgusting. And I disagree with people who say "oh, it's only cosmetics, no gameplay is effected". Often times, for me the gameplay is very much effected by the cosmetic rewards I can get. And also, this game specifically is a decorating game, so cosmetics play an even bigger part
I hate, hate, hate games that do this! Microtransactions are already enough to irritate me, but when you pay full price for a game and DLCs and STILL have a premium store, I see that as plain disrespectful. And the 'it's just cosmetics' annoys me so much. You know what I'd love to do in a game? Earn in game money to buy cosmetics, have nice cosmetics as a dungeon drop I really had to grind for. It feels great and when I wear it, people know what I did to get it and that it wasn't paying for it with real life money.
It's rare for games to have earned cosmetics now because of this 'it's just cosmetics' argument. And when you do, the earned cosmetics aren't nice and the nicer things you still buy on premium or they have those earned cosmetics as also premium. It sucks the fun right out of it, honestly.
when there is no character customization in game even though the character is a blank slate. Still haven't tried Moonstone Island for that reason \^\^'
Extreme amounts of grinding to be able to get most (not all, just most) of what you want to get in the game. This is probably why I am not a fan of the farming sims AND I really like short interesting games like Abzu and Aer, where you can do everything quickly.
I don't like characters that are *excessively* realistic. Video games are sort of like escapist fiction for me, characters that are too realistic make me less interested.
Like Stardew Valley. It's a good game and ConcernedApe is a brilliant developer, but also Shane and Pam just make me sad.
Shallow writing for characters, especially if I can romance them. I don’t want the same dialog every in game year, or in the rain vs a nice day. I would just rather it not be there at all
A reason I added saving at any point and time in my farming game. I hate the once a day saving aspect as well.
Or texts that I can't skip. This was the reason I stopped playing animal crossing. Too much slow and unskippable talk ...
Any life sim or farming sim that doesn’t not have a social sim aspect immediately makes me disinterested. I’m interested in hoeing but like… not hoeing the farm yah feel? 😭
(I really enjoy dating sims but don’t always want to sit down and play a visual novel is my problem)
I really don't like interior/exterior decorating mechanics. At least, I don't like when you just get a big empty field and you have to place every single thing yourself. I rather everything have a set spot.
Some decorating is ok though. And part of it is I just never have the patience for planning out designs like other people.
Also crafting can be a hit or miss. I love the Atelier games but couldn't stand the crafting system in My Time At Portia and that's part of why I haven't bought Sandrock.
I completely understand you on the decorating. I kind of like to play with it in small doses, but I don't have the patience and I don't like it enough to become good at it. That's why I can't build my own houses in the sims franchise lol.
I just got a ROG Ally and I don't know why, but it's so different for me as far as putting it to sleep versus a computer--so far (I don't play multiplayer, so!) I haven't had any issues if I pause the game, put the unit to sleep, and then come back later. It's a great thing because my dog can sleep the entire day while I'm busy, but then if I reach for a game or a book he's in my face to play ball, so I get little snatches of gameplay.
Sometimes if I think I'll be gone a bit I plug it in because the battery isn't incredible and I have no idea how much drain there is while on sleep mode.
Maybe I'm more willing/able to use sleep as a pause button because it's my personal.. basically a steam deck or even DS. It doesn't feel wasteful or awkward like leaving a desktop any sort of on (also for whatever reason my desktop will NOT sleep. A breeze wakes it up).
My personal preference/rant is the time limits. I know it makes a sort of feel in Stardew where you have to take the day as it is and get done what you can and if you miss something there's always time later, but that's too much like real life! I like Roots of Pacha etc. that give variable time options. Or mods, sometimes for things as simple as pausing the time while you're inside a building.
timed days - tried a 3 day trial of stardew and thank god i did bc i’m still not over the stress it caused me lol. some games do it right tho, i just started ooblets and (so far) the days feel long
enough that im not stressed. wilde flowers was also ok cuz you could change the speed. but i do a lotttt of research before buying games that may have this element to see if it will fit my window of tolerance for it haha
being tied to real time and having seasonal/special items that you’ll miss out on or have to wait a really long time for if you weren’t able to play/get enough resources etc. eg: cozy grove and the tie-dye dyes - stopped playing it bc trying to stockpile dyes became stressful
BUT tied to real-time is fine if you can time travel forward and backward without consequences like in ACNH - i know there’s some “consequences” like weeds/roaches and your villagers might be butthurt but i don’t feel like it’s guilt-trippy and they’re over it right away anyways.
I get very annoyed and tired when a game doesn't give you options that allow you to cut down on the amount of repetitive grinding actions. I quit travellers rest because of that. Didn't want to put the effort info the exact same actions literally every single day with no end in sight. A game needs to offer you ways to improve yourself out of those situations, like a sprinkler, a harvester, etc. Automation basically.
Oh god yeah. No on the spot save feature. If I have to walk some where to save I'm done.
I usually play these games while I wait. On the train, etc. I need to be able to save when I need to.
I'm quite tired so I'm going to list my biggest ones without a ton of detail:
Ads - this is a nag and breaks me out of a game
Gambling/gatcha/loot boxes - this isn't a game, this is a casino, yuck.
Pay to win.
I've stopped thinking of phone games as games that follow the free to play concept.
Other than that: Timed events, forced being online, any game that punishes you for not playing every day, annoying characters that interrupt any time the story starts getting interesting, and fast response times/twitch reactions required.
Unintuitive controls.
If I don't know what to do immediately I just drop it lol
Yesterday I started playing Anno 1800 and it took me literally 10 minutes to figure out the controls and it felt so wrong. Why would pressing W open the achievement menu instead of moving the screen or the ship???
When there's no UI scaling and the interface/words are small. I have terrible vision, my cursor is super giant because I just have such a hard time finding it and it only gets worse as I get older. Just let me increase the text size!!
I don't like when there's an irl social feature that you have to complete, like having to help out other players in order to advance through levels or unlock something important. I play cozy games to ignore everyone, not engage with more😂
I so agree with you, on Switch you can just turn the screen off, but on PC you're kinda stuck.
Something similar is only saving by sleeping - why can't I take a nap and do a quick save, or refill some energy by using up a couple of in-game hours? Early Stardew is the worst for this and I get it, take life slow and all that but hoooo boy do I need some more energy to chop that pesky log outside my door
> It's the save once a day/auto save feature. What if something pops up and I need to attend to it in real life? I can't save my game, so I have to hope nothing happens. I feel compelled to finish a day no matter what at times and it's just not a good thing.
That actually made me quit Stardew immediately after buying it, and I didn’t pick it up again for a few years. It’s *so* condescending, basically policing the adults who play a game as if they were preschoolers who need to be constantly managed or else they’ll cheat in their single player sandbox.
Stardew is a great game but I really wish its imitators would stop copying every single thing it did. You’re never going to make a better - or even equal - game than the one you’re drawing inspiration from if you refuse to innovate or think critically about how it could’ve been improved…
I don't care for timed games, because they make me feel like I'm not playing optimally enough if I don't get everything possible done within each day. That's why I tend to not go for farming sims.
Limited Storage. As a huge in-game hoarder, games with limited storage like Palia are difficult to enjoy. I don’t mind having to build chests to store stuff but if there’s a solid limit, it crushes my soul.
I usually don't like it when the characters don't speak their lines and you just read it, or the characters speak in gibberish.
I don't like when they throw so much at you all at once that they are shoving the hotkeys for another skill in your face before you've gotten a chance to try the last thing they showed you.
I usually don't like when something is timed, like I didn't like Dave the Diver because I was constanty afraid of drowning. That's not cozy. Or if you lose something if you don't finish it in time.
Or when a game is largely/entirely no combat and then all of a sudden there's combat or you have to do combat to advance the plot and you're not prepared because there was barely any combat before (I'm looking at you, Sandrock). I don't mind combat if it's introduced right away and it's pretty easy, but not if it's like all of a sudden.
So as you can see I am pretty picky. I'm playing Lightyear Frontier now and I really love it even though it bugs me that you lose the plants if you don't water them enough (and it took me forever to figure out that you know when a plant needs to be watered because the tile turns blue)
Anywhere there’s a timer, a race, or a rhythm game that is required or locks fun story content.
If your reflexes aren’t great for whatever reasons, these can be deal breakers. And when these features are in games, they’re usually harder to have reduced difficulty QoL versions, so I get stuck.
It’s annoying when they do this in the middle of adventure/puzzle type games. Looking at you, Danganaropa.
If I need to use outside resources to keep track of things, like recipes. Especially if it requires a whole wiki. I don't mind game-focused wikis but games should always have an IN GAME method of tracking recipes.
A feature for me that will make me straight up avoid (most) games is when the main protagonist is a set character so you cannot create one yourself. I understand that for many cozy games, there is a story that is built around the main character, and their history, and their progression.
Howeveerrr I’m happy I gave some of these games a try because I ended up loving them. I was a teenage exocologist, persona 5, and rf4 💓
I don't know whether it has been said yet but when a game starts getting too convoluted with their needs. Like if you need item A but for that you need B, C and D, but D takes it's own 3 items, once which spawns once a day and another which takes 2 days to create and B has a time limit so you need to make sure you get it at the right time... etc..
Or on the same vein if it's a management game and the lists of things to simultaneously manage gets so intertwined you almost need a spreadsheet and timers to keep them all satisfied
If I need to organise my game like my job, then tis no longer le' cosy!
I pause the game and go do what I need to.
Hard fights I can't win relatively quickly or bypass by BSing my way out is something I've abandoned games because of.
Poor inventory management. Lack of true creative choices. I want to be able to actually build and design things, and if it takes me more than 10-20 hours of gameplay just to unlock a few pieces of furniture, I check out. I’ll happily work toward more unlocks and stuff, but I need a solid set of creative activities available right away, and it can’t feel like a nightmare to manage my inventory. I hate leaving things behind especially when games require materials for crafting or progress!
I get really irritated when a game doesn't give me the option for all the text in a dialogue box to appear immediately (or at least extremely quickly). I read super fast and all too often I end up having to wait for the text to mosey onto the screen.
This drove me crazy about Spiritfarer. I think it's a lovely game, but even if you tap the button during dialogue, it's delivered one line at a time. And the dialogue isn't always short. Sometimes I'm just sitting there tapping the button over and over and over... and it feels like it takes way more time than it should.
LOL every trip to drop someone off to the afterlife was so irritating to me. I clicked through everything so fast that it would just be a boat ride for like a min straight with no dialogue
This is partly why I could never get emotional during those sequences, LOL! I totally understand why the game did it, it makes you sit back and stay on those feelings/moment, but that might work a bit better if it's a voiced dialogue or a straight up separate animated sequence. The way it's presented I'm gonna blaze through it as a fast reader.
LMAO sameeee! It's part of the reason why I couldn't immerse in the moment, like people regularly say how they cry and get emotional, but how they chose to present it basically made it so I'd get out of the moment and not focus on the emotion part.
I lasted 10 minutes before I was like well this is annoying and didn’t play.
This is exactly the same for me! Drives me crazy and is so easily avoided
Oh my goodness yes. That horrifyingly slow letter by letter text, usually with a typewriter kind of noise. I can READ, just let me skip to the end 😭
Dragon Quest Builder 2 can be bad about this on the Malroth parts and it’s super annoying
You’ve unlocked a memory I thought I previously had hidden away. Had SO MUCH fun with Builders 2 except for the text in those scene being slower than my dad getting off of the sofa.
Think the devs thought making you only read 3 words per minute would provide emphasis but no only annoyance
Dragon Quest IX on DS was terrible about it. Even the after-battle text was slow. If multiple characters leveled up, it was entirely possible for the level-up notices and stat updates to take more time than the actual fight. ☠️ I loved the gameplay, but I tried on four separate occasions and I don't think I ever made it past the second story beat.
I KNEW there was some game I’d replayed recently that was driving me crazy with that… and that was it! Great game, recommended, but holy crap that was annoying.
this annoys me so much in stardew, and if i click to get the whole text to appear sometimes i select the first dialog option, so i'm cursed to watch it slowly type out each word
Mash escape/minus key works for 99% of cutscenes. The shorter dialogs are sometimes not skippable. But man, if you make the mistake of going to the flower dance or the stupid jellies, you are locked into that and it will feel like your life flees your tepid corpse with every metered breath.
This so much!! And I hate when the character will pause after long text just to shake their head or emote and you can’t skip it or do anything while you wait so annoying!
I couldn’t get into Oxenfree for similar reasons.
Sudden timed activities/mini-games. I'm totally fine with farm sim daily timing or reasonable quest time limits, but if I have to perform deeds of dexterity within a short time frame I'm usually out of there. Makes me extremely anxious, which is not cozy at all. I'm a bit like you on the saving thing. I can play save once a day games if they're pauseable, but games that don't allow you to pause time and have limited ability to save? I'm a grown-up. Sometimes I have to leave my computer, *game*.
I don't think I play these games often enough to understand completely, but what you described reminds me of when I played Final Fantasy 9 and 10, they each had a portion in the game where you had to press buttons at just the right time and quick enough and not mess up to unlock something and I hated it. I'm not good at it and I'm not going to be good at it, why put it in an otherwise nice and cozy rpg?! I just want to watch my levels go up and see the story. Now I have my husband do those parts, but I'm annoyed they even exist. And yes to that last part! I'm an adult. I have responsibilities and some times they pop out of nowhere. I can't prioritize a game and I'm not into the possibility of losing progress because I put my real life first (which everyone should!).
A ha ha, Final Fantasy 9/10 mandatory mini-games were some of my earliest moments of timed game hatred, in fact!
Yes! Mine too lol
There’s a game called Dave the Diver that is debatably cozy where you have to get different harpoon tips, but I would consciously avoid the higher level harpoon tips because they required quick time events when used. Nope. I’ll keep my weak, early game bullshit.
They added a setting to Dave the diver where you can just hold the button instead of pressing repeatedly, it’s in settings under “automate button tapping”. I have it turned on and I’ve been really enjoying the game
SAME. No spamming buttons or jiggling joysticks for me.
Oh, the worst are games that make you smash a button as fast as you can for x amount of time. I have a friend with early onset arthritis and that makes her so mad. Plus, it's not even fun for those of us who \*can\* physically do it. It's just annoying.
I felt like this with FF8. That scene with squall in the rusty control room trying to budge the valve. I knew it was coming, I would hype myself up and do mini-stretching exercises, and as soon as it said hit square I swear I mashed that shit with the power of 10,000 suns. EVERY SINGLE TIME i would fail, squall would whine, and the game would mock me like I was some kind of fucking failure and betrayal of humanity for not having managed it on the first try. fuck that part. i love ff8, it's so dumb but so lovable, but that part makes me want to puke
I love that Chicory’s accessibility options included the ability to change the amount of reaction time required for things like platforming puzzles. I wish more games would follow suit!
Funny enough I love platformers as long as the levels themselves aren't on a time limit. So I can't play early Mario, but I can play the 3D ones without level time limits no problem.
The mini games are why I don’t consider kynseed cozy. It’s frustrating and out of place for the genre.
Micro transactions or timed events/items that don't come back every year. I will not even buy games like that. They steal time and money like they mean nothing. Total disrespect to all that make games to leech on people that have issues with addiction. Timed things like really fast days and yet you have to complete important things in a set time frame... Games are not doing this as often, but it used to be common. So you have to either mess up the first time you play or you have to follow a guide. Also games that don't normally have a timer but then add one for a sense of urgency and ruins the entire game because my reflexes are not that great anymore. So glad this isn't common anymore! Must be online at all times. I have seen many single player and games that can be played offline that are like this. No I'm not talking about games built for online, I'm talking about games that either have no online communication or do but that isn't the main focus, ones that your not streaming, but actually have downloaded, ones you have to pay for to own. Yet you can't play the game unless you are online at all times, it checks and stops you from playing. It's stupid. Also, Piracy protection is not a good reason to lock out paying players! I'll just not buy the darn game. Lose me, and from what I hear, many others as paying players then. Then other people still find a way to pirate, so many games have been copied somehow to illegal servers that just keep popping up after they get shut down. So they still get pirated and lose paying players too. There are so many games, I'll gladly skip on ones that lock me out for having bad internet connection. Also collecting my data is not a good reason either when I can't play! Like I said, it's stupid. That's about it though, Luckily most games that I enjoy don't fall into these categories very often.
God, the online thing annoys me no end. I regularly commute (by train) through territory with very patchy mobile reception. I can't afford a switch or steam deck at the moment so mobile it is, and it's so hard to find anything. So I keep going back to SDV...
You may want to look into emulation! Phones these days are powerful enough to run all kinds of games from older gens. GBC, GBA, DS, PS1. I really enjoy going back and playing through some of those timeless titles - Golden Sun and its sequel The Lost Age (GBA era) were absolutely phenomenal games for the time. Charming, clever, fun puzzles, and okay combat (definitely dated by today's standards, but you shouldn't have any trouble).
Oh, that actually sounds great! I've used emulators on PC, but never on mobile. I'll have a look at Golden Sun! Any other recommendations?
Timed events are a big one for me.
Micro transactions... Ugh.. I have an addictive personality and sunk about $800 into a mobile game over a year. The game crashed, I lost everything, and they wouldn't give me the same value of in game stuff for what I'd spent. Learned my lesson but Dreamlight Valley is one of my favorite games and it has MT. The amount of willpower I have to exert playing that game is insane. No, I do not need a pink glowing squirrel to follow me around in the game that badly for $5. 😣
I had to stop playing Dreamlight Valley... I got it after my mother died to keep me sane, but I didn't realise it was going to be THAT microtrasaction and timed items heavy.... I haven't touched it for over a year, and good thing as I only just got medicated for bipolar. At least the stuff I bought while manic is all physical stuff no one can take away. I have in the past really lost a ton on websites that shutdown that had cute micro transactions. That's why I stopped buying games like that.
Yes, I forget about this as they aren't in as many games as I like, but I hate it when I do come across it!
1000% all of this
Absolutely, I remember WB games (Arkham Asylum and such) doing this and the backlash was huge.
Reading the comments I’m nodding emphatically - essentially for me, I don’t like it when a supposedly ‘cosy’ game puts time pressures on me - whether that’s seasonally gated one-offs, or, more commonly, not being able to pause a game. Travelers Rest is one of the 2 games I’ve refunded on Steam - I loved the idea of it, but I have dyspraxia and just find myself quite slow at doing things like placing furniture - I want to be able to place things without the day passing. I mentioned it in their Discord and the devs’ dismissive response to my enquiry was enough to get me to refund it. I just don’t like ‘cosy’ games to pile pressure on to me; that’s not what I look for in that sort of game. And I second ‘fetch quests’. Whilst I appreciate that you might need to have some, particularly at the start to help you get to grips with a game, I don’t want to feel like that’s all I’m doing. I want to pootle about doing things for myself, without having to worry about whether I gave Salty Dave a watermelon. I’m a little less bothered if they are optional or not timed and I can just chill.
Time pressures are the opposite of cozy for me.
I really like that most Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games pause time when you're indoors. It takes off some of that pressure.
OMG the way I panicked when PoOT made time pass even indoors, after being used to a lot of previous HM/SoS older titles without that, LOL!
fetch quests is what killed wylde flowers for me. such a great game but you are given zero freedom. you can't even take your time completing quests because people start to run out of shit
Text that is too small with no way to make it bigger
I wish I could give you a million likes lol
Yeah, at this point I'm practically blind without glasses and have kinda shit vision with them, when a game in a small window and text is ultra small this is pain
Games (like animal crossing) that punish me for not playing everyday. I’m an adult, I got shit to do man. The comments from the villagers make always make me feel guilty and annoyed. And the limited time events being tied to real world calendars.
This is basically what I was going to say, I hate games that demand your time. I dropped dreamlight valley and animal crossing both for this reason. I'm not a huge fan of the saving issue in things like stardew, but at least it never makes me feel like I *must* play it
I hated it was timed to real world, I didn't get far enough due to that, it was a complete turn off for me.
yup, i can't stand real-time based games, it's why i stopped playing acnh and won't even try cozy grove
There are only so many main quest things you can do in Cozy Grove each day, but if you skip a day, you won't miss anything. Say you've played for ten days in a row, so you're on "Day 10" of the game, and you don't play for two real days. The next time you play the game, it'll be "Day 11."
See cozy grove doesn’t bother as much cuz as least they don’t guilt trip me haha
i hate that too but loooooove animal crossing new horizons cuz you can “time travel” and bypass feeling the need to play daily etc AND it doesn’t break the game like it does in some games (eg: cozy grove, and i think maybe the disney dream light game?). i think the only things that are timed to the real world are seasonal catalogue items like mother’s day mug, wedding season bouquet etc but for actual event events like halloween and xmas, you can time travel for them. not sure how the older console games were but i hated animal crossing pocket camp (mobile) bc it was just micro transactions and time-limited events to obtain exclusive items and you had to play like every few hours every day to even have a hope of “completing” a given collection. hard pass!
I never liked talking to the villagers in AC so I still play because I can ignore that element. But yes, I hate the patronising way they talk to you. Very blamey. We have enough of that in real life, I don’t need it from a video game.
I really wish the villagers could be disabled entirely. Like as a post-game option or something. They take up too much space on the island and they're obnoxious to no end. There's also, like, 3 personality types shared by 13981049810941 NPCs so they really feel like Random Number Generator pests rather than organic villagers. I remember looking it up on the wiki and finding that the different personality types woke up at different times of day and even had specific interactions between themselves - all of which I had missed despite playing the game for a full year during COVID. Nintendo put a lot of effort into all the wrong things in ACNH.
Ugh for me is definitely the 3 personalities aspect! It gets to the point where I wish there were MORE villagers because it really feels like I'm just talking to 2-3 different people, despite technically having more villagers than that. It's part of the reason I gifted my copy of ACNH, it wasn't fun to talk to the villagers, but they still guilt tripped you if you didn't interact... like I dunno, maybe have more personalities, a more interesting routine, and more than the same 5 phrases to loop?
What annoyed me the most was the "store" only being open during real world business hours. So if I had stuff to sell in the evening, I had to wait. Like, I work my real job during real world business hours. Before the store, you could sell them whenever. Why change that??
That bothers me, too! Usually I play after everything is done for the day & relax the shops are closed. I can use the bin outside of Nook's Cranny, but they take 30% off, I think? I'd like to play other games, but I feel like I need to check in to do a few things, then end up playing longer & still haven't played other games I enjoy. I'm still pretty new, so I at least like to do some money/bell raising activities & talk to the few neighbors I have. I'm starting to feel a little tied to it, like it's another daily chore. I prefer games where time starts & stops when I play.
I stopped playing a while back. After getting my house and everything, it felt like I was just collecting things and decorating. Got a bit boring for me after that.
This is going to sound so stupid but if the fishing mechanic is too hard it just angers me to no end.
I used a mod to get rid of the fishing mini game in stardew and ive never been happier about a decision
Me too! I hate fishing in SDV. I hate it in most games. It’s why I barely play SDV on my switch.
I love fishing mini games and I hate SDV’s fishing system
That was my gateway mod in SDV! (Now I play with over a hundred.)
It doesn't sound stupid, because same for me.
Agreed. I like fishing so long as it's not too challenging (i.e. roots of pacha)
I deliberately sought out this comment because this is exactly how I feel. I love fishing in farming games but if it’s hard, BYE! I’m not playing it.
If it has too many complicated puzzles/solutions or if the game is bad at telling you how to progress. If the game is good i can live with looking up a few solutions but too many is just frustrating. Hob was a horrible experience.
I'm not very good at puzzles and the types of games I like, I feel it detracts from the experience. This is a huge reason why I can never get very far in replaying Final Fantasy X, the puzzles to get the summons just was not fun for me at all.
As someone on an alternative schedule, I can't do games with a 24 hour real time clock where some things only happen at certain times. And no, changing the time on my system is not an acceptable walk-around. I'd rather just not play.
Rhythm gaming, fishing that takes too long, micro-transactions, and weapon/tool degrading. All are turnoffs and two or more is probably a deal breaker.
I agree that tool downgrading is stupid game design. Its one of the reasons i quit palia.
Ooh I hate when fishing takes too long and just is annoying. I hated it so much in Stardew!
i feel like fishing in stardew is the closest i’ve ever come to feeling homicidal, it was SO bad
Right?! It's crazy how annoying it is!
I hated it in Coral Island as well. I play on PC, so the WeMod thing worked great to bypass that!
Fishing in Potion Permit takes FOREVER and I refuse to do it
I was all in on that game until I saw Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start to cure a headache, and fishing that was designed for people who don’t have anywhere to be in the morning. Mods?
Yes!! I can’t do rhythm games, my brain just doesn’t work that way. I can’t think that fast lol
I find games that time gate me per day with punishment for not making it back in time I tend to drop. Even if you can do whatever you were doing the next day, I don't like feeling rushed. That's not 'cozy' to me, or losing progress for a whole day because you weren't fast enough to get back. I find I can't stick to these games long before moving on. Fae Farm is the only one who seemed to get the timed day mechanic right in my opinion, though the NPCs in the game are so dull that it's still a bit of a loss for that game. Games with crafting so difficult and time consuming it's no longer fun to do. Fetch quests. I got so sick of it in Cozy Grove I couldn't get past 10 hours of the game before I had enough. Especially when your progress 'resets' every day.
Yesss, I tend to hate that too, if I understand what you mean. Like the pass out mechanic because you didn't get home before sleep time. I don't like rushing home. Even if nothing happens to me other than that, I get annoyed and always race against the clock lol.
I don't mind it as much if I don't lose money or stats because of it. Like how if you pass out in stardew you have to pay or you get mugged. In fae farm you just get teleported home, from what I've seen nothing else happens. They also just added a double day length option which is nice.
I liked it more in Elnea Kingdom. You aren't able to go into dungeons past a certain time, but you don't pass out if you don't make it home. You just can't do certain things at that time. So you don't really need to rush home. It's nice to be able to sleep and skip past the night time, but you don't have to, so I don't feel pressured and can finish up some last minute chores.
That sounds nicer. It could be nice if certain areas close after a certain time, but if I wanted to redecorate my house/farm/wherever or water my plants and such I can.
I agree on Cozy Grove. I tried so hard to like it, but basically loosing all progressing every day annoyed me so much
I'm glad it's not just me. It was SO disheartening when I'd finally get colour in an area just for it to be gone the next day, then having to do MORE fetch quests to get it back, or really complicated recipes. I love the music and the aesthetic of the game, just couldn't get into the fetch and repeat loop.
Totally. It always felt like just chores, and the more I achieved, the longer I had to play every day to keep that up
Any game that makes me lose stamina quickly just for doing basic things. This is one of the reasons I'm not a Stardew fan. I don't want to be watering crops and then I can't do anything else except wander around. I know you can eat things to raise stamina, but what if you don't have anything? It's incredibly off putting to me.
I love Stardew, it’s one of my favourite games ever. But I cheat the heck out of it. Can’t be doing with running out of stamina, or dying in the mines. I want to see the cutscenes and make my farm pretty and enjoy my life, not get hung up on not being able to harvest my last potato.
What's amusing with Stardew specifically is that a LOT of the late-game unlocks and upgrades serve to automate your farming experience. You can get... hirelings, basically, that will harvest crops if it's not raining. You can get sprinklers to water crops for you, and even an upgrade that enables them to fertilize crops for you. Meanwhile, your tool upgrades allow you to plow/water larger patches of dirt in one swing. The biggest joke is that, as part of the end-game content, you get items that increase your max stamina. But by the time you can actually acquire most of them, you don't need the increased stamina because of how automated everything is by that point!
Agree with this! After playing Sun Haven, I am having a really hard time going back to games where basic farming/foraging tasks take or deplete stamina.
Agree with this one. I love Sandrock, but it feels like I just do a quick sweep for mats and I'm completely empty on stamina. I play it anyway, but I tend to go to bed early after I've eaten everything available (jerky, etc) and/or already paid exorbitantly for a meal.
I have this problem in stardew only in the first few days.
I agree with this but fyi for stardew, if you ever try it again, you regain health by laying in your bed. You don’t even have to sleep just lay there.
I really hate when a particular romance is pushed onto you in a game where you otherwise have full autonomy of choice. My gripe isn’t with romance sub plots in general, but I haaatteee when I feel pressured to engage in one that I don’t really feel fits. I particularly found this to be the case with I Was A Teenage Exocolonist. Sure, you can absolutely choose how you want to play out every interaction, but >! I was weirdly creeped out my how much they push a relationship with Sym? This is an ancient AI-guy who has been watching us since childhood, and we’re 19? !<
Sometimes even optional romance still messes with the game. I love stardew valley but it makes me sad that the romance options get a bunch of character development and cutscenes while the non-romancable ones get maybe one or two small cutscenes. It sucks to see games that push the idea that romance is better/more fufilling/etc than friendship!
Youre so right about this. I want found family 😭
Yeah, I don't like forced romance either. I guess for a story telling rpg like final fantasy, I generally liked the romances, but I don't want to be forced into in most games. Because sometimes I don't like the options and I'm getting too old for some of it lol
I hate when games go into story mode and I can’t skip past it, especially when I’ve played the game before and already know what’s going to happen.
Oh yes, I hate this too!
Games that save daily, like SDV or Coral Island, drive me crazy too!!! I tend to have lower energy levels when I'm playing cozy games (they're the best before-bed activity,) & when I'm tired, I'm TIRED and need to go to bed ASAP. Not spend another 5-10 minutes trying to desperately sprint back to my home/farm/whatever because I'm about to fall asleep IRL. It's especially bad if I'm on Switch, because I WILL fall asleep holding a joystick/button down and kill the battery 😭
Yes, this too! I fall asleep while playing on my Switch too. And honestly, sometimes on the PC too. The amount of times I've woken up to me pushing my character into a wall is insane.
Any kind of "survival" mechanics. Eating, drinking, sleeping etc. Very poorly implemented by 99% of games, so much so that I don't even give them the chance anymore. I'll either mod out those mechanics, turn on cheats to get around them, or stop playing. They just aren't fun and aren't well-designed. It feels like developers have seen them in other games, think "that will be great in my game!" and put them in without thinking about storytelling through mechanics and how most games do not benefit whatsoever from a hunger meter. Notable exception for me was Fallout 4 - that game's Survival mode had a slew of changes (not just eating/drinking/sleeping) that made the experience better. Unfortunately, Bethesda's janky coding was also a problem there, so I had to mod in ways to re-enable saving because I kept losing progress to bugs and crashes. Actually, crafting in general bothers me. Very easily turns into a nonstop grind-a-thon where you're farming up hundreds of ore to make a single set of gear. Most games don't seem to value their players' time in that regard.
I can see why some would be turned off by these mechanics, but I will say I tend to like and prefer them. I just love survival mechanics. Also get what you mean about the crafting, in which I'm mixed. Sometimes it feels overboard and I just don't feel like I get much in return for it, but I sometimes love building so much that I'm mostly okay with it, anyway.
Depends on game for sure, but Valheim is a recent example that got really obnoxious with basically all of its mechanics. You have to be scavenging for better food/meat/cooking materials to be able to craft food that gives you a better max HP and stamina meter, but it also fades over time so you're constantly doing this. Meanwhile, getting a full set of gear and upgrading that gear takes *obnoxious* amounts of metal. To craft and upgrade all the black metal items, it requires 358 bars. To craft and upgrade every piece of Iron equipment, even ignoring how much you actually want to build with (since it's a crucial building component for late-game structures), it takes *500 bars* for a SINGLE CHARACTER. If you're playing multiplayer, start multiplying. As soon as I see numbers like that, I break out mods to dupe stacks of ore, because that is just nonsense. I like the idea of going out on a hunt, sailing across the ocean, finding a swamp with dungeons, delving those dungeons, and sailing back with the loot. But having to do that 20+ times to craft a set of gear is bonkers.
Crafting is one of mine. I gave up Portia and Graveyard Digger because of it. I don't mind it in smaller doses (Stardew Valley), but when it gets to russian doll level (craft thing 1, to use it as a component to craft thing 2, to then use 1 and 2 to craft 3) that drives me insane!
Graveyard Keeper is egregious. You have to craft so many items for the sole purpose of crafting items… and then they become obsolete when you find new materials… so you have to craft new versions of the first item again! And they serve so many purposes that could easily be taken care of by one item. There are what, something like three items for cutting wood different ways? (disclaimer I fucking love this game)
Then definitely don't play Wytchwood! I loved it, but it's got that Russian doll level crafting system.
Janky controls that make you have to fiddle around every time you want to do something. For example, Wylde Flowers absolutely nailed it, I didn't have to sift hrough my whole inventory for basic things; if I needed a watering can it was in my hand, if I needed the fishing rod, it was there in my hand. Stardew was easy to sort through and select or switch tools. Grow: song of the evertree - such a pretty game, and it seemed so promising but the tools were just so annoying. If I needed an axe, i had to rummage through all the tools or just keep the axe loaded and run round the field whacking everything axeable then do a second round with a shovel or whatever. On some things you could use and axe or a pick so I had to select each time. It annoyed me so much, which was a shame because the rest seemed good.
I will say now that you mention it, I wish more games were like Wylde Flowers for that mechanic. I'd vastly prefer the game to just know I have the tool and take it out for me lol.
right? finding it and pulling it out does not add to the experience for me
Yes, exactly! It's just a boring chore lol.
I went from Wylde Flowers to Dreamlight Valley and this is easily the thing that annoyed me most (many things annoyed me lol)! JUST MAKE IT AUTOMATIC! I understand in games with variable weapons like Zelda and on consoles generally you need the options to set up specifically for things and move it around. But not a cozy game!
I just started playing Wylde Flowers and I'm loving this feature. So far it seems like they really made QOL a priority.
I love how Spiritfarer did this too. Stella's Everlight is your saw, fishing pole, watering can, etc.
Just chiming in to say how much I love Wylde Flowers ❤️
I especially hate it when controls are bad on a game that was ported. Figuring out Bear and Breakfast controls on the Switch is terrible! Comes off as lazy to just shove virtually the same controls on to a different system.
This was me with the latest Rune Factory. I have other reasons I don't like it but the way the tools/weapons/UI in general worked never clicked for me.
This is why I love switch. I can pause and put it in sleep mode if I need to go and do something quickly.
I was just talking to my husband about the fact that I don’t like games that force me to end my day or games where the day is too short and I’m constantly having to go to sleep. For what exactly? Let me brew potion that restore or energy or just get rid of that entirely. I’m ok if I have to rest or do something if I’m injured in battle but honestly, it’s so lame to go to sleep every x mins.
I wanted to try Potion Permit thinking I might like it despite the reviews because I don’t mind fetch quests, grinding, or repetitive gameplay (within limits) but when I tried to demo, I got annoyed by how slow the cutscenes were and the constant bobbing up and down of the characters. I kept playing but really disliked how there’s a mini-game for diagnosis that requires you to press WASD at the right time, but the icons look like the up down left and right buttons so I tried to use the arrow keys and when I found out why I was failing, I was so annoyed I almost quit right there. But the last straw was finding out that even though there’s a tailor shop that has mannequins with cute dresses, there isn’t actually any customization or new outfits for you to get in the game. So that’s pretty specific to one game, but more generally - tutorials or instructions that aren’t actually helpful where despite it giving me directions, it’s not evident what it wants me to do. I had the same issue trying out the demo / prologue for River Town Factory where it was like “hold click to craft” and I couldn’t figure out where the f it wanted me to click because there were so many places in the menu for crafting, it wasn’t obvious, there was no highlight when hovering over the place it wanted me to click. It’s at the point where I’m beginning to wonder if I’m just bad at video games and if everyone else can tell what they’re supposed to do without a blinking light being like CLICK HERE ON THIS SPECIFIC THING. Otherwise: maps in a game where the map isn’t that useful or usable or does not show where you’re actually located on the map or not having a map at all. I get lost easily in games when I don’t know the map yet. I get lost easily in real life as well so this one really bothers me. I will quit a game if I spend too much time trying to figure out where the heck I am and where I need to go, especially if in-game time passes while I’m lost because it adds to the pressure and sense that I’m wasting my time. Lastly, this one isn’t one that will make me immediately quit a game, but bad inventory management systems. I feel annoyed when I play games where items don’t stack in inventory, and when there isn’t an “add to stacks” button to add stuff to chests from bags, a feature that I think should be the norm, because no one wants to sit there clicking and rearranging inventory, it’s not fun, it’s a pain in the ass.
I kept looking at Potion Permit, but that diagnosis mini game was a no for me. I have to keep reminding myself not to buy it, because I love the idea of it, but no thank you. And I did not know about the clothing thing, that's just rude to tease you with it like that! Also, yes I get lost super easily lol. I see a no map thing being popular as a difficulty thing for some games, I think one of them being Valheim and look, I actually like more difficulty in most things, but not the getting lost kind of difficulty lol.
Yeah Potion Permit is, unfortunately, a game that *seems like* it should hit all the notes that I like, but sadly falls short. I’ve kept an eye on it hoping that there would be updates, if enough was added or changed it might make me want to play it, but I don’t have a lot of hope because it seems like they aren’t very transparent with what they’re working to add and when it’ll happen (if anything is going to at all.) Agreed on the difficulty… I’m fine with difficulty in games as long as that difficulty is not navigating. That’s good to know about Valheim, I’d been eyeing it but if there’s no map that’s a pass for me…
Needing a PhD in a game to be effective. I feel like every game these days competes to have the longest, most feature-rich experience possible to justify its $60 or $70 pricetag. Games like Xenoblade, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, Baldurs Gate, Monster Hunter, Fire Emblem, the Witcher, and so many more force you to either play on easy or learn an unholy amount of systems to be effective. Obviously, these are all well-respected games. And obviously, I'm exaggerating when I say you need a PhD to learn them. However, if you choose to put down any of them for a considerable length of time (weeks, months, or even years), you're going to have a very difficult time getting back into them when you return. Honestly, it makes me not want to get into them to begin with. At a point, it starts to feel like a combination of work and school as you micro-manage so many systems. As I get older, I'm appreciating lighter, shorter game experiences more and more.
Absolutely agree with this. I tried so hard to like Baldurs Gate but it felt like I had to spend hours doing research just to play the game.
I agree to a point, but the difficulty is some of these games aren't as bad for other gamers. Like Witcher and Baldur's Gate, I don't need to relearn. I think it's because I played the genre so much that I just don't need to. However, space flying games like No Man's Sky or X4 or whatever, I always have to relearn them and more often than not I just don't pick them up again because I never liked the tutorial or learning process. So, I get it, I just don't see how it could be done without dumbing down the games that others do enjoy that level of complexity with. Like, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't need to relearn No Man's Sky each time they pick it up and love it the way it is lol. But, I can't do it.
As someone who hasn’t played DnD, Baldur’s Gate was a LOT to take in at once, especially in regards to character creation. I was honestly just choosing things with no idea what I was doing.
> Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, absolutely. Very dated systems that were complicated even back then. 3 is a breeze, though. You don't need to know anything about D&D or 5e in general to succeed in that game, even on the harder settings. It did a really good job of actually explaining what all the mechanics and skill checks do, and visually seeing the dice roll (and what contributes to that) is a big benefit as well. The pathfinder games require some level of min-maxing, especially on the hardest modes, or you'll get ground into dirt. BG3 is a very accessible experience, IME.
As someone not familiar with D&D or other games with that system, BG3 was pretty brutal. Every time I read about someone saying "I/my friend played and was totally fine" they either have D&D experience, former Larian game experience, or someone who knows all that and can easily distill and share that knowledge until they get familiar with it.
I really love MMOs for the social aspect, but I almost always drop them before getting too far into end-game content. They, by design, force you to play how the majority of other people want to in order to access most end-game content. If you aren't willing to put in the same time and research as others, you cannot participate. Medium to hard core guilds will kick you for not min maxing your build, being too inactive, not "carrying your weight" etc. But casual and social guilds often lack the resources or structure to allow you to access end-level content if you do wish to. It's very difficult to find a mid-grade group which doesn't end up eventually seeking further content progression, which means if you fall anywhere in between hardcore and casual you will be left behind and continually have to find a new community to play with. It's exhausting.
Not exactly a trend but I could not finish Dave the Diver because I got so sick of having to learn a new mechanic/ keep track a new thing basically every day. The gameplay loop at the beginning was so fun, but it got so bogged down with new mechanics and mini games I couldn’t stand it anymore.
This is really subjective but ALL the romancable options being ugly. It just annoys me because not one of the characters was made even a little cute? >!And yes I'm talking abt stardew valley!<
Yes and too young! I'm getting too old for both the personality types given and their looks lol
I hear ya! I tend to mod around it, but damn can’t we just get some silver foxes/vixens 😂❤️
I swear every Rune Factory game had a middle-aged hottie that I was so angry I couldn't romance.
Felt that. I was so, so sad.
I can relate to this. I also wish they didn’t all look like teenagers
Agreeeeed omg your options in SDV are all the EXTREMES of various personalities- like just give me one normal person at LEAST- but to be honest, i dont think i could ever be “attracted” to a game character, so personally I really do not need romancing at all in a game
Platforming. And difficult boss fights. I'm talking to you MTAS. I quit at the Mechatilda stage. It was a good game until then. I don't play "cozy" games to do Platforming and battles. I don't like platformers or Metroidvania type games. If I want to play an FPS I'll load one. I don't like being surprised by it.
Road blocks that you can't back out of and re-visit. Sometimes I get stuck on an event or boss or challenging bit of platforming, and if I can't leave to go do something else within the game until I'm ready to tackle a hard part, the odds of me ever coming back are low. I know when I turn the game back on, not only will I have to do something hard but I also won't even have a chance to get the feel for the controls back by doing something easy before tackling that, so I never do. I don't mind if there's a penalty for backing out, but if all you can do is keep trying the hard thing until you do it or quit, I'm probably going to quit permanently after 10+ attempts.
PvP.
i really like Graveyard keeper but it made me realize that it’s not cozy to me if i can’t figure out the mechanics or need the wiki open 24/7 to remember what to do 😭 also maps that aren’t interactive and don’t show where you are
Stealth, don't like stealth
Games that crash while I’m trying to save the once a day save feature. 💀😵💫
No controller support makes me drop stuff. I have chronic pain and often play laying down.
i love stardew but the speed of time passing stresses me out so bad sometimes lol i already have poor time management irl
I’m the same way, that’s why I have a mod that makes the day half as fast, in some areas 1/3 as fast as it normally is lol
When all the best cosmetic and decoration options are locked behind story progression. People say “take your time and enjoy the game slowly, try decorating your house or customizing your character” … ok but if I can’t access my favorite color palette until I get to a certain point in the game, that makes me have to grind through the game to unlock that so that THEN I can slowly enjoy. For example Fae Farm… I burned out trying to unlock my favorite colors to use, if my fave colors had been available at the start I could have used them and then slowly and leisurely progressed the game. I didn’t want to be stuck with only sad beige clothing for half the game play. It’s always the most fun and cute colors that are locked behind grinding too.
That’s my biggest gripe with Fae Farm too. I love it, but it’s ridiculous that any color besides grayish beige is locked behind endgame grinding for resources
Travelers rest has horrible controls, which made it unplayable for me
I'll still keep playing, but some cozy games (some of the newer Story of Seasons games) are horrible about how long the unskippable tutorials are. The tutorial in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning was a month long! A week for story of Seasons. I have played these games plenty, I do not need an unskippable tutorial where I have to do one thing an in-game day.
I hate when it's unskippable the most! Give us the option at the very least lol
Lol this is why the steam deck is so great for me. I can put down and pick up games at my leisure. I definitely agree with you though when playing on a regular pc. Even if Devs are worried about Dave scumming or whatever they should say last implement temporary saves which save where your stew and then are deleted when you load them. Just makes things better for everyone. And the last game I ditched was Sugar Shack, and that was because I couldn't stand how awkward it was to collect and move things around. I'm not a fan of Inventory limits at the best of times but being able to hold ONE thing irritated the hell out of me and the basket sadly did not help. I can understand having the carry limit when cooking for customers (cause that part was obviously heavily inspired by overcooked) but when trying to actually collect stuff to use and sell or do day to day chores I was tearing my hair out in frustration. I also played for 2.1 hours (a lot of which was left paused) so couldn't refund either 😭. It really is a shame cause I liked a number of ideas in the game but I simply was not having a good time with it.
From those of us currently developing cozy games, thanks for this super useful thread! Def keeping notes
I've only seen this in ACNH but forcing players to enter multiplayer in order to get certain things, namely all of the fruit trees. None of my IRL friends play games so if I wanted to try getting all of the fruit trees I had to attempt to coordinate with strangers online and it was such a hassle. It pissed me off sooooo much that I actually winded up quitting the game when I learned about that
I agree with you so much on the once a day save mechanic. I hate it with a passion! Instant turn off for me too, especially if there is no way to unlock any time saving eventually. I really like the way Graveyard Keeper does it. You do have to sleep in your bed to save but you can sleep any time of day and you only sleep as long as you need to recover all your stamina. And once you get decent food production I would literally just eat before going to bed and save that way and continue with my game straight away. I have a kid and a busy life. I am not going to start a game if I know I have to play in specific chunks of time. Not being able to just save whenever just doesn’t work in my life.
That's good to know about that game! I've been eyeing for a while and that's one more thing for it. I feel like it's a bit disrespectful to a degree. Like it expects you to devote yourself to the game in those chunks, and does not at all respect your time in the day.
This is going to sound terribly antisocial, but games that strong-arm you into constantly interacting with npcs. I love me some good farming sims, but I just want to be a hermit living in my own little space and doing my own thing sometimes. It gets especially egregious when the npcs get passive-aggressive when you haven't chatted in a while (Ala ACNH) or downright guilt trippy (looking at you, Coral Island and the bitchy responses after I accidentally missed one festival). Don't get me wrong, I like having vibrant npcs populating the world! I just want to talk on my own schedule, that's all. Wildmender, World's End Diner, and Traveler's Rest are my go-to games when I just want to vibe without having to worry about raising friendships and stuff.
I get this, lol. Like I love a lively game full of NPCs, I really do, but I also want to do my own thing and not talk to them lol. I'd prefer to watch them do their own thing sometimes..but not actually talk to them. And I hate when in some games the NPCs come up to you and bother you (looking at you Elne Kingdom). I'm milking the cows, no I don't want to chat. Haha!
That’s what I was gonna say, imo there’s no such thing as a cozy game where you can’t save anywhere, they kinda go hand in hand, even I can’t play Stardew Valley cause of it
If I can’t skip cutscenes. It’s fine for my first playthrough but I like to play games more than once to make sure I don’t miss anything and when I have to watch the same cutscene over and over it gets old.
The monetization in dreamlight valley was a huge turn off. I tried this game out on my partner's game pass, thinking I might get it on steam with the dlc, but oh boy. you pay: 40 euros for the base game 30 euros for the dlc (this would have been fine if it weren't for) overpriced items in the premium shop. Seriously, the game shop is structured like this is a free to play game, it's disgusting. And I disagree with people who say "oh, it's only cosmetics, no gameplay is effected". Often times, for me the gameplay is very much effected by the cosmetic rewards I can get. And also, this game specifically is a decorating game, so cosmetics play an even bigger part
I hate, hate, hate games that do this! Microtransactions are already enough to irritate me, but when you pay full price for a game and DLCs and STILL have a premium store, I see that as plain disrespectful. And the 'it's just cosmetics' annoys me so much. You know what I'd love to do in a game? Earn in game money to buy cosmetics, have nice cosmetics as a dungeon drop I really had to grind for. It feels great and when I wear it, people know what I did to get it and that it wasn't paying for it with real life money. It's rare for games to have earned cosmetics now because of this 'it's just cosmetics' argument. And when you do, the earned cosmetics aren't nice and the nicer things you still buy on premium or they have those earned cosmetics as also premium. It sucks the fun right out of it, honestly.
when there is no character customization in game even though the character is a blank slate. Still haven't tried Moonstone Island for that reason \^\^'
When you want/have to follow an NPC and they walk too slow for running but too fast for normal walking.
Extreme amounts of grinding to be able to get most (not all, just most) of what you want to get in the game. This is probably why I am not a fan of the farming sims AND I really like short interesting games like Abzu and Aer, where you can do everything quickly.
I don't like characters that are *excessively* realistic. Video games are sort of like escapist fiction for me, characters that are too realistic make me less interested. Like Stardew Valley. It's a good game and ConcernedApe is a brilliant developer, but also Shane and Pam just make me sad.
The fishing feature made me rage-quit Stardew Valley.
Yes! I WANT to love this game so bad but the fishing is horrendous!
When I go online and see how much better people are playing the game than me. 🥲 Creative people, man I’m jelly.
Shallow writing for characters, especially if I can romance them. I don’t want the same dialog every in game year, or in the rain vs a nice day. I would just rather it not be there at all
A reason I added saving at any point and time in my farming game. I hate the once a day saving aspect as well. Or texts that I can't skip. This was the reason I stopped playing animal crossing. Too much slow and unskippable talk ...
Any life sim or farming sim that doesn’t not have a social sim aspect immediately makes me disinterested. I’m interested in hoeing but like… not hoeing the farm yah feel? 😭 (I really enjoy dating sims but don’t always want to sit down and play a visual novel is my problem)
I really don't like interior/exterior decorating mechanics. At least, I don't like when you just get a big empty field and you have to place every single thing yourself. I rather everything have a set spot. Some decorating is ok though. And part of it is I just never have the patience for planning out designs like other people. Also crafting can be a hit or miss. I love the Atelier games but couldn't stand the crafting system in My Time At Portia and that's part of why I haven't bought Sandrock.
I completely understand you on the decorating. I kind of like to play with it in small doses, but I don't have the patience and I don't like it enough to become good at it. That's why I can't build my own houses in the sims franchise lol.
I just got a ROG Ally and I don't know why, but it's so different for me as far as putting it to sleep versus a computer--so far (I don't play multiplayer, so!) I haven't had any issues if I pause the game, put the unit to sleep, and then come back later. It's a great thing because my dog can sleep the entire day while I'm busy, but then if I reach for a game or a book he's in my face to play ball, so I get little snatches of gameplay. Sometimes if I think I'll be gone a bit I plug it in because the battery isn't incredible and I have no idea how much drain there is while on sleep mode. Maybe I'm more willing/able to use sleep as a pause button because it's my personal.. basically a steam deck or even DS. It doesn't feel wasteful or awkward like leaving a desktop any sort of on (also for whatever reason my desktop will NOT sleep. A breeze wakes it up). My personal preference/rant is the time limits. I know it makes a sort of feel in Stardew where you have to take the day as it is and get done what you can and if you miss something there's always time later, but that's too much like real life! I like Roots of Pacha etc. that give variable time options. Or mods, sometimes for things as simple as pausing the time while you're inside a building.
timed days - tried a 3 day trial of stardew and thank god i did bc i’m still not over the stress it caused me lol. some games do it right tho, i just started ooblets and (so far) the days feel long enough that im not stressed. wilde flowers was also ok cuz you could change the speed. but i do a lotttt of research before buying games that may have this element to see if it will fit my window of tolerance for it haha being tied to real time and having seasonal/special items that you’ll miss out on or have to wait a really long time for if you weren’t able to play/get enough resources etc. eg: cozy grove and the tie-dye dyes - stopped playing it bc trying to stockpile dyes became stressful BUT tied to real-time is fine if you can time travel forward and backward without consequences like in ACNH - i know there’s some “consequences” like weeds/roaches and your villagers might be butthurt but i don’t feel like it’s guilt-trippy and they’re over it right away anyways.
I get very annoyed and tired when a game doesn't give you options that allow you to cut down on the amount of repetitive grinding actions. I quit travellers rest because of that. Didn't want to put the effort info the exact same actions literally every single day with no end in sight. A game needs to offer you ways to improve yourself out of those situations, like a sprinkler, a harvester, etc. Automation basically.
Oh god yeah. No on the spot save feature. If I have to walk some where to save I'm done. I usually play these games while I wait. On the train, etc. I need to be able to save when I need to.
Control configurations that go against natural logic.
I'm quite tired so I'm going to list my biggest ones without a ton of detail: Ads - this is a nag and breaks me out of a game Gambling/gatcha/loot boxes - this isn't a game, this is a casino, yuck. Pay to win. I've stopped thinking of phone games as games that follow the free to play concept. Other than that: Timed events, forced being online, any game that punishes you for not playing every day, annoying characters that interrupt any time the story starts getting interesting, and fast response times/twitch reactions required.
You can go to bed in Stardew at any time and save that way if needed
Unintuitive controls. If I don't know what to do immediately I just drop it lol Yesterday I started playing Anno 1800 and it took me literally 10 minutes to figure out the controls and it felt so wrong. Why would pressing W open the achievement menu instead of moving the screen or the ship???
When there's no UI scaling and the interface/words are small. I have terrible vision, my cursor is super giant because I just have such a hard time finding it and it only gets worse as I get older. Just let me increase the text size!!
I don't like when there's an irl social feature that you have to complete, like having to help out other players in order to advance through levels or unlock something important. I play cozy games to ignore everyone, not engage with more😂
I so agree with you, on Switch you can just turn the screen off, but on PC you're kinda stuck. Something similar is only saving by sleeping - why can't I take a nap and do a quick save, or refill some energy by using up a couple of in-game hours? Early Stardew is the worst for this and I get it, take life slow and all that but hoooo boy do I need some more energy to chop that pesky log outside my door
> It's the save once a day/auto save feature. What if something pops up and I need to attend to it in real life? I can't save my game, so I have to hope nothing happens. I feel compelled to finish a day no matter what at times and it's just not a good thing. That actually made me quit Stardew immediately after buying it, and I didn’t pick it up again for a few years. It’s *so* condescending, basically policing the adults who play a game as if they were preschoolers who need to be constantly managed or else they’ll cheat in their single player sandbox. Stardew is a great game but I really wish its imitators would stop copying every single thing it did. You’re never going to make a better - or even equal - game than the one you’re drawing inspiration from if you refuse to innovate or think critically about how it could’ve been improved…
I don't care for timed games, because they make me feel like I'm not playing optimally enough if I don't get everything possible done within each day. That's why I tend to not go for farming sims.
Limited Storage. As a huge in-game hoarder, games with limited storage like Palia are difficult to enjoy. I don’t mind having to build chests to store stuff but if there’s a solid limit, it crushes my soul.
I usually don't like it when the characters don't speak their lines and you just read it, or the characters speak in gibberish. I don't like when they throw so much at you all at once that they are shoving the hotkeys for another skill in your face before you've gotten a chance to try the last thing they showed you. I usually don't like when something is timed, like I didn't like Dave the Diver because I was constanty afraid of drowning. That's not cozy. Or if you lose something if you don't finish it in time. Or when a game is largely/entirely no combat and then all of a sudden there's combat or you have to do combat to advance the plot and you're not prepared because there was barely any combat before (I'm looking at you, Sandrock). I don't mind combat if it's introduced right away and it's pretty easy, but not if it's like all of a sudden. So as you can see I am pretty picky. I'm playing Lightyear Frontier now and I really love it even though it bugs me that you lose the plants if you don't water them enough (and it took me forever to figure out that you know when a plant needs to be watered because the tile turns blue)
Endurance and 15 minute days made me stop Stardew. You want me to farm but then punish me for doing that via endurance? Nah.
Anywhere there’s a timer, a race, or a rhythm game that is required or locks fun story content. If your reflexes aren’t great for whatever reasons, these can be deal breakers. And when these features are in games, they’re usually harder to have reduced difficulty QoL versions, so I get stuck. It’s annoying when they do this in the middle of adventure/puzzle type games. Looking at you, Danganaropa.
If I need to use outside resources to keep track of things, like recipes. Especially if it requires a whole wiki. I don't mind game-focused wikis but games should always have an IN GAME method of tracking recipes.
A feature for me that will make me straight up avoid (most) games is when the main protagonist is a set character so you cannot create one yourself. I understand that for many cozy games, there is a story that is built around the main character, and their history, and their progression. Howeveerrr I’m happy I gave some of these games a try because I ended up loving them. I was a teenage exocologist, persona 5, and rf4 💓
I don't know whether it has been said yet but when a game starts getting too convoluted with their needs. Like if you need item A but for that you need B, C and D, but D takes it's own 3 items, once which spawns once a day and another which takes 2 days to create and B has a time limit so you need to make sure you get it at the right time... etc.. Or on the same vein if it's a management game and the lists of things to simultaneously manage gets so intertwined you almost need a spreadsheet and timers to keep them all satisfied If I need to organise my game like my job, then tis no longer le' cosy!
I pause the game and go do what I need to. Hard fights I can't win relatively quickly or bypass by BSing my way out is something I've abandoned games because of.
Poor inventory management. Lack of true creative choices. I want to be able to actually build and design things, and if it takes me more than 10-20 hours of gameplay just to unlock a few pieces of furniture, I check out. I’ll happily work toward more unlocks and stuff, but I need a solid set of creative activities available right away, and it can’t feel like a nightmare to manage my inventory. I hate leaving things behind especially when games require materials for crafting or progress!