Into the Magic Cirlce. If all is cozy, what isn’t? Some conceptual problems regarding cozy games

The emergence of ‘cozy games’ as a distinct game category gives rise to some fundamental questions about this category’s formal qualifications regarding ludic and narrative elements (including ludo-narrative dissonance), players’ experiences, developers’ intentions, and definitions of other constituent characteristics. Interpreting video games as digitally mediated ludo-narrative texts and employing a communication-oriented methodology, the two authors analyze, as case studies for their reflections on the problematic nature of the category, two well-known (if not unproblematic in their identification) ‘cozy games’ – Gris (Nomada Studio 2018) and Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games 2021): both games are identified as ‘cozy’ by critics and players, but – quite paradoxically – deal with not-so-cozy subject matters like death, dying, and grief.