Post by GC in Manifesto Jam 2026 - In Defense of Cozy Games comments

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16. "This is a sub genre that usually revolves around either the novelty of experiencing the details of a different life, or escapism in being able to either live a different life, or life similar to your life, but with a lot of the traumas of capitalism or their individual ability constraints removed."

I do not want to live a life similar to my life, because my life exists in a fascist hellhole. A game which propagates fascist themes can be critiqued on those terms. We can acknowledge racism, for instance, without replicating it in our works.

Imagine a game about running a shop in a post-racial cleansing world where everyone is white and able-bodied. The creator could say, "I just wanted to make a make similar to my life, but with a lot of the traumas of racial cleansing removed." The game can have the most wholesome themes imaginable of helping out one's grandmother and forming a loving, high trust community of able-bodied white people, and still be espousing the most heinous fascism imaginable. I use this exaggerated example to express the concept that a game can have cozy vibes and even positive themes and still propagate terrible, horrible fascist values that put people like me and other marginalized people in direct need of cleansing and violence.

Showing a game where capitalism exists but does not cause trauma propagates fascist values. It propagates the fascist lie that capitalism can exist without violence and suffering.

Showing a game where the player must accumulate profit and power propagates the fascist values that one must amass power to stay comfortable, and that one can escape capitalism by becoming sufficiently rich and powerful to no longer feel its ill effects.

We are not free until we are all free. I do not want to become the boss. I want to have no bosses whatsoever.

17. "The genre is very literally usually made by marginalized people, so I think we should consider that when discussing it."

As I mentioned earlier, we all live in a society. Just as we have to contend with the fact that white feminism often inflicts horrible violence onto brown people, or the fact that environmentalists (which are also literally usually marginalized people) often inflict horrible violence onto Indigenous people, or the fact that gay/bi/lesbian people can inflict horrible violence onto trans people, we have to contend with the fact that marginalized people can propagate fascist values.

Many of the rightwingers who actively harass marginalized people online are themselves marginalized people. Many women, brown people, queer people, and Indigenous people actively agree with and vote for policies that target, maim, and kill marginalized people, including themselves.

Just because a genre has a lot of marginalized people does not make it above critique or scrutiny.

18. "I have seen takes stating that farming sim fans are the same people watching trad wife content. This is extremely removed from the reality of those groups. Taking on caretaking/”domestic” roles is not the same as tradwife ideology. The ideology of trad wives is that they are subservient and that performing their gender role is a moral value. Caretaking or nurturing games revolve around an entirely different fantasy as mentioned above. Trad wife conservative gardening/ caretaking/ baking/ child rearing is based within the context of specifically serving their husband. A game that does shelf its narrative in motherhood is also not inherently problematic, as that expected role is a material reality of many people, and that reality being reflected can either be glorified or critiqued, or just accurate story telling in various executions."

I have not seen these takes so I cannot really comment. I can say that the manifestos in this jam, which I have read, have not had takes like this. I do not see anything wrong inherently with a game about motherhood or farming.

I do actually think that a subset of people exist with an overlap of farming sim fans and trad wife content, notably in the "cottagecore" type of space.

I have seen marginalized people espouse desires to escape into an unspoiled wilderness and live there. Such desires drip in settler-colonialism and fascism. Thoreau and his ilk, who waxed poetic about living by themselves in the woods, actually relied on the labour of "servant"-class people and "servile female" (mother, wife, sister)-class people. They simply did not see those people as human, so they perceived themselves as alone in their huts where they had all their meals fixed and clothes cleaned by "non-human" servants. Cottagecore and the desire to escape into an imaginary "unspoiled wilderness", only to tame it, relies on presupposing both Indigenous genocide and invisible labour.

I do not think that the average marginalized person playing a farming sim is actively seeking out tradwife content.

Yet, they are choosing to play out a similar fantasy, which presupposes that "unspoiled wilderness" exists (Indigenous genocide) and that we can "tame it" through chopping trees, fishing endlessly, building increasingly elaborate dwellings, etc.

19. "“I don’t dream of labor” is a phrase that is extremely useful in its context, but sometimes gets misunderstood as people not ever dreaming of any work. What most people mean is that they don’t dream of creating value for shareholders or a boss. Most people DO really love the craft of those jobs, or even the service of those jobs. The issue is in allll the other stuff. Customers allowed to treat you poorly, the value of your labor siphoned away without even leaving you with a livable wage, required hours being higher than the amount of time it would take to literally hunt and forage, defeating the purpose of community entirely. I even loved the labor of my call center job! I really enjoyed doing my best to solve their problems. What I couldn’t handle was only having 3 minutes to go to the bathroom, with a system where you were literally not allowed to unplug from the system at any other time. 4 uninterrupted hours of emotionally regulating myself and others with an unpaid lunch in between."

I completely agree. I do not see any of the jam manifestos saying a single negative thing about the mere concept of a game in which one performs a service or a craft. Even first person shooters or violent turn based RPGs show the player performing crafts and services, as soldiers or mercenaries.

Yet, we must also stop dreaming of generating profit or of wealth accumulation as a desirable state. As long as we desire wealth accumulation, we are propagating fascist values. Wealth accumulation inherently cannot exist without wealth deprivation.

I could see the value in a cozy game where, for example, the player unionises or begins in a union and thus contends with capitalism, but from the perspective of fantasizing about how one can improve or have a cozy scenario. But I want the wealth accumulation itself to not exist as a desirable mechanic in a game like that.

Removing the traumas of capitalism by ignoring them or pretending that they do not exist only propagates fascist fantasies. Removing the traumas of capitalism by imagining an actually better world to escape to, one that we could fight for in our current world, has value and gives us hope for the future. And such better worlds should not teach us to value the things that fascists value.

20. "So, the critique may then be that the games “glorify” these jobs. Except that also isn’t true. I’ve played the popular sim games, and basically all the barista ones include a LOT of commentary on how disrespectful customers are (one game is literally about how impossible it is to figure out what someone is trying to order), how hard it is economically etc etc."

No, I actually think that this misudnerstands the critique, at least the critique that I have personally read. The critique that I have personally read is, "These games glorify wealth accumulation."

I would love to see a game about being a barista in a post-capitalism world. Disrespectful and annoying "customers" (or, perhaps, patrons, or people who ask you for help, or neighbours, or family members, or friends, or whoever) will still exist in the world's most luxury automated space communism, or in the world's most Indigenous-run communes.

But do not make it about wealth accumulation. Enough!

21. "Stardew Valley, the biggest cozy game out there, is literally overtly and constantly telling you about how the big corp is bad and how this small town is impoverished. (It is valid to critique the details of how this plays out with people turning their farms into productivity factories in play, without throwing out the concept altogether) So this again seems like an issue of assuming what a game was without playing it."

I agree with those critiques of Stardew Valley. I also think that the entire concept of Stardew Valley is also a fascist propaganda, in the sense that it espouses the dream of a single individual saving an impoverished town through bootstrap labour and hard work, which explicitly includes combat and violence, and which demonstrates that NPCs will inevitably fall for you through sufficient wealth accumulation in the form of gifts.

I do not think that the critiques stem from assuming what a game was without playing it. I think that the issue stems from not understanding the critiques, perhaps.

22. "Cozy games actually give people who are in an unsafe mental state a way to engage with deeper themes safely. Instead of staring at the wall, they can play a game which reminds them to engage with their community, or engage with nature. A reminder that they can feel joy and comfort reminds them to fight for those things. I love media about nature or any kind. A serene image of a forest with the birds chirping makes me want to leave my house, go to my local eco activism group and fight to keep that image possible. I’m hoping to instill that feeling (and some actionable tips) into my next game!"

Hooray! I agree with you entirely about this. I hope that we can fight to keep that forest with those birds, as well as to return human presence to that forest as good neighbours and part of nature ourselves.

23. "How we move forward and improve the genre:"

Yay!

24. "-Critique specifics! If you wanna call a game fascist, talk about a SPECIFIC game (that you have played a majority of) and critique their execution! Specify sub genre! Bring up examples where you saw it done well, or theorize how you would fix that issue! Fun thought activity for the comments! Farming games generally have a goal of connecting to a player who is interested in nature, power fantasy of being physically able to do it, and power fantasy of autonomy over your own labor etc. Stardew has a ludo narrative issue where the puzzle like gameplay leads to an unintentional subtle theme of exponential growth and resource hoarding. What would you implement to try to fix that?"

I agree! I also think that it can be worthwhile to critique genre conventions and genre trends. This does not indict an entire genre. It only talks about notable trends within a genre. For example, I can say, "It really sucks that fandom at large does not care about wlw or yuri," without me saying, "I think that every single person in 'fandom' hates wlw and yuri and hates gay women, bi women, pan women, wlw, and lesbians." I can say, "It really sucks that so many cozy games are about wealth accumulation or taming an unspoiled wilderness," without me saying, "I think every single cozy game on the entire planet should blow up."

The manifesto, "The Game Where You Let People Starve," has some really good specific examples of how we could tackle better farming games. I highly recommend playing it if you have not already, because it goes over specifics! I would only be regurgitating its themes.

But I can give examples of two of my own cozy games which I am actively working on right now, which I will do so at the end of this post.

GC14 hours ago

25. "- I have this in my head for my next game, though we are not a farming game. We still have the basic game loop of accumulating currency to exchange for goods, which has the possible issue of leading players to try to accumulate faster with no thought to the community. I want to keep the game grounded within something recognisable to current life, so that the feeling of subverting it hits better. We need the exchange of goods and labor for the fantasy of being able to have autonomous control over your own labor, the ability to value other’s efforts, and the choice to spend some of your labor towards your community. We have a bit of an easier puzzle to solve, because our game is not strategy based. But I still don’t want to mess up the core incentives in the game. Pokopia does an interesting thing where you can barter and trade for items. It’s a cool subversion, though there is still money in the game so it gets undercut a bit. And you again are incentivised to hold onto whatever resources you do have. If we do have foraging, I want to include the ethics of foraging, which include only taking a small amount, leaving enough for other people, animals, and the plant itself. Maybe an incentive to donate what you don’t need? Stardew has that system with the community center, where you are incentivized to give back to the community. Unfortunately with the growth system, it can end up paralleling a “relying on generous billionaire” type thing, so a system that takes it automatically may work better? Though there are pros and cons to both. In concept, you WANT to give your players the agency to make pro social choices on their own. Forcing their hand undercuts that lesson. Anyway, just initial thoughts!"

If I were making a game like this, I would think really hard. It is not easy. But I outright disagree with the idea that we need money and wealth accumulation in a game in order to "have autonomous control over your own labor, the ability to value other’s efforts, and the choice to spend some of your labor towards your community". These things can and will exist even when money no longer exists, and it existed before money existed. They exist now even in situations where money is irrelevant. We can think. We can rise above conventions. We can create new and interesting core incentives that do not rely on propagation of fascist values.

For example, I am making a cooking game about "running a soup stall". Most games about "running cooking stalls" (or bars, or what have you) either feature wealth accumulation or explicitly have protagonists who are "above" wealth accumulation in some fashion due to having extreme power or magic. I am talking about games like VA-11 Hall-A, Magical Delicacy, Burger Bois, Galaxy Burger, Coffee Talk, Tavern Talk, Kemono Tea Time, Sips and Sonnets, and more. These games either explicitly include money as a central mechanic, or they explicitly explain why their protagonist alone does not have to worry about money even though everyone else does.

I want to think about a game set in a better future.

So, in my game, the protagonist lives in a commune where money does not exist. Instead, everyone works for a couple hours a day, and they can choose not to work, but people do because, as you said!, most people find work over which they have autonomy fulfilling and meaningful, and most people love to craft for others, care for others, and/or help others. The protagonist gets ingredients and supplies delivered from others in the town. People come to the protagonist to request soups, and the protagonist makes them soup.

This game's complexity comes from having to make soups which nourish the people who come to the stall, in a combination of puzzle-like activity and self-expression. For example, a vegan character may request a meal with balanced micronutrients and so much protein, and you have to figure out how to make that happen. A character may be looking for yummy soup and have requests for specific outlandish flavour combinations that you have to wrangle, and this character's arc involves them explicitly healing and becoming happier as they get fatter by eating delicious food. Another character may be trying to lose weight for health reasons while still finding yummy and nutritious food to eat, and they may require special consideration to ensure that they have enough nutrition and flavour in their dishes while limiting calories. Another character is trying to recreate the flavours of their hometown. Other characters may have religious dietary restrictions, or severe allergies to many common ingredients, or very strict flavour/texture control due to autism, or folate and iron deficiency due to pregnancy, or other health issues leading to particular food considerations, or personal preferences requiring careful thought in how to maintain.

The character will have to juggle flavours of a dish, such as salty or spicy, with more esoteric characteristics, such as texture qualities or mouthfeel or uniqueness, with macronutrients and micronutrients, with cultural considerations. The ingredients available will change over time due to seasonal agroforesty practices which include conservation, shortages, windfalls, traders from distant markets, and so on.

The player will unlock new ways of cooking ingredients and new ingredients through maintaining mutual aid networks throughout the commune. The player is not a saviour and so cannot control everything, but the player can make individual lives better and so nourishing one's community which in turn improves the player's life.

The player will be able to influence NPCs through how the player chooses to nourish them.

I plan to use this game to interrogate relationships with food at the site of cooking and eating, to show the difficulties and tensions of such a world, to showcase a better future, and to ponder the ethics of how we raise people dependent on us, such as children, to interact with food. For example, the player is also raising A Creature and must feed it, and I have been thinking about mechanics which will give the player autonomy over raising their Creature, while also demonstrating that the Creature has agency in its own right, while also reflecting on what I want to say about nature vs. nurture. I want to instill good habits about respecting autonomy, not forcing food consumption, and voluntary exposure to new food, without forcing the player because, as you said, forcing the player undercuts the learning. I am still working this out. I am also still working how exactly I want to handle player agency in terms of influencing NPCs by nourishing. I have prototyped a few substories to test various methods, wherein I want to respect both NPC autonomy and player agency in the story of influencing those around them. I have a lot of work to do, and fortunately I am working with my best friend! But, I am always trying to root through my work for fascist values and explicitly expel them or revise them.

Note that I am not calling my mechanics The Right Way To Go, just A Way To Go Whereby I Resist Fascist At Every Possible Turn.

I am certain that my game will still let some fascist values slip through because I am indocrinated in fascism. But I will listen to critiques. I am making this game for myself. If I do get a seething review about how my game is fascist slop, I will read it earnestly and genuinely, delighting that someone cares about my game and this genre and this future enough to have seriously thought about the mechanics. Obviously, if I get a review from some white supremacist who hates that I value fatness, I will just laugh. But if I get a review from someone who wants to make the world better, I will take that seriously.

I am not saying that you have to do that. I am just sharing my thoughts! Genuinely!

Back to your game!

You accurately identify the tensions in your game design which will undercut the themes you are trying to achieve. You accurately identify where the fascist values slip through due to genre conventions and poison the beautiful game you are trying to create. Do not let the poison in. Resist. Fight. Show a better world and a future worth fighting for. Let me escape from the grimness of the world for two minutes by showing me a world that isn't grim, not because I am closing my eyes and ignoring its poison, but because we have actually healed. I believe in you!

Or don't! But then, do not be surprised when people regard your game has espousing fascist values, in addition to non-fascist values, because...it does!

Here is a content warning I would appreciate: content warning that a "cozy game" still wants me to reduce my bodily autonomy to how much profit I can make with it, that a "cozy game" still wants me to demonstrate that I value others' efforts by expecting them to reduce their bodily autonomy to much little wealth I am willing to give them for their body. In wealth accumulation, we are all selling our bodies for profit. Show me a better way. I cannot escape to a world that is only light and fluffy by virtue of ignoring the fascism that undercuts all the beauty and goodness.

(I do not use beauty in the fascist sense here. I think that sewers, sludge, piss, shit, vomit, etc. can be beautiful because it is part of our world that is ours. Ugliness, too, is good.)

26. "More reactionary Post script: I made Calico bc it felt radical amongst all the (warning, reductive) War With Guns and Girls with Boobs games, and even the beautifully depicted games that were either gender neutral in expression or viscerally masculine (gender expression is a lofty concept so caveat again that gender is a concept and I happen to be both a woman and feminine, and I don’t assume that’s always the case) to make a game with exactly what I personally wanted in one. The community of devs I know making these games are all people wanting to express unique perspectives. Literally everyone in our game’s discord is autistic and queer. To call that ENTIRE genre fascist is genuinely mind boggling and we gotta stop. You gotta abolish the cop in your head telling people (especially marginalized people) to stop making certain kinds of art, and you gotta just make more art."

I agree completely that it is radical to make games that include women, autistic people, or queer people at all. I, too, do not want to make more War With Guns and Girls with Boobs games. But you also have to abolish the cop in your head telling people (especially marginalized people) that they have to incentivize people with money and wealth accumulation, or no one will feel cozy in their game. You have to abolish the cop telling people that they cannot dream of worlds where wealth accumulation doesn't exist, or where we honour sustainable and Indigenous farming practices, or where we have to keep propagating these fascist values jsut because the games we played in our childhoods or the other games made by other marginalised people did those mechanics too. You have to abolish the reactionary kneejerk reaction (redundant statement is redudant) that anything made by a marginalised person is automatically above critique. You and I are just as capable of being fascist as the whitest, straightest, able-bodiedest, cissest, most masculine man alive. We cannot ever forget that. We can hurt with these hands and we can also heal.

I have not seen a single take in this jam that the entire genre of cozy games sucks. I have seen takes that specific common mechanics within that genre suck, and I stand by those, just as I stand by the fact that the mechanics which teach players to gun down brown people in first person shooters suck. Would you say, "You gotta abolish the cop in your head telling people to stop making certain kinds of art" when those "certain kinds of art" are War With Guns and Girls with Boobs? I would definitely tell people to stop making War With Guns where white people kill all the brown people and are heroes for killing all the brown people. And I would tell people to stop making Shops With Labor Exploitation where profit and wealth accumulation are king and we have to deprive our patrons, whom we supposedly love, of wealth in order to progress in our game.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I have tried to read good intentions and discuss in good faith. Please let me know if I appear to have misunderstood anything. I greatly care about your work and want to see you succeed and be happy.

Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us!

Kells7 hours ago

I’ve only just woke up, but will take the time to read over and address your response today! I wanna assure you that I actually deeply appreciate the response, because I was hoping to be able to genuinely discuss the topic, but sadly no one had commented yet! Also, I did read your manifesto AFTER submitting mine, just to say it legit wasn’t a response to yours specifically. Yours was actually more nuanced and started deeper into the discussion, which while I disagreed with points, was not flattening in the way I’ve seen others in the past. My manifesto was mostly a response to some much less good faith takes made years ago that I still see happening now.

Anyway I’ll dive into this! Thanks for putting the time into responding!

GC2 hours ago

Hello! Please, take your time to respond. I did not think that your response was a direct response to my manifesto. I just wanted to comment on yours because I greatly appreciate the chance to speak with people who think differently from myself, so that I can learn and grow too. I I completely agree that the cozy games genre has suffered many terrible, bad faith takes in the past, including that it has no substance whatsoever, and of course I disagree with those! I also want to see one of my near-and-dearest genres improve, so I want to address good faith takes and critiques wholeheartedly, in the hopes of making games into which I can escape, as well.

No rush whatsoever! Please take all the time you need. It is also totally okay if you never respond! Just, thank you for taking the time to put this manifesto out there. It gave me a lot to think about it, and I greatly enjoyed reading it and responding to it!

Kells35 minutes ago (1 edit)

Okay wanna thank you again for responding so thoroughly. I so desperately want to actually converse about this subject, and it really does require various essays back and forth to actually delve into in a meaningful way. I’m also gunna break it up bc I find that very helpful. My bullets are not following yours, since I’m gunna condense some stuff we already agree on. Note, I notice you mentioning a lot of the points as not seeing what I would be responding to in the other manifestos, I wanna clarify that this was my regular cozy games thoughts! If there had been zero manifestos about cozy games, I still would have written this same thing! It’s like, my main game dev manifesto at any given time haha. It was awkward that one of the highest up manifestos was also very the opposite and made it seem very pointed

What we agree on:

Games made for the purpose of being positive and hopeful should exist along with all other expressions of emotion First I wanna talk about the issue that we’re simultaneously having to respond to a lot of different discussions at once. As in, if there’s a timeline of discourse, my manifesto addresses both someone who doesn’t even think calming games should exist, all the way to our more nuanced discussions of what exact game features are both ethical and calming. We obviously seem to align much further on the line, so any of my points arguing for the concept of cozy itself to be allowed aren’t necessary for this discussion, and honestly I do regret focusing so much on that initial concept, or at least, I should have written two pieces. One addressing how we critique, and another specifically for the other segment completely shutting it down.
The concept that we shouldn’t blindly adapt past games/ tropes/ modern societal structures without examining the purpose or messaging it inflicts. We may disagree on specifics of implementation, or what concepts should always be subverted and how. 100% agree that a game that you feel is endorsing capitalism or fascism is not comforting or cozy

We both agree that these ideas have been implemented elsewhere, to various levels of success. This one is one we align on, but I feel like a lot of other good faith takes I see seem to be unaware of. I’ve seen cozy games takes where all their suggested better features are definitely included in other games, or in the game they are critiquing. Though you gave good examples of how that may not be because they didn’t play it, but because the interpretation was different. Also not any authors fault for not knowing a games exists or a feature, just that I would love to see more discussion that did know and focus on those.

Further discussion:

I don’t want to harp too much on my perception of cozy games discourse, because I think I get easily distracted from actually furthering the discussion. I’ll say that I do not perceive many anti cozy games posts as wanting to improve the genre, but being against it entirely. My perception reading yours was not like that, though I still perceived it as generally being against the group as a whole, or being associated with it (which you explained valid personal reasons for!). I think the reason I want to step away from that, is that in my experience with the community of cozy devs, every one of them that I’ve met agrees with all the critique and wants to improve it. We just may be better or worse at that implementation, or even more or less well read about the subjects. But I do subjectively perceive the discussion to usually sound like “These people aren’t trying to subvert this, and they don’t align with my ethics”, instead of “This game attempted, but did not successfully subvert this”. The purpose of that difference is that if we understand most cozy devs already have these ideas and are trying them, then we can argue about how to do that.

I think this is where the difference between something like cozy games, and something like FPSes are different. FPS games as a genre are the establishment. Cozy games are almost entirely indie right now, at most, third party, and then some smaller AAA. For perspective, actually top end AAA games tend to have teams of 500+ to 1000+ people. A bunch of them were legit funded by the US military. There are great examples too! But people generally separate it into AAA status quo, and indie subversions. The major examples of cozy games are almost all attempting to subvert something, probably due to the genre coming up itself as a response to the industry. So I think a harsh general statement instead should be “Cozy games want to be anti-capitalist (or other themes), but fail at it in execution”. I’m definitely aware that this specific argument is splitting hairs and getting way too specific in directing critique, just that I do think it’s a more productive place to start from if we acknowledge that most cozy devs I’ve met are already aligned in trying to subvert, but as a collective haven’t had enough actionable critique and discourse about specifics. Trying to convince devs to worry about this content isn’t I think a helpful topic, since pretty much all of them already thing this, but it’s more that our collective imagination or even just game design skills are lacking in execution. So instead we argue “The way you are trying to do this isn’t working”

“Show me the person who said that comforting games should not exist. “ It’s definitely possible that I misinterpreted various critiques, hard to say for sure. Also hard given the usual brevity of takes on shortform spaces like Bluesky. As for manifestos, it’s hard for me to be able to tell if a declarative statement is meant to be more extreme than their actual belief. With yours, the title was “kill cozy games”, but I was easily able to tell from the contents that you meant “Kill the type of cozy game I describe here”. Throughout my long time as a dev I’ve seen a lot of really directed anger at the concept of a cozy game altogether. I ignore the ones from people I’m not aligned with at all, but I’ve also seen a lot from people who are my peers in indie games, specifically calling them twee and devoid of substance as a genre. Sorry, I notice I’m talking in circles around this point, because I agree with you that you can make a general statement like “cozy games need to stop making me cut down forests”. I guess I’ll just say that has been my perception in game dev circles. It’s possible we’re also seeing different stuff! I’ve legit read basically every Cozy games take imaginable at this point, and the ones I’m picturing could have different context from the ones you are picturing.

"That said, I have not personally seen a single jam manifesto which has railed against safety railings and content warnings. Could you point me to them, if you have seen them? "

I haven’t either! I realize that my manifesto came across as reactionary to the jam, genuinely I was just writing about my longstanding thoughts and reactions from years in the space. There’s currently a lot of discourse over content warnings and triggers, not even just in games. One of my fav creators Princess Weekes had a vid about it just recently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcb6GNvFB7Q&t=29s

Mainly in my own spaces, the discourse revolves around the need for sustainable emotional energy and safety, vs. trying to push against the type of people who ignore the news so that they don’t have to actually do anything, and people who are doing both for different topics.

Details:

At the point where we start talking about fascism, I think we start branching into different ethos’s and ideas of implementation! -Imagine a game about running a shop in a post-racial cleansing world where everyone is white and able-bodied. The creator could say, "I just wanted to make a make similar to my life, but with a lot of the traumas of racial cleansing removed."

I agree with this, I think it’s going to be specific to implementation and intent. Fantasy generally has an issue of what it chooses to ground and what it doesn’t, and how. I think, if certain bad things are kept, that they be used for commentary and subversion.

I completely agree with your thoughts on why you want to make a game wholly removed from the issues we live with right now. I think you’re accurate in how you would create a game that idealizes what could be! My disagreement is that all cozy games should go that direction. I think it’s important for hopeful content to have a diversity of range in what parts they imagine better. Like, sometimes I need art that shows me what a perfect system/dynamic/relationship is. Sometimes I need art that shows me how to survive in the life I’m living or this exact day and these exact decisions. There’s also absolutely times in my life when either of those would hit better or worse. To be fair, I don’t include diversity in this, and that may be contradictory. Maybe because even in the least realistically diverse places, there’s still waaaaay more diversity than the average game has, but also because in all the games I can think of with it, it is NOT being used to actually talk about that topic. Like, a painful subject of reality should have a purpose. Now implementation of that is definitely way trickier. For example, Pokopia’s ethos is that unfortunately, humans ruined the planet and left, it’s super clear that that part is objectively terrible and the narrative admonishes it. Your role (in the intended narrative), is to be someone who can fix the environment, work as a community, for all the “animals” left behind. The catharsis is in this world without humans, and being able to heal the earth. That being said, Pokopia has a LOT of issues with implementation, specifically in the housing feature, and the ability to whole ass terraform places back to cities. But I think the initial concept is a valid method of hope. But again, we’re not determining what the best most ideal single game vision would be, we’re considering the range of what is needed to have a real message of hope without contradicting itself. I think the worst part for me is where a character says in earnest “the humans will be so proud of us for building it back up”. Like bro NOOO I did not do anything for those guys, I wanted squirtle to have wetlands again! One point in it’s favor is that it has various pokemon saying they DON’T want the humans back, but I wish that was more common. Actually I think we align via “Showing a game where capitalism exists but does not cause trauma propagates fascist values. It propagates the fascist lie that capitalism can exist without violence and suffering. “

I think if we include these realities, that we should comment or subvert them. I agree that if I am playing a game, and these concepts come up unquestioned, it impacts my enjoyment of that game heavily.

I hugely agree with games being majorily white, skinny and able bodied. It’s a huge huge peeve of mine given I made a diverse game and it was NOT hard. Like, making fat bodies and even a whole character creator with fat bodies was really easy, and I am faaaar from well learned in game making. I do find a lot of character creators and npc casts are becoming more diverse, though somehow STILL leave out body size diversity. It’s honestly bizarre to me. –Cottagecore and the desire to escape into an imaginary "unspoiled wilderness", only to tame it, relies on presupposing both Indigenous genocide and invisible labour.

I’ve thought a lot about this one! I realized in a chat today with a friend, that I may be projecting my idea of cottage core on others. In my head, and in the niche of content I see, the idea is rewilding. Like, you’re absolutely right that the other side of it is going to a place they deem “new” and then building a life there are using the resources. I honestly forgot that dynamic, as in my real life I normally only encounter nature lovers seeking to rewild a parking lot or wherever.

The fantasy for me is meant to be subsisting on just what you and your community (community being unconditional to the rights of all humans, not chosen community) need, and leaving the rest to the beauty of nature. Having said that I TOTALLY agree that the actual implementation contradicts that massively a lot of the time. With the pokopia example, and with a LOT of sims that let you go out and chop down as many trees and pick as many flowers as you want. Like 100% agree that’s an issue. I also could be wrong assuming most people have the same “cottagecore” fantasy I have. I got very into native plant gardening recently, and the ethos of rewilding areas, which is pretty niche. I do think our art done correctly could direct someone’s love of nature in that direction as opposed to “take control of nature and do whatever you want with it” thing. -”I could see the value in a cozy game where, for example, the player unionises or begins in a union and thus contends with capitalism, but from the perspective of fantasizing about how one can improve or have a cozy scenario. But I want the wealth accumulation itself to not exist as a desirable mechanic in a game like that. “

Totally agree with this, I think too much anti capitalist fantasy is about being able to BE the billionaire, even if that involves being pushed to choose to do good things with that wealth. I want to see it as either “this is an example of the system we should have” or yeah like unionizing etc.

“I agree with those critiques of Stardew Valley. I also think that the entire concept of Stardew Valley is also a fascist propaganda, in the sense that it espouses the dream of a single individual saving an impoverished town through bootstrap labour and hard work, which explicitly includes combat and violence, and which demonstrates that NPCs will inevitably fall for you through sufficient wealth accumulation in the form of gifts.

I do not think that the critiques stem from assuming what a game was without playing it. I think that the issue stems from not understanding the critiques, perhaps.”

I think your critique is more grounded in what the game is and fails at. The critique I usually see forgets entirely that there was a community center mechanic at all. Which tbf is also a valid critique, because when playing I also find myself forgetting that I’m getting items for the community center, because my brain sees it as a general gamified checklist. But yeah either way I agree that the intended ethos is contradicted by this one single person with this huge land making a zillion bucks and saving the town. In that way they’re just benevolent big corp.

Kells35 minutes ago

Further game theorizing:

I completely agree that I don’t want to make a game that encourages exponential wealth/economic value growth. I also don’t want it to be extractive. I do believe these themes can be present in good games if really commented on well and not used unquestionably, but that requires more focus than our game would have on economic structure. So my game is a cat/animal cafe sim. The fantasy is unfortunately really based in current reality set-up. There’s a lot of parts I’m unpacking. To me, the fantasy is that I live a life where I create a space that people and animals enjoy and coexist and eat cute food. But irl, there’s issues with the exploitation of animals (irl some few places work hard on this, acting more as an interactable cat shelter so I have some examples of that), and all the economic baggage of cafes and consumerism. I could definitely remove currency, but my main issue is on how to create gameplay that rewards engaging with the game mechanics with more game or creative options. The main issue is that for a decoration game, you need items, and generally you need a gradual increase of those item options. That means somehow acquiring those items, generally from shops. A barter system is possible, but unsure if that solves the issue.

So my challenge I think is at what stage of that concept I need in order to send the messages while fulfilling a healthy fantasy. Commerce and exchange do exist in non capitalist and pre colonial forms of economy, but very honestly, I NEED to and plan to do some more specific reading on what structures exist or have been theorized. I am a college dropout and woefully unread on the material details beyond the ethical and philosophical concepts. It definitely is possible to do what I intend without any form of currency, but a pro of making it more grounded in current reality, is that people have a more direct example of how to apply the concept in their own life. I think having many games about all stages of that are incredibly useful. A good activist needs to know what the ideal is we are striving for, and also what decision to make today in their material life. Your example/ idea is great, and I’d love to see an array of games exploring better ideal systems. I’m not committed to a specific economy structure, so I’ll have to read up on a way that makes sense for having a decorating game. I do wanna throw in sustainability and reusing/recycling etc. So yeah I need to really watch how we implement both acquiring and holding items. My main goal I think is to at least create a narrative that makes it super clear that the universe of my game is not intended as a utopia. The fantasy of the game is that a community of people all are aligned in kindness, but disagree or need growth and learning about how to build a better community. The core of the narrative art is about trying to fix a community that relied on one benevolent person holding it, and when that person burned out, they’re left floundering. So instead of the protag coming in and taking over that role, they have to help everyone through their own arcs of discovering working as a community. The conversations I feel comfortable in are the ones I have in real life, about how like for example, me and my friends are all levels of disabled and mentally ill, neurodivergent, so we can’t all be exchanging equal labor, sometimes we have to unconditionally lift people up (sometimes forever, and not just a limited time), and that also someone helping doesn’t have to be physical labor, it can even be just being kind, and this is built on trust that everyone is trying their best.

So yeah I think regardless of specifics, the ethos is always to ask myself why I’m putting a feature in, can it be done another way? Differentiate the things that I have in there to comment on, and the things in there as idealist examples. There’s a lot of discussion I love about allegorical consistency in art. Like a big example being those clunky racial allegories with animals, like okay we’re talking about race when the carnivores are discriminated against, but are we also talking about race when the… carnivores factually eat other people??? So yeah, in my game, if I have idealized systems elsewhere, how do I communicate what isn’t meant to be shown as ideal. Even if we don’t have money, there will be some method of exchange, items from the real world, developed towns, so it’ll all need that lens at some level. I’m certainly more comfortable figuring that out with things I have lived experience in, like how even in my pro ND spaces, we can accidentally oppress each other. Another part is that I think it’s okay for there to be things safe to do in games that aren’t good to do irl. Like I think if all of society agreed we don’t get to cut down all the trees, but there was like, a tree cutting simulator, that would actually be a really good way to get to experience that without the harm. It’s more about how the narrative frames it, and I agree that a huge issue is that cozy sim games have a narrative issue differentiating what is a thing we want to reflect about an ideal world, and what is something we are creating a space to do without harm, even though we all know it’s harmful. And the diff is probs relating to us knowing it’s harmful. No one cares much that in my first game you can take a bear cub and keep it in your cat cafe, because we all feel safe knowing most cozy games know that stealing exotic animal babies is bad. But I can really understand the feeling seeing a game feature encouraging a practice that we don’t actually feel safe assuming everyone knows is bad. I do think there’s different parts of this that differ between are usual ethical quandies for any game, and what is required consideration for a cozy game. I do think there’s added baggage that whatever you show will be assumed to be part of the cozy factor, I haven’t entirely solved this for the marketing side yet. Especially given we have an arc where the player discovers the initial concept of taking over the other person’s role taking care of everyone on their own is hugely flawed. So I think one of the biggest things is communicating that difference to the player. I don’t have a good solution yet for that, but is important for me to think over. Okay gunna try to find an endpoint bc I could discuss forever. Ultimately, I’d love the dev community to get further in the weeds like this. To me personally, I feel most of the cozy dev community are already aligned on wanting to do better about these things, but ultimately failing for one reason or another. Generally for all games, we run into issues getting stuck with the established grammar of games, and the immense challenge of matching narrative with gameplay. I haven’t played any cozy games in a long time that wasn’t trying to send a good message, though I’ve played plenty that tried and contradicted themselves further down the line of development. So yeah, I hugely agree there’s good crit, and I did see a lot of good crit in your writing!! I should probably start just ignoring what I deem more shallow dives into the topic, and focus my time on having these more nuanced discussions. Next manifesto jam I think I’ll try to make my own actual genre critique, instead of defense. I want to carve out time to actually do what I suggested in gathering some good specific examples and details. I genuinely love this convo, and it very literally spurned good conversation with my own team on the current decisions we have to make soon. I’m definitely going to have to get some books and really get a stronger foundation for the economic part. Sorry for talking in circles, and thank you soooo much for the discussion

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