Cozy gaming as an idea
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you? I see, you’re one of those hyper-competitive sorts. This game might not be for you. Here’s a spectrum of how cut-throat boardgames can be:
2-player games where somebody wins and the other player is destroyed: Chess, most war simulations, Star Wars The Deckbuilding game.
Multiplayer games where somebody wins and everyone else is destroyed: Risk, Monopoly.
Games where somebody wins but everyone has a points total to look at and say “Hey, I might not have won but at least I built this”: Carcassonne, Everdell, basically every Euro game1.
Semi co-op games where the game can be the winner, but if the players win there is a most winningest player: The Legendary deckbuilding series.
Co-op games where it’s technically possible to win, but I’ve never seen it happen: Frostpunk, Attack on Titan.
Co-op games where it’s just us against the game but it’s very winnable with differing levels of difficulty: Forbidden Island.
Co-op campaigns where unsuccessful missions are probably repeated a few times until you’re either successful or you give up and move to a different scenario branch: Gloomhaven, Tales of the Red Dragon Inn.
Co-op campaign games where the success or failure of a particular mission can have an impact on your world, but failing forwards keeps the story momentum no matter what: Agemonia, Pandemic Legacy (kinda)2.
Story games that, at the end of the playthrough, give you a score of how well you did to compare against other people who may have played or other playthroughs: Sleeping Gods, and OK Pandemic Legacy does this part too.
Story games that are divided into play sessions with goals that can individually be passed or failed, but for which the game as a whole never ends in failure or even success, just when you stop playing as you’ve seen enough story: Mythwind.
Story driven games that provide some framework for you to define a victory or defeat, but basically let you decide what those terms even mean: Vantage.
Cozy Stickerville.
To be clear, I have enjoyed games in all of these categories, and I love the fact that boardgaming as a hobby is mature enough to have all of these competing concepts available.
So what is a cozy game?
I’m not sure that cozy gaming really has a strict definition, but I’m reasonably sure you’ve come across something that fits. The concept has been around in video games for a while - Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Tomodachi Life, Animal Crossing - these games might technically have endpoints but the end isn’t the point. The point is just to play.
It’s the difference between running a marathon to get a time, and walking the width of the Isle of Wight because everyone is doing it that weekend.
It’s completing a jigsaw puzzle that you like the picture of, then taking it apart and doing it again because there’s just something soothing about sorting all the pieces on a colour gradient - and which can only really end in failure if your dog has eaten a piece.
Yahaha! You found me!
It’s roaming around Zelda: Breath of the Wild looking for Koroks and photo opportunities because yes, there is a Big Bad in the middle of the map who I probably should face eventually but I get to choose when and I’m just not vibing with that right now.
Perhaps a cozy game is one for which you couldn’t have a speedrun category? Alas, speedruns.com somehow has categories for each of these games.
Let’s zoom back in on Cozy Stickerville though. Here’s what I know for sure:
The game lasts for 10 years, at which point the story deck runs out.
A year takes 12 turns to play, which should take you around 30 minutes.
You can only play the game twice. The main board is double sided, and there are enough stickers for key events to happen twice.
The choices you make have consequences
It’s probably not possible to get all the good outcomes because the one thing you’re limited on is time.
There are different possible endings - 5 of them - I just don’t know yet whether they are obviously good or bad endings, just different. The rulebook makes it clear that you cannot lose as such.
Sorry, you can only play the game twice?
I can definitely see this being a point of contention for some people. I am perfectly happy to get 10 hours of gaming for my money - The computer game Portal is one of my all time favourites and I got fewer hours out of that. There are also games in my collection that I love but, mainly due to competition with other games in my collection, I have played fewer than 10 times.
To be honest with you, it’s almost refreshing to have a game that, at a certain point, you know it’s finished, you can’t ever play again, and it belongs in the bin (or made into a scrapbook, but who has the time for that? In this economy?)
I also generally only read books once and watch films once. Of course, I do appreciate that ability to share that kind of entertainment with friends later by letting them have my copy second-hand, and that just isn’t possible with this game. I can share this game with other people by playing it with them, or not at all.
Why wouldn’t I just read a book then?
Did you ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book? This is a little bit like that, only with more options available to you at any one time than those books usually allow for.
Did you ever read a book with another person? Cozy Stickerville plays really well at 2 players, with each player getting to do a thing whilst the other reads the consequences (and hides the alternatives!)
Cozy Stickerville has a cadence to each turn - firstly a random event happens from the deck for that year, and secondly you choose an action to perform. Those actions could have come from the event deck, stickers you placed at the beginning of the game, stickers you placed as a consequence of other actions.
It’s this time mechanic that gives your choices their meaning. A chasm opens up in the ground - do I do anything about it? Well - I’ll need wood to build a bridge, and I don’t have enough wood right now but I do have food. I can use the food to go find wood this turn, and build the bridge next turn, but in that time 2 other events cards will have been drawn. What if they place additional demands on my wood or food? Have I got time to do it all?
No. You haven’t. You get to decide what you spend your limited time and resources on, and there are likely to be options left unexplored as a result. So in a sense, yes it is like reading a book, only you could read chapters 4, 5, 2, 3 and 6 in that order, and never speak of chapter 1.3
Is it fun though?
I am only 3 years into my first playthrough of the game, so do take my opinions with a grain of salt, but this is a very easy way to spend quality time with my wife. It’s easier to open up the Stickerville box and resume playing than it is to choose what to watch on Netflix. We have no anxiety about committing to a months-long campaign, and are just progressing as and when we see fit - there are no complicated rules at all, so no sense that you need to be in a particular mental frame of mind to enjoy the game.
In fact, this game actively puts you into that cozy state of mind just like you tuned in to a sappy rom-com or a familiar old series that you don’t have to put much thought into to appreciate for what it is.
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Game details
Designer: Corey Konieczka
Art: Jonathan Aucomte, Olivier Fagnère, Damien Mammoliti, Tomasz Morano
Publisher: Unexpected Games
1 This might be Germany’s best invention ever. Seriously, when I first started boardgaming, it was the German games that concentrated on building, not destruction, as a means of success. Absolutely life changing.
2 Pandemic Legacy allows exactly 2 attempts at each scenario.
3 Oie boie! How wude!