When it comes to cozy games, not specifically referring to a genre so much as a modifier that you can slap onto an established one to alter your core expectations for it, I’ve begun to see them acting as the yang to the yin that is roguelikes. With one pointing to a more relaxed experience, and the other generally moving in the direction of heightening the degree of challenge, they’ve been a catalyst for shaking up gameplay styles that have become more stale, perhaps not radically changing them, but at least tuning them better for specific audiences who are eager for something a little different. 

Cozy Caravan, quite obviously, has aimed to position itself as a more mellow experience, with you simply roaming between small towns, helping people out to typically get paid in resources, and then setting up a market every weekend to make some scratch. What starts out as you simply selling a variety of goods, progresses into you slowly being able to prepare meals, as you’ll begin to accumulate tokens for your guild, a reward for building good will in the community, which will then give you equipment for prepping more complex foods. If you’re fond of games that aren’t out to rush you, and will simply let you poke around, talk to townsfolk, help them with errands, and just enjoy the journey it should absolutely have some appeal.

Of course, you could also argue that the pacing can sometimes feel a little too heavily sedated, and that the various tasks you’ll have assigned to you to help begin to quickly fall into repetition. While there are some quests that will take some prolonged effort to complete, in general they’ll simply involve driving to a different area, talking to someone or finding something, and then bringing it back. Considering that getting around in itself can be a slow-ish process, working the circuit from area to area, if you’re impatient to see some fruits for your various labors it may get a little aggravating. Throw in the fact that some of the activities like taking pictures are handled pretty poorly, even when there are so few different things you can do, and greater care could and should have been invested in making the overall product more polished. There’s no doubt that it should have appeal for the right crowd, but this is a case where you really need to be all-in on the elements of a “cozy-fied” experience to get the most out of it.