Far be it from me to look down on cozy games, or in any way yuck someone else’s yum, but there are times where I feel like there are too many games that embrace the cozy of it all, but don’t do their homework to bring well-implemented play along for the ride. Now, it wouldn’t be fair to expect anything too crazy out of games intended to simply be enjoyed, but some polish and demonstration of some real care and investment would go a long way.

Inheriting your grandfather’s metal detector, and mission to discover a lost cairn hidden somewhere on the island, you’ll set off in search of treasures. Of course, it turns out that you’ll also run into quite a number of people along the way who have simply lost something, and would love for you to help them out as well. As is often the case with using a metal detector in real life, the majority of what you’ll end up finding will end up being bits of junk, but at least there’s a recycling center in town to help incentivize digging them up anyway, to unlock some aesthetic things you’ll get in exchange.

Aside from the essential hook in the game, detecting things and then digging them up, being quite simple and repetitive, just on a general level there’s not much of an oomph of excitement here. Sure, it’s a cozy game and has some good feels to it, but the presentation and flow of things can feel low effort at times. While digging in some areas works out just fine, in others everything visually glitches out as the game engine doesn’t seem robust enough to handle certain types of terrain. Similarly, the exchange where you trade junk in has an interface that’s overcomplicated and hard to follow. The clues that will lead you on your journey are nice, and will get you thinking, but it’s hard not to get bogged down by the game’s general shortcomings on a pretty regular basis, or just the pure repetition of it all while not having a clear motivating hook to keep going. There will, no doubt, still be an audience who’ll latch onto the experience, but even among its cozy brethren this just seems to lack energy.