Cozy Grove is an adorable life-sim game that has players taking on the role of a Spirit Scout who finds themselves on a mysterious island where they must help the ghostly bear characters that they meet there. The gameplay is similar to that of Animal Crossing and features elements such as crafting, gathering, quests, and more.
If you have yet to start out on your new adventure, or you've just arrived at Cozy Grove, there are a number of things that are worth knowing about the game. Here are some things we wish we knew before starting, so you can learn from our mistakes and island life experience.
Updated by Sharnelle Earle on September 7, 2022: The game itself may seem small, but there's a lot to explore and learn within this game about ghostly bears. What's the best way to earn cash quick? Did an item description give you the fright? We have added more entries to this list of things new players will want to be wary of. These tips will help you live your best Spirit Scout life. You'll be able to decide for yourself if the game is for you, and if it is, how to succeed in this limbo.
15 The Story Is Dark
The game's cute art style and calming soundtrack will reel a lot of cozy gamers in. Upon playing the game, you already understand that the bears on your island are ghosts. What may come as a shock to some is other dreary and dark language within the game.
Item descriptions in the world will sometimes say grim things about death. After all, you are on an island where the afterlife and the present coincide. It's worth knowing you'll be confronted with this in advance.
14 Objects Need Light For Interaction
You'll notice that upon completing a quest for a bear, their surrounding area as well as themselves begin to light up with color. This isn't just for show. Your main objective is to light up the entire island. Not only does it become cheery and pretty in general, but you'll be able to understand what you're looking at.
There are lots of hide-and-seek quests, and it can be hard to find these items in the world without distinguishable colors. Aside from that, you cannot interact with your own animals or harvest things like trees if they are not lit up. If you're unable to bring light to a camp, your pets will forever sleep. Connect light using lamps that you can purchase from Mr. Kit or craft with Jeremy.
13 Sell Crafted Junk
There used to be a quick hack players did where they would craft something out of charred fishbones, and it would sell for a lot of money. Make sure to go through all your craftable recipes with Jeremy and see which one is easy to craft and also sells for a good amount. For instance, anything that needs charred fishbone to craft is low-cost because you can easily fish all day, burn the fish for bones, and craft a bunch of that furniture item.
Craft your easiest recipes and see how much they sell for. Whichever has the best low crafting cost and sells for the most, will be your secret way to making a lot of money.
12 You Can Track Story Progression
It's easy to forget things. Heck, all the ghosts on your island have. But when they remember and recount memories to you, a little comic slide happens. These memories can be revisited by speaking with Charlotte.
Through the Spirit catalog Charlotte keeps, you will be able to keep track of whose story is almost complete and who needs more love. You'll also be able to re-watch those comic-style memories.
11 How To Get New Recipes Every Day
New players may not know this, but you actually get two new recipes each day. You will be able to find a food recipe by gathering, and a furniture recipe by fishing. Gathering in the game includes jumping in leaf piles and digging up vegetables.
Doing these tasks is very easy, so acquiring a new food recipe will take no time. Fishing, like with most games, takes time and can be tedious, so it will take longer for you to find that recipe while fishing, but know that it is there. Every day, one food recipe and one furniture recipe.
10 Cozy Grove is Time-Gated
The biggest gripe that most players have of Cozy Grove is that the game is time-gated, this means that you can only progress the storyline by a certain amount each day. As your island gets larger, and you unlock more bear characters, there is more to do on each day, however, on your initial first day of playing, you'll likely be wrapped up in about 30 minutes story-wise.
Of course, there are other things you can do rather than just progressing the storyline, and for those who are really desperate, there is the option to time-travel — though Spry Fox does not recommend this. A Cozy Grove day resets at 5 am each morning, so if you're a particularly early riser, you might still find yourself on yesterday's time.
9 Some Quests Are Timed and Some Take Multiple Days
Each day your new bear neighbors will offer you a quest to complete, and in doing so you will return some color/light to the island and progress the main storyline. This is also the best way to obtain Spirit Logs. Most of the time these quests involve you hunting down lost or hidden items for the bears.
However, as you progress through the game, the quests will become more complicated. Bears will request items that may take a number of days to obtain or items that can only be received once you have helped a different bear altogether. Additionally, you'll start to get timed quests, so make sure you complete these within the allotted time in order to get your reward.
8 Don't Sell Items Carelessly
While gathering items and selling them to Mr. Kit is a great way to make some money, you should think twice about selling certain items as you may need them for quests. Even if a particular item seems abundant when gathering one day, such as digging up walnuts from holes, you might find they are scarce the next day when you actually need them.
Flamey has a storage inventory that you can access by speaking to him, so you should use this to store your rarer items so that you don't accidentally sell them. You can upgrade your storage capacity by upgrading your tent.
7 No Need To Equip Tools Manually
You unlock a number of tools as you play, each of which can be used to gather from different kinds of items or areas. You don't actually need the tool equipped in your hand in order to use it, you just need it in your inventory. Once you're at a gathering spot, such as a hole or ore rock, you will get a prompt to gather the resource.
The tools that need to be in your hand to actually use them are the fishing rod, as you have to cast it out in order to fish, and the dowsing rod, as you need to see whether you are hot or cold. Tools will break after a certain time, and you will have to repair them with crafting materials by speaking to Jeremy Gruffle. Additionally, as you continue to play, you will get tool upgrades that make them more durable and able to gather rarer items.
6 Expand The Range Of Light With Decorations
As you help your ghostly bear friends and upgrade your camp, the range of light/color will increase and this will allow you to interact with more items and harvest from more gathering spots. It can be really annoying if an ore rock or fruit tree is just outside the range of color, but fortunately, there is something you can do to fix this.
Crafting or purchasing lamps and placing them on the edge of the color/light field will increase its range. You can even chain lamps to increase the color even further, and use this to target gathering spots you want to be able to harvest items from.
5 Storage Items Can Be Used For Quests
As previously mentioned, Flamey has a storage inventory for you to put items for safekeeping. Your storage isn't as useful as your main inventory, as it can only be accessed when speaking to Flamey, so don't store tools there.
However, items in your storage are still counted when it comes to handing in items for quests, so you don't actually need to worry about transferring requested items to your main inventory. As long as it is in either storage or inventory, you can hand in quests either way.
4 Charlotte Can Tell You Where Hidden Items Are
Most quests given to you by the ghostly bears that inhabit the island involve hunting down missing items. This can mean that they're hidden behind various environmental objects, buried in holes or leaf piles, or even being held by imps. As your island grows, it makes it even more difficult for you to find what you're looking for, even with the clues given in the quest log.
If you find yourself at your wit's end because you really can't find an item that you need, you can speak to Ranger Charlotte Pine, and for the price of 100 coins, she will show you exactly where the hidden item you need is.
3 Mr. Kit Might Have Exactly What You Need
Most bear quests will ask for items that you can easily obtain from gathering on the island, but occasionally, you'll find that the item you need can simply be purchased from Mr. Kit. As you progress further, you can upgrade Mr. Kit's stock inventory, increasing the chance of him having what you want.
Additionally, later in the game, Mr. Kit will begin to sell the coveted Spirit Logs that Flamey desires. Be sure to check in with Mr. Kit every day as his stock rotates both in his general store and his clothing section.
2 Time Travelling Can Mess With Your Save File
As mentioned earlier, players can circumvent the time-gated aspect of Cozy Grove by time-traveling. This is the term used to describe manually changing your system clock to fool the game into thinking that time in the real world has passed.
However, Spry Fox does not recommend this as it can mess up your save files, potentially making you have to start your game all over again. Other save issues include quests glitching and repeating, leaving you with more than one of a certain kind of item that should be unique (like a duplicate of a tool) and you can't drop or sell these, so it just takes up inventory space until the end of time.
1 There Are Limitations to Gathering
One of the things you can do once you have completed all quests and story content for the game is to gather various resources to either stock up for the next day, give to Captain Snout's collection, or sell to Mr. Kit for money.
Gathering spots do respawn often throughout the day, though they don't immediately pop up whenever you use one. Additionally, each gathering spot type will eventually reach its daily cap and you will find yourself unable to gather anymore. Furthermore, there are only a set number of each gathering spot available at a time. So if you're ignoring shells on the beach because you already have them, you will not spawn new ones until you remove those already there.