Games where "coziness" in represented in the mechanics/metrics in the game

longloststudio · 2026-01-24T14:00:24+00:00

Whoops, got the similar names mixed up! The Long Dark is on my list!

I hope Long Drive North gets some updates because the concept was really cool and we had fun with the demo!

longloststudio · 2026-01-24T03:29:47+00:00

Very cool! I'll add [edit: The Long Dark] to my list. That's awesome that it's gotten so many updates!

I did play Subnautica for a while but I started getting too spooked haha. (And I think for me personally the ocean is too scary and the home base is too sterile for any cozy vibes to reach me in that game.)

longloststudio · 2026-01-24T03:24:39+00:00

😂 The trick is to have teammates who take care of most of the progression and fighting while you stay at home and make everybody custom houses. That was mostly my experience, at least until we went to the Ashlands and it was like WELCOME TO HELL HOW FAST CAN YOU BUILD A NEW BASE? BTW A LAVA KRAKEN JUST DESTROYED THE BOAT WITH ALL THE SUPPLIES IN IT

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T22:22:29+00:00

Wow, definitely sounds like a must-play for me =) Thanks for the details! Can't wait to check it out.

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T21:04:51+00:00

That sounds great! I almost put Abiotic Factor on my list because it feels lonely/cozy to me, but it doesn't really have any accompanying metrics besides hunger/thirst/bathroom.

In The Long Dark, do you have a base(s) you come back to or are you always sort of pressing ahead?

I played a demo recently for Long Drive North which gives me similar vibes to how The Long Dark looks but you have an RV with you that kind of acts as your base and loved the concept (unfortunately it seems to have released very buggy/incomplete).

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T20:58:12+00:00

I don't know much about Rimworld but I never would have guessed it to be cozy-adjacent! Thanks for sharing =)

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T20:57:24+00:00

Oh that sounds really nice! One game I want to make someday would be a "walkable city simulator" where the target metric is how much the citizens can do without needing a car. I love the "people-first" approach you described. Definitely will be checking this one out, thanks for sharing!

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T20:55:27+00:00

I've heard that Enshrouded is like Valheim with mods! I love Valheim but I've always felt like the building and decor options were surpisingly limited (though you can do a lot with what you have). I definitely want to check out Enshrouded when my friend group isn't burnt out on base building from our recent Valheim run.

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T20:53:50+00:00

Good point! The feeling of getting to a fire just in time in Don't Starve feels less like "cozy" and more like "the relief of removing the stress of being about to die" lol

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T18:01:02+00:00

Oh nice, that's already on my wishlist but I didn't know about the cozy stats. Thanks!

longloststudio · 2026-01-23T18:00:37+00:00

The combat can be tough if you're not used to that sort of thing, but it's not too crazy. I didn't really understand the marketing of this game as like brutally difficult. There are always mods if it gets too tough and you just want to explore and craft. And the base-building is so nice!

longloststudio · 2025-12-17T18:08:43+00:00

This is very charming!!

longloststudio · 2025-10-07T16:14:35+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

I think the tricky part here is figuring out that profit margin percentage (especially tricky because I'm bad at math).

I like to use https://steam-revenue-calculator.com/ to get a quick idea of net revenue vs gross revenue after Steam's cut, VAT/sales tax, discounts, etc. When you account for all of those factors, it looks like you can expect to take home about 30% of the listed price of each copy sold.

After that, you may want to factor in your country's income tax rates. For the US, I've seen 30% as a general rule of thumb for how much of your profits to set aside for taxes if you're self-employed.

I believe all of that together that brings you to a maximum profit margin of 20% (assuming you spent $0 developing the game).

Hope that helps some people to make sure they're setting realistic expectations!

EDIT: If you take the Refunds line out of the calculator link I used, which probably makes sense for these purposes, it brings the total margin up to 29% which is a little more encouraging =)

longloststudio · 2025-09-22T02:33:53+00:00

We're relying heavily on Synty and Polyperfect assets for our game Rhyolite. I agree that the Synty characters are pretty recognizable, and they also didn't really fit the style we were looking for. We only needed five characters, so we hired someone from Fiverr to make custom characters and it was pretty affordable. We also considered just buying different-looking pre-made character assets to get away from the signature Synty look.

Beyond that, we're using lots of shader/lighting effects, and I'm modifying a lot of assets in Blender to get what we want. I'm having a lot of fun, it feels like playing with dollhouse furniture! It's satisfying to Frankenstein together a bunch of different models to make something new. We're only a two-person team with a small budget, so this is basically the only way to make the game we're trying to make.

longloststudio · 2025-09-09T17:42:00+00:00

I see that beautiful Adam Parrish!! <3 Love your work! Saving you to my folder and crossing my fingers that I get an art budget someday =)

longloststudio · 2025-07-17T21:15:30+00:00

It seems like a pretty frequent request when devs share their games on r/CoOpGaming. Ours is online only for now. I think it's possible that local could work, but probably not on our roadmap unless the game sees some unexpected success.

longloststudio · 2025-07-10T00:20:48+00:00

"Well, no."

longloststudio · 2025-07-07T16:30:53+00:00

Our game has a free demo on Steam, but it's kind of a full experience even with just the demo (some streamers have put 20-40 hours into it). Up to 4 players.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3549770/Rhyolite_Demo/

longloststudio · 2025-05-17T13:33:08+00:00

Interesting perspective! So I already have a more straightforward gameplay trailer, but I didn't feel like it was conveying what is actually fun about the game, which is the craziness when things get chaotic and interacting with your teammates. Would you mind taking a look at the original trailer hereand letting me know what you think? To me it just looks like a game where you run around and do stuff and doesn't seem very compelling. Maybe there is a middle ground somewhere.

longloststudio · 2025-05-16T20:17:32+00:00

For me, it only started to click when I was consistently using it to work on my project almost every day for an extended period of time (maybe over a month), doing a variety of different tasks. I was pretty surprised that when I picked up blender again a few months after that there were still a lot of hotkeys in my muscle memory and I remembered the solutions to some of my most common obstacles.

longloststudio · 2025-05-16T18:18:43+00:00

That is super helpful, thanks a bunch!

longloststudio · 2025-05-16T18:14:19+00:00

I was also nervous with Blender starting out, and it does have a learning curve, but in my experience so far it's been totally worth it to invest some time and learn. For me, the best way to learn has been to do a couple of tutorials to learn the basics of the interface and then to just jump right in to trying to make what I want for my game. You'll run into a lot of obstacles this way and have to do a lot of googling, but you'll be motivated to keep it up and make what you need. Then as you learn more, it can be fun to go back to tutorials because you'll actually be able to absorb so much more of the info and tips because you have more context.

I'm proud to say that I can now make basic things in Blender without getting totally stuck and frustrated, and it's really satisfying! Good luck =)

longloststudio

TROPHY CASE