The Indie Gaming Cookie

       I played  Garden Story  a few weeks ago now and I couldn't help feeling its intended experience was so similar to the cozy games of its time. Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and all these titles blew up in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic era, when everyone were confined in their homes, looking for respite in media. What better way to achieve that than through some relaxing, simple cozy simulators? It made sense, at least to me, that Garden Story, a 2021 RPG by Picogram, would draw heavily upon the needs of the average players at the time. However, the sticking point here was that Garden Story was not just a simulator, for it was also, to great extent, an action-RPG . Garden Story, through the box in which it had fit itself, had to now face a challenge: create a fleshed out, exciting, thrilling combat system within a video game also meant to be relaxing. The game attempts, in a contradictory phrase, "cozy combat", to interesting results. ...