Review: Cozy Caravan (Nintendo Switch)
Cozy Caravan is an explorative, traveling market simulation game in which you play as a new Guild Rookie. You join your friend, Bubba, on a massive journey across the land, helping farmers, collecting materials and ingredients, providing materials and food to fellow citizens, playing games with the kids in town, stopping on weekends to open your store, and so, so much more.
You travel around via a customizable caravan pulled by the giant bumblebee, Rigby, who is also customizable. So is your own character. You get to pick your species first; there are bunnies, cats, dogs, foxes, turtles, birds, frogs, raccoons, and so many more. You also get to pick your fur pattern and color, along with your clothes and name. Clothes can be changed at any time in your caravan’s wardrobe, and character changing becomes available later in the game.
Cozy Caravan offers a big map with a bunch of areas to travel to. Each area has its own design and characters, as well as materials. You can also find different quests from each area, and even little frogs who would like to be returned to their home. Certain areas can be used as places to stop on market days (weekends), and have their own popular items to sell for the week. Technically, the weekend markets are the main focus of the game, and the main way to make tokens that are used to buy new clothes, caravan customizations, and upgrades. The weekdays are meant to be used for exploring, solving quests, and gaining happiness, which results in guild tokens. Happiness is very easy to gain through completing quests, selling items at the market, or even by waving to NPCs. As you explore more of the map, you’ll find more climates and many, many unique buildings, farms, fields, and more. You’ll also find places inaccessible due to muddy roads, rivers, or construction. All of these areas can be reached by progressing the story or by unlocking caravan upgrades.
As mentioned before, markets are a great way to earn happiness, and therefore more guild points for upgrades. During the week, you’ll see what items are wanted in each area, and you’re given five days to gather materials and ingredients needed to make those items. At first, you’ll find the villagers wanting simple things like carrots and lettuce. But as you progress—and unlock the stove, cutting board, and other kitchen items—you’ll find them wanting meals like salad and eventually desserts like carrot cake. As you progress even further and unlock the sewing machine and dye maker, you’ll find the villagers wanting clothes, pigments, and dyes.
Farming for materials isn’t hard at all, as it’s really just traveling from place to place and picking them up. Flowers and herbs are found on the ground, oranges and apples are found in trees, and vegetables are almost always found on farms. You’ll know where farms are; you enter them through a gate, where a farmer sits outside with a clipboard. You’ll go in and harvest all of the veggies, drop them off in a bin, and be rewarded with a few items as you leave.
Cooking and sewing are almost just as easy, requiring you to play some simple mini games. These can be even easier, as there’s a setting in the options menu to have assistance. Without that, you’ll be either hitting A within the correct beat, moving the L stick left to right, staying within the boundaries, or rotating the L stick in a circle. Sometimes you’ll find yourself moving both the L and R stick at the same time, which is about as tricky as the game gets.
With assistance, this is all done for you. You’re told to move your sticks with the bars, but the game does it for you, and therefore doesn’t penalize you for going out of bounds. If you do a good job of staying within the bounds, you’ll be rated 3 stars and get more points towards upgrading whatever it is you just made. Upgrading materials allows them to be sold for more happiness.
Quests in the game are simple and varied. Some can be done within just a couple minutes, while others can take multiple attempts in game days. One of the bigger quests would be returning all the little frogs found throughout the map. Since there are so many areas to explore, and so many frogs to find, this quest takes about as long as it does to complete the game.
Other quests require you to give villagers materials, some of which require crafting items (such as bee repellent). You’ll also find yourself chauffeuring villagers from one area to another, returning overdue library books, and passing on/collecting information. Some other fun parts of the game—that aren’t quite quests but still worth doing as they provide a good deal of happiness—include picking up litter, skipping stones, serving food and drinks at different establishments, and so much more.
As much as the game is cozy, it’s also so, so cute. There are so many different animal types, and each area is beautiful and so fun to explore. The game is so colorful and peaceful, and it features stop-motion animation throughout, which only adds to its whimsy (and which can be turned off if the player just prefers a smoother animation style).
I think the only thing Cozy Caravan lacks is any real conflict or action. However, since the game provides so much of everything else, it doesn’t feel empty at all without it. You can take your time with it, spending extra time on the smaller quests and appreciating the journey, or you can rush through, upgrading everything and unlocking every area as quickly as you’d like. Since the game is so deep, I can imagine it getting overwhelming if not paced correctly. However, the point is that it’s great for any kind of player. With about 18-20 of gameplay, and so many things to do, Cozy Caravan is very much worth the price, especially considering its graphics and the obvious care that went into the game.
Cozy Caravan is, at the end of the day, exactly as it says: cozy. With an emphasis on the journey rather than the destination, and the importance of showing NPCs some love, this game is perfect for those who like to relax, help others, and let their creativity flow. I’ll be playing this one for quite a while.
