Gift Guide: “Cozy” Steam Games

With the holidays upon us and the arrival of winter (at least in this hemisphere), you and/or your loved ones might be looking for some new “cozy” games to play until the hustle and bustle of the holiday season has relented and the weather warms up again. I’ve got a few suggestions to get you started: These games range from fantastical alchemy, to high-tech “Dad games,” to something for all the folks in our audience who enjoy building and upgrading computers, whether they’re a novice or a pro. If nothing else, I hope these suggestions might give you further gift ideas. Let’s begin!

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator ($19.99 USD on Steam)

Potion Craft does exactly what it says on the tin: It lets you simulate being an alchemist by using various reagents to craft potions. If you’ve played similar games like this, the fact that Potion Craft doesn’t force you to deal with any time limits or impatient customers and allows you to experiment to your heart’s content might appeal to you. If you’re keen-eyed and familiar with certain other big-name games, you might even spot an eerily familiar face or two. If you’d like more information about Potion Craft, I humbly suggest you check out my review of it.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker ($34.99 USD on Steam)

This one’s for all the so-called “Dad game” enjoyers out there. In Hardspace: Shipbreaker, your job is to use (literally) cutting-edge salvaging technology to break down abandoned, non-functional spaceships to reclaim valuable materials from them. Upgrading your equipment will allow you to accept more and more lucrative jobs. You do technically get paid for your work, but you also started this job a billion credits in debt to your employer, so you’d better be prepared to work for as long as it takes if you want to reap the fruits of your labor. Those spaceships won’t disassemble themselves, after all.

Lake ($19.99 USD on Steam)

In Lake, you play as Meredith Weiss, who has returned to her hometown for a two-week break from her job in the big city to take over her retiring dad’s longtime route as a mail carrier. The relative peace of driving along your postal route might well bring you comfort, and the same can be said for the opportunities you’ll have to interact with the residents of Providence Oaks. Maybe, if you so desire, you can really get to know them and form lasting connections. To me, Lake is a game that’s every bit as beautiful to look at as it is relaxing to play.

Dorfromantik ($13.99 USD on Steam)

Dorfromantik is a delightful puzzle game that tasks you with placing tiles in ways that appropriately connect to build a sprawling, wonderfully cozy village landscape. When I say tiles you place have to “appropriately connect with each other,” I mainly mean you won’t be able to just slap down a tile containing railroad tracks in the middle of a forest; each part of the environments you’ll construct within Dorfromantik have to make sense and mesh well with each other. You’ll likely get the hang of all this pretty quickly if you decide to check out Dorfromantik, which I highly suggest you do.

PC Building Simulator ($19.99 USD on Steam)

Ah, now here’s a cozy game I could talk about for hours on end, largely because of how well my in-game endeavors reflect the time I’ve spent building and upgrading computers in real life. In PC Building Simulator’s story mode, you’ll need to take over a PC repair shop that was poorly run by your rather incompetent uncle and use your skills to make the shop both reputable and profitable. There are also ways you can freely experiment with different combinations of PC parts with no risks or obligations, as well as a quite in-depth tutorial in case you’re a PC-building beginner.