http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52238 Sat, 04 Apr 2026 09:11:10 GMT 2026-04-04T09:11:10Z https://dspace.uni.lodz.pl:443/bitstream/id/56b0103c-28e9-4fd8-b8c9-b3cc4c36d1cc/ http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52238 http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52247 Negotiating Anthropocentrism and Ecologies in Cozy Games Pinder, Morgan As we sit at the precipice of this planet’s sixth mass extinction event, we need to use every tool at our disposal to advocate for our ecologies. Human self-interest and anthropocentric thinking act as barriers to communicating ecocrisis. Cozy video games can create safe spaces to explore the ecological effects of human actions with the aim of prompting reflection and action on environmental issues. Drawing on ecocritical video game scholarship, the aim of this article is to explore the ways in which environments are represented and interacted with in selected cozy video games. Through an examination of the extractivist colonial processes and narratives of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, in contrast with the complex ecocritical coziness of Terra Nil, this article posits that cozy games have the potential to achieve effective environmental communication. Both Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Terra Nil successfully empower the player to shape their environment but only Terra Nil affords ecological empowerment. By creating a safe space to engage with environments and even ecocrisis, cozy games allow players the agency to construct their own econarratives and may challenge or perpetuate anthropocentric ideas about the environment. Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52247 2024-05-27T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52246 Soft Horrors: The Visual and Ludic Safety of Dark Cozy Games Waszkiewicz, Agata According to their most popular definition, cozy games are characterized by visual softness and relaxing gameplay devoid of combat and time-sensitive gameplay. However, with the recent increase in popularity of these games, game developers started to experiment with genre hybridity, introducing games that combine the elements of coziness with non-cozy elements such as difficult combat or horror themes, showing a need for critical engagement with the working definition of what is cozy. The article proposes a concept of dark cozy games to describe those titles that introduce visual softness and, to some degree, ludic safety to horror or Gothic, using three examples to illustrate different ways in which that can be achieved: Cult of the Lamb, Dredge, and Oxenfree. Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52246 2024-05-27T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52245 Cozy Heterotopias in JRPGs: A Foucauldian Perspective on the Spatiality of Coziness in Japanese Role-Playing Games Simond, Stefan H.; Klös, Tobias This article applies the concept of heterotopia as developed by Michel Foucault to cozy aesthetics in JRPGs. After introducing the concept of heterotopia and its six key principles, the term JRPG is briefly reflected upon. We then analyze key aspects of the games Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and Final Fantasy VII Remake regarding the significance of heterotopias for their sense of coziness. We conclude that Foucault’s concept of heterotopia helps in understanding the way in which coziness, on the one hand, offers a respite from the crises of life while, on the other hand, enabling an engagement with said crises in a safe environment. Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52245 2024-05-27T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52244 Comfortably Numb: An Ideological Analysis of Coziness in Videogames Andiloro, Andrea This essay analyses the concept of coziness in videogames, focusing on their role as a stress-relieving diversion in modern capitalist societies. The article emphasizes the genre’s features of safety, abundance, and softness, which create an atmosphere that soothes players amidst high-paced, contemporary lifestyles. While often framed as a type of resistant design, it is argued that cozy games uphold capitalist principles, by encouraging players to replicate them within the game. The discussion extends to the idea of coziness in interior design within these games, which is shown to reproduce ideologies of class, status, and consumerism. Drawing from atmosphere theory as well as the works of Jean Baudrillard, Slavoj Žižek, and Richard Dyer, the author argues that even the act of designing cozy spaces in these games serves as a continuation of capitalism and that cozy games may be thought of as utopian entertainment attempting to answer societal shortcomings through capitalist solutions. Thus, the essay posits that while cozy games offer a respite, they reproduce the conditions sustaining capitalist modernity. Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/52244 2024-05-27T00:00:00Z