As a self confessed lover of cosy games, the “decorate a space” corner of this ever-growing genre isn’t an area I often explore. While I’ve appreciated games like MakeRoom before, they’re not my particular niche of warm and fuzzy gaming. I enjoy getting a room to look the way I want it too, but anything more than that and I tend to start plonking things down without too much thought. Hozy introduces a spring cleaning element to the genre though, and while it definitely had me interested, I still didn’t fall in love with Hozy as I’d hoped to.
That said, I’d like to point out first that Hozy is a gorgeous game. Each space is a beautiful diorama where light plays realistically with shadow as you’re trying to perfectly line your sofa up with the wall. Whether it’s an artists studio complete with cute outdoor terrace, or a dark and brooding musicians home, each room is full of personality before you’ve even started adding the owners’ personal effects. It really makes a big difference to grounding you in these spaces, and seeing them cleaned and ready for decorating was very satisfying.
When you arrive, the first thing you’ll need to do is clean up. Each space is left in a bit of a tip, and you’ll be clearing away rubbish, washing windows and floors or even ripping up and replacing old floorboards. It’s nothing taxing, as expected, but it’s oddly satisfying. Grab a piece of rubbish and other nearby detritus will gravitate towards your cursor, orbiting around it like a ratty planet. Similarly, popping up floorboards is just a case of holding down a button and moving your crowbar from one end of the room to another, but watching each one fly off realistically scratches an itch in my brain. It’s very similar to the feeling I get playing Powerwash Simulator, where I zone out and 3 hours later I’m sitting in front of a freshly polished public toilet, only in Hozy it’s all over and done in about ten minutes.
I really enjoyed this part of Hozy, however once you’ve tidied up the mess you’re left with the job of decorating. This means painting walls and setting out the furniture in a way that suits your tastes. There’s nothing particularly wrong with either of these mechanics: you get a good number of different objects to place, including stuff that you can hang on walls, or smaller items that go nicely on some of the tables and bureaus you’ll be plucking out of boxes they clearly wouldn’t fit in. If you want to then you’re absolutely able to make a pixel perfect room where each item is placed where you want it to be.
It all works fine, I just found it difficult to engage with, partially as I lack the creativity to really create beautiful spaces (these pictures are from the Steam page!), and partially due to the controls. Despite the game having controller support, it’s not quite there yet, and as a handheld gamer this presented a bit of a problem. Luckily my handheld has a touchpad so I was able to swap between using buttons and mouse but I really feel for these games to be as relaxing as intended that they need to be playable with a controller. I want to lay back on the sofa and completely unplug while I play games like this, so the idea of using a mouse and keyboard at a desk is basically unthinkable.
That said, there’s still something about Hozy that’s undeniably lovely, and if you want to switch off your brain and put together some cute little dioramas then there are far worse ways to spend your time. If they made an entire game built around the cleaning mechanics then I’d be there in a heartbeat, but for those that want to flex their interior design muscles there’s plenty to enjoy in Hozy.
