Giving the game a new cozy look!

A few days ago, I came across a redditor who told me that “survival games can never be cozy.”

I tried to give a few examples on how this could be the case, but she stopped responding.

It made me think about my own game. I ended up writing a reddit post asking people what they thought and attached some screenshots of my game. Although there were some people who agreed with me (and I love them for it!), I did notice that my post didn’t have much traction, and I noticed that my post also received some downvotes.

I felt like the overall silence was a big indicator that a lot more people felt the same way as the redditor I had spoken to. Because if my game at least looked cozy and felt that way, I think I would have gotten more traction and comments in support.

I also noticed that one of the comments stated that though the art itself was cozy, the colors were not - they were too vibrant.

After that, I got to speak with a UI expert - Christina. I had already watched several of her videos on UI scaling, and found out last week that she also did UI consulting hours! (You can check out her videos here! https://www.youtube.com/@christinacreatesgames)

I spoke with her for about 2.5 hours last night, and she gave me several very good suggestions on making my game cozier!

For example, I mentioned that one of my play testers (hi, Max!) had mentioned that my game felt like it was a kid taking notes on scraps of paper. She immediately said, “That’s great! Let’s lean into that!”, and she came up with a mockup for it:

UI mockup

And from that, I was able to redesign my exploration page:

Before and after picture: Rounding corners, softening colors, leaning more into the note-taking vibe

I love the updated look :D I truly could not have done this alone, and am really happy that I have the help of others to do this.

Will be working on updating the look for the rest of the game!