Hozy review – A quiet comfort with room for improvement

Returning home can be daunting, especially when life outside of that bubble didn't go as expected. What can feel like a setback can offer a brand new perspective, and with it, a new passion. The quaint hometown in Hozy needs your help, for it has collected dust in your absence. It's up to you to wipe the old away, uncover the memories beneath, and create something new before moving on.

I'm the type of person who'd spend hours in character creation, and I'd do the same with decorating; where I spent copious amounts of time designing a Sim's house, to never set foot in the actual game. So, a cozy game purely about interior design (and the little things) should have been perfect for me.

Enter a flow state in Hozy by repairing, cleaning, and interior designing to your heart's content.

Screenshot by Destructoid First off, Hozy is absolutely gorgeous. Saturated colors, art style sitting between realism and anime, and a photo mode with five options, all combined onto the dreamlike setting of a single room floating in the sky. A beauty reminiscent of Hyouka and Wonder Egg Priority, Hozy combines its easy-on-the-eyes aesthetic with calming music that transports you into the client's world. The mood is set as you restore the floor and walls, letting your imagination run before the moving boxes come in.

Moving interior design into the clouds gives Hozy an abstract and surrealistic take on filling a home with memories. On the main menu, the places you will visit are covered in a white sheet at first. As you play, a new sheet gets lifted, like removing the cloth from furniture after a long vacation.

Screenshot by Destructoid There are nine unique locations, each as pretty as the last. There's a small challenge in every level, but it's a welcoming challenge that shouldn't feel too daunting. I initially thought you had to use every item to complete a level, but there's a handy little box you can place furniture, lighting, flowers, and more in by dropping said item into the cloud-like void surrounding the room. This offers some semblance of replayability (although limited), as you can choose exactly what you want to fill the room with.

Hozy has style and fulfils the needs of a gamer who wants to relax, clean, and get the cogs turning with decorating. Packed with intricate details that breathe life into an otherwise still picture, Hozy is a blank canvas, and you're the painter. Interactability is through the roof in this title, where music (outside of the lovely soundtrack) can be played, lighting turned on for extra ambience, or a gust of wind blows through an open window. Glitches are near non-existent, as any risk of overloading the screen with clobber is negated with the storage box. This also means you cannot lose track of anything.

Screenshot by Destructoid It took me five to six hours to complete Hozy. Your progress is saved continuously, and you can restart a level or move onto the next without feeling pressure to get it perfect the first time (like "perfect" even exists). Photo mode offers a way to take screenshots by finding the right angle—whether you want it zoomed in and stylized or zoomed out to appreciate your work from afar—you can take photos without the UI obscuring the screen. Photo mode is stylish and allows you to engage in photography as yet another calming addition to Hozy's design.

Hozy doesn't want you to rush. Video by Destructoid Utilizing Hozy's physics-based mechanics is effortless, as it's impossible to spill paint everywhere or paint two walls at once (meaning you can create accent walls if that's what you fancy). Prying wood, rolling carpets, replacing panels, rotating items, and wiping grime off windows and the floor is smooth, satisfying, and easy, though controller support would be a helpful addition on release. Strain and fatigue are possibilities on the mouse and keyboard if you decide not to separate Hozy into more sessions with intervals in between.

Screenshot by Destructoid While Hozy wants to be limitless in its potential, there are blatant restrictions in its design. Each level follows the same formula: reparation and decoration. The floor is fixed (floorboards or carpet), and paint for the walls typically offers three colors. Every place comes with a catalogue of goods (large items, flowers, lighting, wall coverings, and miscellaneous). Sure, you can rearrange furniture or return to a level to add items you previously left out, but you will likely exhaust every option in your first playthrough. Levels such as the Music Hall have elevated platforms that restrict what you can put on them, as most items cannot fit, thus hindering your creativity.

There are subtle changes in how you repair, clean, and decorate per level, but I cannot find a reason to play Hozy a second time. Though it could dampen the experience, I would have preferred having each level force you into using all of the contents when unpacking.

Screenshot by Destructoid Its satisfying gameplay loop is reminiscent of Unpacking and Leaf it Alone, but it lacks the depth of Unpacking. While it does show a glimpse into the memories tied to a home by clicking on the speech bubble next to a handful of items per room, it is surface-level at best. Because it attempts to tackle sentimentality through its narrative, it lacks an emotional punch, for we all know that memories can make or break a home. Hozy eases you into the surface of a life by showing the start of a memory without ever traveling down the lane. This creates a sort of detached feeling, especially paired with the camera work that puts us on the outside looking in as a voyeuristic god-like figure nosying about other people's business.

Hozy doesn't dive deeper beyond its adorable surface, as its primary focus seems to be on perfecting the tidying and decorating sim. It's a polished and comforting game with no real emotional pull. Hozy is about "slowing down," taking in the little details and curating a place without the constraints of time, but there are creative limitations.

Screenshot by Destructoid Achievements exist purely to track your progress. Nine levels, nine achievements. This weakens its replayability value further, though I do not believe Hozy is the type of game you should be playing in one session. I believe you will get more for your time and money if you treat Hozy as a bite-sized experience per level; to enter this dreamlike world of decorating when real life gets overwhelming, when you need a little break in quiet.

Screenshot by Destructoid Hozy does its job as a cozy simulator, but it's nothing more than a comfort pick. Its beauty lies in its visuals and tiny details, where polished mechanics make it an easy title to break away with. Though satisfying, its questionable replayability due to a limited catalogue means you must slow down and enjoy experimentation, else you're at risk of finding this title tedious, as I did, by playing it in one go. Hozy had the potential to blend its relaxing and creative core with a narrative-driven underbelly, but sadly underdelivers on emotional impact.

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