Hozy Review – A Cozy Reminder There’s a Designer in All of Us

We all need cozy games in our lives. Playing nothing but hardcore action titles or stressful competitive multiplayer games can take a toll on your mind, so it’s important to unwind with something that taps into your creative side without grading you in the process. That said, cozy games can sometimes take things too far, offering minimal interaction or freedom out of fear of complicating the experience.

That’s where Hozy succeeds. It’s a completely stress-free interior decoration title that gives you a high degree of freedom to organize and decorate spaces with a curated selection of furniture, items, and art. Here’s what I think about this cozy game that’s easy to get lost in.

Expression Through Space

In Hozy, each level is essentially a space, initially littered and unattended, but ultimately a canvas for expression. You always start by wiping the floor, cleaning the windows, and repainting the walls to set the stage for furnishing. To be honest, I’m the kind of person who enjoys the cleaning part more than the decorating, since there isn’t really a wrong way to clean. Hozy extends that same philosophy to its decorating systems, never judging you for how you choose to express yourself.

I’m sure that just about everyone could decorate these rooms better than I can, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. You’re given a near godlike toolset to arrange every aspect of a room however you see fit. Hozy succeeds through restraint. It could easily overwhelm you by throwing its entire asset library at you, but instead, each room is designed to reflect a specific person within the game’s world. While you still have the freedom to interpret their space your own way, the selection of items, furniture, and even paint colors is thoughtfully curated.

You usually have to complete a few specific tasks to “finish” a level, but they’re fairly simple, like cleaning a window or removing planks. Nothing about these objectives is complicated, but the room needs to be clean before you can move on to furnishing.

Interaction at Every Step

The entire game can be played using just the mouse, and interactions between items are effortless. You pick up tools and objects with the left click and interact with them using the right click. For instance, light sources can be turned on and will physically affect the environment. You can power on electronics, play music, light candles, and more.

Everything also aligns naturally with surfaces. If you want to place something on a table, it automatically adjusts its height as you hover over it. It’s all very intuitive and removes the usual frustration of trying to position items perfectly. In rare instances, objects might snap out of place or behave unexpectedly, but it’s not frequent enough to break immersion.

You can zoom in quite a bit to appreciate fine details or fine-tune placements, and rotate the room freely to get the exact angle you need.

A Cozy Visual Identity

Games like this make excellent use of Unreal Engine 5. The developers could have gone for a photorealistic look, but instead chose a stylized presentation that feels grounded yet easy on the eyes, almost like something out of a Pixar film. Everything is proportionally consistent and pleasing to look at and interact with, while still conveying a strong sense of presence thanks to detailed lighting and ambient occlusion.

At times, it feels like you’re interacting with a miniature toy room that still manages to feel lived in, thanks to the variety of personalized objects and environmental details that reflect each resident’s personality.

There are a few technical drawbacks, though. You can’t adjust individual graphical settings, which is limiting. I’m also fairly certain the game uses some form of upscaling, as there’s noticeable ghosting in motion. While you can choose between presets, more granular control would go a long way in fine-tuning performance. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter any stuttering, likely because each scene is fully loaded in, but the ghosting can be distracting at times.

Verdict

Hozy is a beautiful, relaxing, and absorbing experience that celebrates the art of designing spaces. It never overwhelms you with choice, yet still offers a strong sense of creative freedom. Each level is a space to clean, repaint, and decorate however you see fit, supported by immersive tools and a level of interactivity that consistently delights.