This is a re-post from my personal blog, feel free to read it over there instead

If you want to understand my general scepticism towards the idea of “Cozy Games”, you have to walk through a particular part of the city I grew up in. On first glance, the buildings that line its street don’t look particularly special. They just look like regular late 19th century European town houses, with nicely coloured neoclassical facades. However, if you were to walk into one of those buildings' inner courtyards, you could see that these facades immediately give way to the naked brick construction underneath it. The aesthetically pleasing facade was just meant for the outside world to see, not for the people that actually inhabit these buildings.

(I drafted this before @kylelabriola wrote his great post which you should also read)

I played Final Profit recently so it's been on the mind, and it's wild how some reviews call it "cozy" when it's a game where you literally sell addictive products to children and can become an inside trader, slumlord, or slave owner. The dev intended it to be a commentary on how capitalism is inherently unbalanced and unethical, but I guess some people just saw the little tutorial town with its golden fields and tiny shop and went "ah yes, wholesome and cozy".

For an exception that proves the rule: while I criticized I Was a Teenage Exocolonist for its aggressively pastel kitsch, it at least does it in an overtly political and inclusive way. That game presents its intended idea of "cozy" (I described the exocolony as "some kind of anti-capitalist, communal child-care, anti-cultural, vegetarian collective") unapologetically, and isn't afraid to show how even this idealized situation allows people to fall through the cracks.

black and white is great because its a fun playground for Sadist4Sadist love. I love the action packed sublimation of Kuroda and Shirakawa's feelings for one another into Girl Violence.