The most surprising cozy game trend this year was the desktop pet renaissance

I agree. I stumbled across “Tiny Pasture” a few months ago and it inspired me to build my own desktop game where you build a little dog park on your screen. This genre is honestly way more fun than I expected.

Delighted that this is a trend now, since ever since I tried Rusty’s Retirement it is something I liked and wanted more of. Typing this right as Tiny Pasture is running.

Anyone else reminded of shimeji? Usually created by an artist on deviantart or something, with fictional characters running around and interacting with your computer’s GUI. I never got them to work, but man I loved the idea of them and maybe that’s part of why I like this trend.