How “Cozy Gaming” Helps Those with Autism

By Trevor Pacelli
Have you ever heard of “Cozy Gaming?” Unlike the first-person shooter games we all are quick to associate with the concept of video games, a “cozy game” involves taking your time without dire consequences, doing stuff like raising animals, designing a house, or developing a farm. As a young adult on the autism spectrum, these types of games have helped me considerably in several ways and could help other kids and adults in relating to others.

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Animal Crossing is one of the most well-known cozy games, but many consider the standard of that genre to be Stardew Valley. The game’s premise is that you inherit an abandoned farm from your deceased grandfather and spend the rest of your time growing seasonal crops, fishing, housing farm animals, cooking, slaying monsters in the mines, and befriending the folk who live in the valley.
Stardew Valley has nothing high-tech about its development. In fact, it was made entirely by a single guy named Eric Barone (known professionally as “Concerned Ape”) on a modest PC setup. Even so, its adorable pixel art and gentle soundtrack give a relaxing vibe that’s better at rewiring your brain to think more systematically than what most fast-paced games with massive budgets can accomplish. Stardew Valley eliminates the distracting noise of 3D graphics, loud sound effects, and wide camera movements found in other video games, giving a smaller space to focus on the goal of developing a farm.
However, the game particularly impacted me as one on the autism spectrum in how it promotes the healing power of relationships. I’ve always suffered from not only the struggle of sustaining conversations but also finding the desire to learn about others, mainly because I never knew how friendships even worked. Nobody ever wrote down the rules, yet I was still expected to just know them! Many others like me share this struggle, we didn’t have someone there to tell us how to make friends and enjoy the process of doing so. Though Stardew Valley, one of the most unlikely sources, offers some necessary tools for those with ASD to grow friendships.
Making friends with the villagers in this game is done mostly by giving them gifts. The thirty-four NPCs (non-player characters) you can befriend all have specific gifts that they hate, dislike, like, love or are neutral about. If you give them a loved gift, their friendship points go up. If you give them a hated gift, their friendship points go down. Therefore, you can’t just give them any old thing you found off the ground, like tree sap, or anything you took the time to make yourself, like chocolate cake. Rather, you’re required to pay attention to their interests and disinterests. Once you get them to like you enough and reach a certain number of friendship points (with a maximum of 10 hearts), you unlock a cutscene with them where you get to know them a bit more. Over time, characters who came off as rude or smug on first impression reveal how they’re dealing with personal problems, which enables them to express their softer side.
These thirty-four NPCs range from young to old to magical creatures, and every one of them is surprisingly complex with multi-dimensional depth. There’s a PTSD-stricken war veteran, a suicidal alcoholic, and a disabled elderly man in a wheelchair, to name a few. There are also six bachelors and six bachelorettes you can marry. At 8/10 hearts with one of them, you can ask them to be your boyfriend/girlfriend. At 10/10 hearts, you can marry them.
I achieved marriage in the game. In real life, I’m a 32-year-old male who has not come close to a romantic relationship, no matter how badly I wanted someone to love me back. I realize the game bachelorette was just a bunch of pixels on a screen, but playing this game gave me the chance to finally meet a woman who loved me back. The marriage candidate I chose, Penny, I originally selected simply because she was the first bachelorette I reached 8/10 hearts with. So I thought, sure, I could date her. She’s pretty cute and I like the academic type. Then as I watched more of her friendship cutscenes, I felt more hurt by watching her predicament of living in a trailer with her alcoholic mother. I knew I had the power to give her a better life on a farm with a family of her own like she had always wanted, so I felt a genuine desire to see her become a happier, healthier person.
I fell in love with Penny not because she was an intelligent sweetheart, but because I saw so much of myself in her. She can’t stand up for herself because she was always taught to do what she’s told with no questions asked- much like how I’ve always been. Now when my game character wakes up in the morning and greets her in the kitchen with a kiss, I feel genuine joy. When my game character sees her around the valley, I feel genuine joy. When my game character sees her in bed at the end of the in-game workday, I feel genuine joy. I figured this is what being in love feels like, which in turn helps me find greater compassion toward others.
Ultimately, going through Stardew Valley’s friendship system helped me set a New Year’s resolution, one where I write down a list of the people I regularly speak with, including a new fact I learn about them each time I talk with them. Then I can use those new facts to write down potential gift ideas. For instance, if one of them says in conversation that they like parmesan cheese, on their birthday I can make them something that has parmesan cheese in it. I know this seems to go against my recent blog post about focusing on a “New You” rather than a “New Year” resolution, but this is part of my process in achieving a new me, since I’m more likely to commit to a change when I have it in writing. By playing a cozy game like Stardew Valley, or by simply reading stories that celebrate the medicinal power of relationships, you too can find self-advocacy tools that work for you.
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Trevor Pacelli is a young adult on the autism spectrum as well as the author of What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities, What Movies Can Teach Us About Bullying, Summer of the Fruit Virus and the illustrator of The Kindergarten Adventures of Amazing Grace: What in the World is Autism?