[tranquil music playing]

Dave Edery: There was a list of things that we knew the community wanted that we had just never gotten to. So a big part of the game was saying, "Let's try to do something about that."

[tranquil music continues, fire crackling]

Dave Edery: As a game developer, you're not generally perfectly content with the things you've made. There's lots of things about Cozy Grove we love. There's lots of things we wish we'd done differently. But there are a lot of people who love Cozy Grove exactly for what it is. And any time you have passionate folks who love the thing that you've made, it becomes increasingly complicated to make changes to that thing. As a creator, there's a desire to go, "Is there anything I would do different, while keeping all the stuff we all loved?" Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit is the chance to take what we've learned, and hopefully do it a little better.

[tranquil music continues] 

Jamie Antonisse: In Cozy Grove 1, we experimented with a lot of these ghost stories that focused on the moment of death and realization of what's coming afterward. And one of the things I realized as we were doing some of those stories is a lot of the most interesting unresolved stuff comes from interpersonal stuff. So I was really excited to tell stories that were a little more interconnected, and that were a little bit more about what these bears had gone through in life, and how that had led to regrets and issues.

[indistinct gurgling, fire crackling] 

Dave Edery: One of the things that Jamie and I both cared about very deeply was making sure that at least some significant percentage of the bears were based on real stories from real life from people who we either knew personally or at least knew second-hand, through friends and family. When there's a bear in the game that has some sort of trauma, there's a pretty good chance that there's someone in real life who had that exact trauma. And obviously, because that person in real life wasn't a bear, there's some creative license taken and some changes, but, for the most part, we try to keep the story as true as possible. There's a bear name Kumari whose central issues in life come directly from a woman in the game industry who's a mentor of mine who I think incredibly highly of, and I wanted to reflect her story in this bear. The fact that it's a cozy space doesn't mean it always has to be a happy space.

Jamie Antonisse: Yeah.

Dave Edery: Right? It's cozy because it's safe. But that doesn't always mean happy.

[indistinct gurgling]

Jamie Antonisse: We start with a kernel of an unresolved issue that we think would be worth addressing. How this bear might see themselves at the beginning, and how they might grow to see themselves differently. And then our concept artist comes in with a design for the bear. And sometimes, this design shakes up everything, because you're picturing a story about immigration, maybe, and the design that you get back is a robotic bear with a television for a head. The first thing you try to figure out is, how does this relate? That can be a little wacky. That can be a little weird, a little broader, and you can use that as an in to tell more interesting stories down the line.

[indistinct muttering] 

Jamie Antonisse: I think another thing that we think is important is to broaden the definition of what is cozy to present something that can be spooky and a little bit challenging, and what we call "spiky." Something that has edges to it, but is still cozy because it's honest. 

Dave Edery: Cozy Grove doesn't pretend that the world is always happy. It just approaches those sad and scary things in a way that feels okay.

Alicia Fortier: After the feedback we received from the community, we're really targeting fleshing out that end part of the game, once you've gone on the island to all its expansions, and so as part of our first major update, you can expect an extension to Heath's storyline, you can meet some new bears, and discover the secrets of the runes. We also have an extension to the relics, which are pottery, and all of them burn for ancient ashes just like all good relics do, but they have new descriptions, and they're super fun. We have a whole new collection category, which are nightmares. I describe them as calcified nuggets of fear. Basically, all the scouts' bad dreams turned into an item ready to be burned. Jebby, our writer, really outdid herself with the descriptions of these ones. One of my favorite new things is the glowing mushrooms. You can discover them in the old grounds, and they help you extend the light there. They're totally harmless, I promise. Only a few scouts go missing every year. 

Dave Edery: There was a whole list of things that we knew the community wanted that we had just never gotten to. And so a big part of the game was just saying, "Ah, people were always bummed about this, or bummed about that." "Let's try to do something about that." Adding asynchronous multiplayer to the game is one of those things. People were like, "I wish I had a way to send gifts to friends," things like that, so we were like, "Great, we can help you with that."

Jamie Antonisse: We realized how deep a relationship people had with these bear stories. And there was an effort because of that to try out different ways of connecting people. The companions, for instance.

Dave Edery: Yeah.

Jamie Antonisse: And those astral projections that show you other people on the islands.

Dave Edery: We also learned things that people cared about in terms of their ability to decorate the island, and their ability to express themselves through their clothing. There's a bunch of different little and big lessons, and they're all hopefully coming together nicely in Camp Spirit. This is the first game that Spry Fox has ever made where neither my cofounder Daniel or myself was intimately involved. This is the first time we have a new team with new leadership taking a thing and running with it, and we handed this off to a new generation of Spry Foxes, and that was scary and exciting, and it felt like a growth opportunity for me and for us, and I enjoyed having the chance to make that handoff, you know?

Jamie Antonisse: For me, the most fulfilling thing about developing Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit is working with a talented team that can bring a vision together that is greater than the sum of the parts. That's where the magic happens.

[tranquil music continues]