The Big Indie Interviews: Cozy Game Studio on their award-winning casual farming game Spirit World

• Spirit World, a mobile farming adventure game by Cozy Game Studio, won first place at the Very Big Indie Pitch competition in Helsinki.
• The game combines witchcraft and European folklore elements with wellness and mindfulness techniques.
• The Copenhagen-based studio faces typical indie developer challenges, particularly around financing, but has benefited from Danish public funding.

At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki, we ran our Very Big Indie Pitch competition. This is a speed-dating style pitching event hosted at games events around the world, with this larger addition being the version that takes place at our Pocket Gamer Connects conferences.

In each city, we assemble a team of expert judges, ready to check out the latest crop of unreleased and released indie games to see which one comes out on top!

Indie studios only have five minutes to pitch at each table, quickly getting through their presentations before our judges get together to provide feedback on each game pitch, picking the top three. 

For a glimpse of what The Very Big Indie Pitch is like, we’ve sat down with Lena Mech of Cozy Game Studio, to talk about their game Spirit World, which came in first place in the most recent session at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki.

Tell us a little about yourself and your indie studio. Who is in the team, and what are their inspirations?

We are based in Copenhagen, Denmark. We are a team of eight people, from
Denmark, Sweden, Macedonia and Serbia. Our inspirations come from all around. Of course, games, but also mythology, folklore and nature. Our mission is to make mental well-being more accessible through the power of games, so a lot of inspiration also comes from the wellness and meditation world where we look for science-based techniques like breath work, gratitude journaling, and mindfulness rituals to inform the
mindful mini-games in our game.

Tell us about your latest project that you pitched at the competition. 

It is called Spirit World, a farming adventure for mobile. The game starts with the main protagonist, Amy, learning that her grandmother is missing. When Amy arrives at her grandmother’s homestead in the middle of the woods, she is met with a talking cat Pepper and mythical creatures Ommm and Emberly who teach her how to take care of her well-being while she restores the homestead and goes on adventures to figure out the mystery of her grandmother’s disappearance. 

We’ve been working on the game since spring this year and are very excited about how far we’ve come in 6 months. 

The inspiration for the game comes from witchcraft and European folklore.  

The aim is to create a cosy, witchy game where players can have a moment of respite from their everyday stressful lives. 

How hard is it to survive as an indie developer?

It is the first game of Cozy Game Studio, so we are heavily relying on outside funding, as we don’t have any other games that would make us money yet. Unfortunately, the publishing and investment environment is very tough, and it is hard to get financial support. It feels like the bar is being set higher and higher with each month.

We are, however, very lucky to have a public funding scheme that supports indie game developers in Denmark. We’ve gotten funding from them to support the production of Spirit World. Without them, we wouldn’t be standing here today.

How was your experience pitching as a part of the Very Big Indie Pitch?

It was fun and stressful at the same time. The format of only five-minute pitches to each publisher was, on the one hand, nice in the sense that you felt a closer connection to the person you were pitching to. On the other hand, I had to pitch the same thing over and over again without becoming disengaged or stressed out! That part was tough.

What do you feel you have gained from these experiences, and what do you still hope to gain?

I got great training in my elevator pitch. I also gained confidence in my pitching skills, as the format was pitching without slides, so one can’t hide behind anything. 

I would love for more people to know about Spirit World and join us on our journey to a more relaxed and mindful future.

What are your hopes for this game in the future, and do you have any plans for any future projects?

We will soft launch the demo of the game on Android soon, so we hope to see the same reaction that we get when we present the game in person – that people love the game. Then the biggest challenge and the dream connected with it is to get enough financing for the development of the full version and be able to release the game in November next year. 

But most of all, our dream is to bring our players an easy way into relaxation and mindfulness techniques, so they can easily incorporate them into their daily lives while also having fun.

Want to show off your exciting new game? We host Very Big Indie Pitch events throughout the year, so be sure to keep an eye out on our events page for an event near you.