Cozy Caravan

Written by Kelly Gray on 2/1/2026 for SWI  

Gather in, folks, unhitch the ole' bumblebee from the wagon, and rest your weary bones, because today we're going to review one of the newest, sweetest, chillest games on the market: Cozy Caravan.

When I watched the trailer for Cozy Caravan, I assumed this was going to be a clever little game, ranked somewhere in the 6.5 maybe 7 realm. I wasn't expecting to love this game so much. Fam, cozy gamers alike: I couldn't—no—I can't put it down. It is, in my opinion, more favorable than some of the top names in cozy gaming—and I think you know the ones, and I'll tell you why—but first...

What is Cozy Caravan?

In this game, you're a cute little animal, set on a main quest to harvest fruits, vegetables, and more to sell at the market which happens each weekend. You start in a little area that introduces to you to the general game mechanics. It's here that you'll learn how to pick and store the food, along with how to interact with the townsfolk that are stationed around the different spaces in that area. You'll also have some small quests to complete, like grabbing a toolbox to fix a gate, which again helps with understanding space and controls. 

Once you get your feet wet, you'll also be able to start going into the mini farms. These small farms are produce-specific like real farms, and you're tasked with harvesting the goods for the farmer, and in turn, you receive a portion of whatever you pulled. This is the best way to start building up your inventory. The more diverse your inventory, the better, especially as you progress in the game.

The currency in the game is happiness—are we surprised? It's a cozy game, after all. You earn happiness by waving at every person you see, by selling items in the market, and by completing the optional side quests. Side quests are simple requests from the NPCs, like retrieving a carrot, but can build into further requests that result in the NPC baking a full carrot cake.

Once you've explored the whole first area, it's time to hop in the caravan and see what else there is to find. You'll unlock new spaces, find new items to harvest or collect that go beyond the initial fruits and vegetables, all while collecting happiness and solving the universe's problems! Well, this animal universe's, which tends to be a goat that just can't resist climbing everything.

Now, what do you use the happiness to purchase? Upgrades to the caravan, of course! These upgrades allow you to enhance the items you've started collecting. By purchasing a mortar and pestle, you can now grind wheat into flour. Upgrade to an oven and you may eventually be able to make your own carrot cake. These items can be sold at the market on the weekends, too, earning you even more happiness, which you can in turn invest into the caravan, making you have the sweetest wheels in the biz.

There's a lot to unpack here, but without giving too much away, that's the general synopsis. So now? Let's give too much away.

What I loved about Cozy Caravan

From the start, the customization is pretty impeccable. There are just short of 30 adorable animals to choose from, and too many outfits to count, but only seven different fur color options, which I thought was funny amongst the rows and rows of other choices. Regardless, my favorite customizable feature is that you get to choose the voice for your animal: Peppy? Tired? Nurturing? Masculine? Feminine? It's up to you. This is such a fun little feature that you don't see very often, so from the jump I knew I was diving into a game that wouldn't leave a stone unturned. It's that simple. Thinking about the minor details, like the voice your players are going to hear the most often, is such a thoughtful move from developers. That alone can honestly set them apart from the competition. I loved this, and I thought about it many times when I heard my little turtle shout the cutest Aye-Oh! and wave. I picked the best voice for my character.

The map is accessible and very easy to navigate. Each little town on the map, once discovered, is easily identified, and when you hover over it, a little postcard for the town pops up on the top right corner. If you hit X, you will flip over the post card and see the people who live in the town. Hover over those people and you can see if they have an open quest for you. You'll also see the items you can collect at that location.

This is especially useful as you're getting started and you can't remember where to find those pesky tomatoes. One thing I can't stand when I'm playing a game is trying to figure out the tools, like maps, or backpacks, or phones, or whatever. I just want it to be simple and straight to the point. This map does that, and you can stop your caravan mid-drive to pull out the map, too, just to make sure you're heading in the right direction. 

I honestly loved collecting happiness as currency. I didn't think I would when I first started—it felt cheesy, and maybe it is? But who cares? I'm here to zone out and collect my own serotonin, and if I have to get it from a turtle getting it from waving at a skunk? Then I'll take what I can get. And let me tell you, when you're at the market, and there's a big crowd, you wave at them and say, Aye-Oh! and all of those hearts pop up and they all say, Hello, back? Tell me you're not going to smile! No wait, don't tell me, I'm not emotionally prepared for that.

This brings me to a good tip, though: Wave at anybody and everybody. Wave at the person the next field over. Wave at everyone in the restaurant. Wave at the goat on the ladder. Wave at people in the market. It's the fastest way to upgrade your caravan, and upgrading your caravan will catapult you further into the game, which will allow you to do and see more things.

Cooking typically isn't my favorite thing to do in gaming, but this game makes it both easy and tricky, but fun. You'll collect recipes from side quests, which then become easy to access in your caravan right next to your inventory. When you click on a recipe, it pins it for you. Then when you hop over to your inventory, the items you need will be highlighted, so you never have to move back and forth from the recipe area to the inventory. It's so helpful. There are some cozy games where I don't cook because the recipes aren't easily accessible. Here? It couldn't be easier.

Once you have your items, you move to your cutting board, oven, or stovetop, and the mini guide pops up to help walk you through. You'll use the controls on your joycons to prepare the items. Depending upon what it is that you're working on, you'll use the controls differently, reflecting the ways you'd really be prepping each of the items. Rolling dough and pastry dough is tough, but fun. Regardless of how poorly you roll the dough, however, you'll always end up with the product, so no worries. So, as I said, cooking isn't typically my favorite part of gaming, but in this game, I cook whatever recipe I get as soon as I get it, just because I enjoy it so much!

You don't have to do anything in this game. Market weekend? You don't have to open your shop. If cooking isn't your thing? You can just focus on trying to accomplish the quests (although be forewarned, some quests do involve cooking, or at minimum, food prep). I typically don't open my market every weekend, and just stock up my food for a few weeks to try to have one really great market weekend, then I start over.

This is super typical with cozy games, that open world, casual, no timeline kind of gaming, but the time restraint of the market only opening on the weekend can be a bit burdening if you focus on it too much. At first, I did—and it took some of the enjoyment out of the game. Once I moved my focus off of the market and onto harvesting and cooking, I felt freer to not feel rushed to get back to town to sell. But that's just how I play! How you experience the game is fully up to you.

New areas of the map unlock with upgrades to your caravan, and with that comes new options for creations and selling. I love this, because just as you start to get comfortable and start to think maybe you've done it all, you realize there's more. I was so excited when I got my new wheels and started exploring the muddier areas. I expected I would just get shortened paths, but I actually got, I think, five or six new towns.

This was quite an extensive expansion, because these areas are actually larger than any of the areas in the opening portion, so there's quite a bit to explore. Additionally, the vibe of these areas is very different. So, when you're starting to get tired of harvesting and farming, trust me, the unlocked portion will give you a whole new flavor to add to the overall game. Which again, keeps this game moving in a very light and fun way.

Your caravan is pulled by a giant bee, and when you pet it, you also get the happiness currency and it wiggles its butt. His name is Rigby. You eventually get to feed him. That's all. No notes. The bee gets a 10/10.

Your number one pal in this game is an older gentleman named Bubba. Bubba drives the caravan and can eventually help out in the market after upgrading the register. He's adorable. At first, I thought he was going to be a grumpy character, but in reality, he's a gruff little guy who only says the word "Bubba" in varying tones as though it's a full language. My favorite interactions with Bubba are at night when camp is set up. You can gain happiness by chatting with him, but also, he ends every conversation with a fully belly laugh which alone is worthwhile. He's a cute character to have and having him speak his own Bubba language despite the main character speaking English is a fun, silly, warm touch. 

Driving the caravan is enjoyable. It is not difficult to maneuver, and the mechanics aren't overly touchy, but you're also very much steering the caravan through the paths. Fortunately for my five-year-old, you can't drive off of the path and into the trees, so it's easy enough for a five-year-old to drive, but still enjoyable for an adult to drive. I really like that you don't just click on a map and magically appear in a new space. I think driving around adds to the zen of the game, but that's just me. I can see others viewing this as slowing down the overall pacing of the game. But again, the reason I play is to relax, not to win, so for me, driving the caravan is a perk.

There are fun ways to learn what items are going to be popular at the weekend market, which allows you to start stocking up on your surplus to earn more happiness. The fortune teller is a cute little pop-up if you can find her! A suggestion for the developers: maybe I can spend a bit of my happiness currency with the fortune teller to have her look deeper into her crystal ball to tell me what's going to be popular the following market? A few days doesn't always give the player enough time to prepare the inventory.

Generally, the overall functionality of the game is smooth. The graphics aren't choppy, and there's no lag. The locations load up rather quickly, and aside from two freezes, there have been no issues to the overall mechanics of the game. There is also a bit of autosaving, and with a new patch, every time your character enters the caravan, the game autosaves. Since the new autosave patch was implemented, I have not experienced any game loss. Yay! 

Areas That Could Use Some Work

And I use that lightly, because these things are minimal! However, my largest suggestion is that Cozy Caravan could use some distinguishing between a true quest that would be holding me back from progression in the game and an optional side quest. This could be as much as having the true quests on the corner of the main screen, with the side quests remaining on the postcards, or as little as gold stars identifying the main quests. And I'll tell you why this is important: I'm preparing my inventory for the weekend market, getting my tomato soup cooked, and then I get a quest I need to complete. What has more value? I'm not sure. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, and I know that, but it's tricky to determine what to prioritize when there's a schedule to adhere to.

I'd love to hear different music for each location that has the vibe for that town. The same song can become wearing after a while, so perhaps this can be a future-state plan. Again, not a dealbreaker at all, but if I'm being picky with my review, there's a space for this.

Milk is one of the most used recipe items because it's used to make butter, which is in quite a few recipes, but milk is difficult to come by. It may be by design, but the scarcity of milk can slow down your ability to cook or bake new items, so sometimes I found it to be frustrating.

Closing And Final Thoughts

That's all! Like I said, I don't have many complaints. I have put in many hours in this game and talked about it quite extensively with quite a few of my friends. This game truly has everything a cozy gamer looks for: exploring unique and diverse locations, harvesting and collecting items, cooking and crafting new items, selling these items at the market for in-game currency, and upgrading your tools—all while being a cute little fuzzy animal.

I am ultimately interested to see how this game continues to develop. I try not to read other reviews before I post mine, but I accidentally stumbled across some positive notes. I'm hopeful that the interest and positive feedback can help to develop further exploration. Perhaps the developers could consider multi-player co-op options for play? I'm always looking for ways to connect in-game with my friends!

Happy to hear if you're a Cozy Caravanner with me—it's definitely going to continue to be in my rotation. I still have a lot more to explore, and I have not yet mastered fishing, which is far more difficult than you'd expect! I also know that, at minimum, I have an upgrade to my caravan that will help it float, so the world is my oyster, and Gerty the Turty is ready to see what her future holds when she forges the water and expands her world even more! For now, I'm off to pet Ridgby and collect happiness, both in and out of the game.