This site recommends cozy games with no magic, no spirits, no violence and no holiday themes. That’s a narrow filter, and it only means anything if I’m specific about how I apply it. So here it is.
The four checks
Magic. No spellcasting, no witches or wizards, no enchanted objects, no potions or alchemy. Science fiction is fine — a robot is not a wizard.
Spirits and religion. No ghosts, no spirits of the dead, no gods or goddesses, no shrines, offerings or worship mechanics, no fortune-telling or séances.
Violence. No weapons used on people, no blood, no gore, no hunting. Cartoon, non-lethal silliness is fine.
Holidays. Nothing built around a holiday — a game that exists to be a Halloween game, or one where a named holiday drives the story or the calendar. I can’t control what a studio adds later, and plenty of ordinary games get a temporary seasonal event or an optional pack. Where I know about one, I say so in the entry.
How I check
Not by vibes. Every game goes through the same sequence, and I stop when I have a confident answer.
- The Steam store page and its full tag list — including the ones hidden behind the “+”.
- The DLC list on the same page.
- The Steam news and update history, for recurring seasonal events.
- The game’s wiki — Characters, Locations and Items indexes first.
- The TV Tropes page, which surfaces plot elements the marketing never mentions.
- The Steam Community forum, searched for the specific words I care about.
- The full achievement list, hidden achievements included. These describe late-game content no store page will.
- A full playthrough on YouTube — the last twenty per cent, not the first. Twists live in act three.
- The developer, when the sources above disagree or go quiet.
Every content check I publish lists the sources I actually used, so you can go and look for yourself.
Screened is not the same as played
I’m one person and this site is new. I mark every game as either Screened or Played, and I don’t blur the two. If I haven’t played something, I won’t write a sentence implying I have — no “I lost hours to this,” no invented afternoons.
Screening is real work and it’s the work you actually need from me. But it isn’t the same as forty hours in a save file, and you deserve to know which one you’re reading.
Corrections
If I get something wrong, tell me. I’ll check it, change it, and note that it changed rather than quietly editing the page. Being correctable is the whole point — a screening standard nobody can challenge isn’t a standard.
Money, and what it doesn’t buy
Some links here are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. That never affects a verdict. A game I’d earn nothing from and a game I’d earn from get the same four checks.
Sponsored posts are always labelled as sponsored. A free review key never guarantees positive coverage, and if I’m given one I’ll say so in the post. If a studio answers a question for me, I quote them exactly and tell you it came from them.
If any of that ever stops being true, this page changes first.