Guide for a more enjoyable stay in Cozy Grove

This guide contains info I found useful and answers to some of the most common questions/issues I've seen others have. It will probably be geared towards new-ish players who want faster progress than the game might intend for you to have. Story spoilers and the dirtiest tricks will be in spoiler tags.
UPDATED February 2024, after I was told those "new" critters that put me off the game were updated to be less annoying. Not all newer additions to the game are mentioned much (yet?), but I hope I caught all the outdated info.

Intro

So you're a spirit scout on a cute haunted island. There are oddly boxy bears that you're going to get to know. And they throw stuff at you.





This game is not meant to be binged (although you can do it*), and personally I do like having something to look forward to every day. I'm also somewhat impatient, though, and I don't like the idea of quests taking several days. So I joined the super helpful Discord server[discord.gg] and strategised (which, for me, is part of the fun). Much credit and thanks to the dedicated people over at Discord that kept me from having to learn everything the hard way! They have tons of info and even Google docs and spreadsheets to read up on (especially in the pinned messages of #community-resources), or you can ask for advice in #player-help.
UPDATE: There's also a Wiki[cozygrove.fandom.com] with lots of info to look up now.

I'm going to try and summarise some essentials here, especially those that aren't covered in SpryFox's own Tips for getting started[support.spryfox.com].
I guess we're going to move into mild spoiler territory right after "Placing items", but if you wanted to go into the game blindly and figure everything out yourself then you wouldn't be reading this guide...


*Dirty trick: You can "Time Travel" by changing date and time of your system clock or doing fancy stuff like this guide explains. BUT! Going "back in time" can ruin your save file (update: the devs have generously worked on making it much less likely, but you should still avoid it).
BUT! You could, for example, save up Monday to Friday to binge at the weekend: on Saturday/Sunday, change the date to Monday and play that day's quests, then move on to Tuesday and so on, until you end up in the present again.
I back up my save file[support.spryfox.com] a lot in case I mess up...

Placing items

The first basic thing I and some other new players didn't understand was that you're supposed to place decorations, plants and animals in the area around your tent and Flamey. You can place them elsewhere, but one major feature of that whole "haunted island" thing is that it's in constant change. Your stuff outside the designated "safe" areas may move or temporarily disappear (you should get it back in the mail). Anything that's not furniture/decoration, plant or animal - i.e. resources like wood, food, shells - will despawn after some time if you don't store them in your backpack's or tent's (Flamey's) inventory.

UPDATE: I've seen quite a bit of confusion about "unlocking new areas" for your animals and decorations. There's nothing in the story that needs to happen for you to use these areas. If your island has expanded to reveal an empty area with a big ancient lamp, it's up to you to chain lamps to it so it lights up (hover/click on the little black spoiler box to reveal image):


The shortest way (using fewest lamps) to lighting up your first new area is from the left corner of Francesca's area. It will go grey again while you're doing a quest for that NPC, so eventually (or if you want to spend the resources on crafting a lot of lamps) you can also chain lamps from your Flamey camp.

There are different ways of placing items, I've found it most convenient to drag them to the ground from the inventory. You can also throw stuff, but be very careful with that or the imps may come running and steal it! I don't think they'd take furniture, but they've been known to steal bushes (fixed in an update!). You can pick up and choose new locations for all of your items - including the trees (I can't believe I find this normal now).

The Economy

You'll want to upgrade your tent for more storage and maybe a more "advanced" look (accessible through Flamey). You'll also want to upgrade the shop (by buying the catalogue, BUT! only do this once you're done buying stuff for the day - the shop will close down for the upgrade) and be Kit's best (only?) customer for more items that you'll need for quests, directly or indirectly. So you'll want to make money.
UPDATE: Want more details and numbers than I'm going to give you here? Plu's got you covered with this guide.

Effective money-making and quest-preparing strategies

There's a limited amount of leafpiles and dirt mounds and of shells each day, so for maxing out your resources you can walk/run a few rounds (with breaks for respawning) each day to get them all (and don't forget any single shells as they'll prevent respawning).
Dirty (?) trick: leveling up Flamey (by giving them the last needed log) resets the daily limits for leafpiles, dirt mounds, shells and relics.

There's an UNLIMITED amount of fish, so that's the first smart resource to make money of (my headcanon is that they're spirit fish that aren't that attached to their physical manifestations). They are worth more if you let Flamey burn them into fishbones.
Dirty trick: You may get your hands on a crafting recipe that requires only fishbones and sells for a ridiculous amount of money... It got nerfed, but it's still good.

You can also let Flamey make roasted vegetables, fruit and mushrooms and sell them, but they'll be worth more later... You could sell the wood and branches you find, but don't. Please don't. Hoard them. Also keep a couple of one common, one uncommon, one rare and later one legendary type of shell and fish (3-5 of each rarity). You'll thank me later. The rest of your shells can be sold, they've become a pretty decent source of early income in one of the updates.

You could recycle quartz for coins once you get access to it through Francesca (Tree Bear), but I would never. Quartz is a limited resource that you need for buying animals and furniture. You may think you get plenty, but supply is going to slow down. If you don't care about pretty decorations then you can recycle most of your quartz. You're going to need some for story quests later in the game, though, so keep that in mind.
UPDATE: Quartz has become more plentiful and I have now, in fact, recycled some for coins in new saves to quickly upgrade Kit's shop and get more tent storage. After that I still keep it around, because some of those high-tier decorations that I might really like can be VERY expensive and waiting for the recipe or even a lower-tier version for sale could take ages. If you don't care that much about decorating, keeping one full stack will probably be enough for most purposes.

As soon as you get access to birds, buy a couple. You're going to need their eggs later. Save some of their spirit essence, too, and use the rest to buy potted flowers. Their harvested blossoms are good money-makers, and Tree Bear will help you recycle them into pigment for crafting (and some quests!).

Your next investment step: berry bushes. Letting Flamey "burn" their berries gives you twice as much roasted fruit as, uhm, fruit (from the fruit trees). They'll sometimes give you cocoa beans, because why not? And they'll give you those woody resources that you want to keep a few stacks of in your tent.
UPDATE: In the meantime, it turned out it was a bug/oversight that berry bushes produced so much roasted fruit, and it got fixed. So now fruit trees are at about the same level - their fruit ripens after about 3 days (vs. 2 for berries), but produces 2 roasted fruit for each fruit (vs. 1 for berries) after the update.

Once you have access to "baking", produce mushroom tofu and fruit tincture. Sell them. Profit. If you'd like more variety, the community-resources channel on Discord has lists of how much you can sell various items for, but these are the go-to ones.
NOTE that as with many items, it can be wise to keep a couple in storage because you may need them for quests. I keep 3 of each fruit and mushroom type in my tent inventory (update: higher amounts are needed later in the game). You might also want to finish your daily quests before using all of the resources that don't spawn so often.


A rather different (and limited) way of making money is through your scout badges (you can go through the overviews and check how much these achievements are worth), and through donating new items to the Captain. You can see in the item description in your inventory if something is NEW and can be donated.
Note that the rewards for donating vary wildly, and only some items are rewarded with coins. The most interesting donations coin-wise are probably fish, especially the rarer ones (you'll gradually unlock new fish types). I'm sure there's a spreadsheet for that in the resources channel on Discord if you want all the details.

Plants and animals

Animals and plants in Cozy Grove are (probably..?) quite different from the ones you're used to. They are more productive, but they also have aesthetic needs, and animals have an appetite for human-style foods... If you want to be efficient, you should try and get them to fill those three hearts/leaves that tell you they'll give you maximum harvest (though there's a small chance for less). To get there, they'll need five items they like, or much more if there's something around that they dislike. You'll have to experiment a bit to get a feeling for how far away things can or should be.

...Plants

All potted flowers, fruit trees, nut trees and bushes like and dislike the same stuff as others in their category:
- Potted flowers thrive in areas with lamps, cozy decor, and other potted flowers - which makes them easy to deal with, just group them together. They dislike rustic decor, which can be a bit challenging in the start when you don't have much else, but you'll get there soon enough.
- Berry bushes also like each other, and they like your rustic decor, so yay. Just keep them away from stuff with the "bustling" tag.
- Fruit trees like each other and lamps - easy enough, and they share berry bushes' dislike for bustling decor.
- Nut trees are a bit more advanced. They don't particularly care about each other, and they are buzzkills for spooky decor (which is so cute!). Getting them cozy decor can take a bit of time, but at least you should have lamps.

......Flowering bushes

UPDATE: This whole section is outdated and unnecessary with the latest build, apart from the "dirty trick" that has other uses as well. I'll leave this up for now in case you're playing on a device that's still waiting for the update.
UPDATE 2: Leaving it up for nostalgic reasons XD

Then there's the flowering bushes. They pretend to like each other, but they dislike anything common - and all the flowering bushes you'll get early in the game are common. Nearly everything you can afford at all is common.
My first advice would be, don't bother with those snobby bushes until (maybe) later. If you absolutely want to (I know I did), wait at least until you've unlocked the second safe area, with the big lamp artifact and got your hands on at the very least one non-common lamp or natural decor item.

Place that lamp/decoration in the middle (plus any other non-common lamp or natural decor you may have been lucky enough to get). If you have more than one flowering bush, figure out the space they need from each other while still being within range of your non-common item(s).
Once you get more non-common lamps and decorations, you can get more creative. I've built up a whole campsite or Snob Garden for common-haters - with only non-common furniture and potted flowers, and trees and berry bushes (which don't have the common tag!).

Dirty trick: Let them pout. Then when they are flowering, put them in the place they are happiest and/or pick up anything common around. Harvest them and put everything back.
You can obviously do this for any plant or animal. You can also take a couple of lamps and maybe some rustic/cozy decor with you and put it around wild fruit/nut trees, harvest them, and then abandon them again :( (I always apologise)

...Birds and deer

Birds and deer have more individual personalities than plants, and it's really worth having a look at them before you buy them. Can you offer them a couple of the things they like? Can you place them away from the thing they dislike? As with plants, if there's anything nearby that they dislike, it'll be a LOT more difficult to make them happy and productive.

They're probably going to start demanding food that you have no or low resources for. Note that unless you're in a hurry to get the essences, you don't need to feed them. They're spirit birds/deer, they won't really starve ;) After a few days, they'll crave a different food instead.

After a couple of times of feeding them, young birds and deer grow up into adult ones and eventually into mature ones. Confusingly, there's a different set of terms used in addition in some places:
young = basic (produces spirit bird/deer essence)
adult = pro (produces happy bird/deer essence)
mature = master (produces joyous bird/deer essence)
So if, for example, a quest asks for a pro bird, look for one that says "adult" in its title (and has a "pro" tag under the description that you may have overlooked or forgotten).

Dirty trick: A bit later in the game, if you need a specific type of essence (from a young vs. adult or mature bird, or deer) or if you want some of them to mature faster (young ones turn into adults after 5x feeding, adults into mature ones after 10x) you can leave the "wrong" type of animals unfed so there's a higher chance that the "right" type will want food and can be harvested.

UPDATE: A lot of this is a bit moot now. You can craft other essences from the cat hairballs in your tent (through the cat statue), and you can recycle higher-tier essences into 2 of the lower ones with Francesca.

Resources

These are the resources I've seen the most questions about (mainly where to get them, or how to get more of them)...

...Wood

Wood is needed for crafting, and for quests - both small and optional ones, and big story quests. As far as I know the amounts needed to progress have already been adjusted and might be lowered further, but it's still wise to keep a stock of 50-100 both hardwood and softwood and at least as many branches as soon as you can (if you don't want to wait for possibly several days to complete a quest).

Where do you get all that wood from?

- Leafpiles: Run across the island and jump into them. Check behind trees and other stuff, some are rather well-hidden. They'll respawn several times with some breaks, up to a daily limit.
Dirty (?) trick that I've mentioned before: this is one of the daily limits that are reset when you level up Flamey. So if you need wood, make sure to get all the piles before giving Flamey that last log needed for leveling up.

- Fruit and nut trees, berry and flowering bushes: Buy as many as you can, they're a great long-term investment. For cash, focus on fruit trees and berry bushes for tincture. For baking/cooking, you're going to need nut flour. If you want to dye decorations in different colours (with Francesca's flower tincture), flowering bushes are your friends.

- Crafting: You can craft softwood from branches and hardwood from softwood, but it's very inefficient.

- Recycling: You can let Francesca (Tree Bear) recycle some furniture into woody stuff, but it's so inefficient that it should only be a last resort when you lack a few branches or logs. Do check how little you get before confirming - if it just says "branch", it means 1 (ONE) branch. If you want to get rid of furniture, it's usually better to sell it or to keep it for certain quests that may come up in the future.

- UPDATE: Clams were added for additional resources, and wood is one of them. Aim with the skipping stones that you get as a byproduct from mining rocks.

...Cocoa beans

You're going to need them for baking/cooking, and sometimes for quests.
- Berry bushes sometimes drop them (I'm sure there's a logical explanation for that)
- You'll be able to buy them after a few shop upgrades
- You'll get opportunities a couple of days into the game: there's a pop-up shop every Wednesday after (or from?) your day 7
- If you need them for a quest, see if there are any imps to chase that might have some

...Eggs

You're going to need them for baking/cooking, sometimes for quests.
- Happy birds will drop one when harvested
- You'll be able to buy them after a few shop upgrades
- You'll get opportunities a couple of days into the game: there's a pop-up shop every Wednesday after (or from?) your day 7

...Iron, silver, gold ingots

They are used in some crafting recipes, but you're also going to need increasing amounts for quests and (I think still) for fixing your tools.
- Harvest ores from special rocks (you start out with three harvestable rocks around your camp, higher-tier ones later) and let Flamey burn them into ingots
- You can craft silver ingots from iron and gold ingots from silver, but it costs a lot
- You'll be able to buy a bit of ore after quite a lot of shop-upgrading
- You'll sometimes get one as quest reward
- Recycling some furniture may get you a bit, but see the recycling note in the Wood section

...Quartz, semi-precious and precious gems

Needed for buying animals and decorations, and a large amount is needed for at least one quest a while into a bear's story.
- Some of your scout badges reward you with them
- Some donations to the Captain also reward you with them
- A few quest rewards include quartz
- Since the latest build, you can sometimes find quartz in dirt mounds that you dig up with your shovel
- In case you haven't noticed, you can let Maker Bear craft quartz into semi-precious gems, and semi-precious into precious ones.
- You can buy a bunch each day (at an outrageous price, obviously) after a few upgrades to Kit's store.

- UPDATE: Clams were added for additional resources, and quartz is one of them. Aim with the skipping stones that you get as a byproduct from mining rocks.

...Relic ash

Needed for fixing tools, some crafting recipes, some quests. Yet another thing you may want to keep a stack of.
- You get it from burning relics that you find with your dowsing rod (UPDATE: and from some clams, and the friendly imp from the daily skull puzzle)
- You also get the same amount of ash from donating a new relic (since one of the updates)
- ...levelling up Flamey also resets the daily dowsing limit
- You can sell a bird for 1 relic ash (young), 2 relic ash (adult), and probably 3 (mature). So if you have birds that give you trouble... I'm sure Kit will find a caring new home for them.

NEW: Crafting recipes

I can't believe I've never talked about recipes for decorations!
Jeremy can help you craft VAST amounts of things eventually, to make your plants and animals happier and your camp(s) or (with a little risk) the entire island look nicer. There are several not so obvious ways of getting more recipes:

- The 100% reliable one is also the most obscure one: When starting a new day, go straight to fishing. Sometimes it takes up to 10 or more fish, but you will get your daily recipe. Apparently, the more you do before fishing, the less likely it gets that you'll end up with the recipe "biting".
- Solving the daily imp skull puzzle (or twice some days, as it's one of the things that respawn after giving Flamey the last log needed to level up) will usually get you a recipe along with a relic, though sometimes it's a clothing item or decoration.
- Quest rewards from the bears have a chance of including a recipe.
- There's also a chance for a recipe when feeding cats in your tent.
- Late game: A wishing well has been added that spawns in Valentina's area (IIRC) after you've unlocked all of the island. I tried to interact with it when I first saw it, but it didn't seem to do anything - I only learned a while later that it just has a small hit box that only includes the lower part of the item :/ You can use it once per day.
Also note that this is a money sink, so it makes sense to save up a little for the highest-tier ones.

Fun fact (that also makes things easier): Have you noticed the little symbols in the corner of the icons in Jeremy's crafting menu? It sure took ME a while, but each category (rustic, cozy, spooky, etc.) has its own symbol so you see which one it is without going through all of them or using the (also very neat) filter function.

Dirty trick: You can "save scum" your way to more recipes - or to more of the recipes you like - by manually copying your save file[support.spryfox.com] to a different folder before a potential recipe drop, then shutting down the game and replacing the save file with the copied one for another try (or shutting down the game before it autosaves, but I think I read that can increase loading times or something).
Some people do this to make sure they get recipes as quest rewards. I've done it ad nauseam to try for fishing and later wishing well recipes that I liked better or needed for my projects, even keeping several alternative save copies so I could decide which one to keep :D This is tedious though, because the pool for recipes is HUGE with all the different items and all the rarities. Getting a specific one can take LOTS of tries.

[PixiePunchPie]

I can't edit my comment but I will say that if you intend to do the date/time thing on your computer, read THIS:

https://support.spryfox.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500006739102

[löyly]

@PixiePunchPie: Oh wow glad to hear it's still useful, but there's probably a lot about this guide that's outdated or missing by now.

I did mention the date/time thing (last part of intro) and heads-up that you should only go forward and never back (last I heard was that the devs were trying to prevent save corruption or something but wouldn't guarantee that it's safe).

re: daily limits of dirt mounds and leaf piles, I actually counted a couple of times and it seemed to vary, maybe roughly around 15 of each IIRC.

[PixiePunchPie]

Hi there! Just started the game yesterday and I have a good tip for ppl that want more out of their days. You can manually adjust the date/time settings on your computer. New day starts at 5am in game.

One question: You keep talking about daily limits of dirt mounds and leaf piles. Is there somewhere I can find the daily limits?

Thanks for the AWESOME write up! It's super gonna help me!!!

[DrNickyCat]

I have an obsession with catching critters and make a decent amount of coins off of them. The lowest sell price for them is 105 and they take so little time to catch as i'm running around doing things. Love the tips about the baking and crafting something using the fishbones. Sooo much moonies.

[Amorazie]

I love this game so much <3

[flannan]

I think the reason for cocoa beans is, any seeds in this world can work as cocoa beans. After all, they're going to be cooked by that cook, who just puts random things into her cooking.

[löyly]

@Bartelmy: Right, that makes sense... I guess

[Bartelmy]

The logical explanation for why Goldenberry bushes sometimes drop cocoa beans is because in this world, Goldenberries and Cocoa are like peaches and nectarines in our world. They've very close relatives and the difference is only in a gene or two. Sometimes, a few cells mutate and a Goldenberry bush produces Cocoa.

[löyly]

@Nefrarya No worries, I should update with more info. Not sure if hybrids show up depending on game days, I got them after a few shop updates. And then of course they cost advanced essences... Definitely worth it if/when you can afford them, though.

[Nefrarya]

@löyly Sorry, didn't realize that was tied to game days or anything. I was just trying to give helpful info.