Cozy games are huge at the moment. Whether it’s needing to wrest some feeling of control and joy back from your everyday worries is a discussion for another time, but there is a growing range and depth to the category that goes far beyond the initial focus on farming sims. Duck Side of the Moon takes the tone and atmosphere of the cozy sim and marries it to a third person exploration game filled with charming characters and emotional growth.
You play as Doug, a duck astronaut who has unfortunately crashed on a strange planet filled with anthropomorphic geodes. Yes, that old chestnut again… Aside from this unique scenario, the central storyline here is one of Doug trying to find their own space in the universe without their parents to lead them. This coming of age story takes place through some surprisingly emotional cutscenes as you unlock new areas of the map and all leads towards a conclusion that is wonderfully earnest and heartfelt in this cynical world.
The cute and relatively simple artstyle here works perfectly for the mood and tone of the game, with everything being easy to parse and colours being used effectively to highlight important aspects. Doug is very cute and can be dressed in a range of adorable outfits from a chef uniform to a frog costume – each part either being hidden around the map in chests to find, or awarded for completing sidequests. Music is also really good, and an in-game jukebox lets you revisit your favourites once you find the relevant discs. You can even quack along if you want – the Q key begins as a quack and later can be held down as a sonar for finding hidden items.
To begin with you are very restricted in terms of exploration as Chippy, your onboard computer, blocks you in for your own safety. There are interesting narrative reasons for this over-protectiveness and it fits in well with the story. You find crafting items scattered around that you mine with a laser, as well as bolts that can be spent on ship upgrades and occasional story items to return to NPCs. The exploration is well judged but there isn’t currently a way to return to the starting area so make sure that you find everything before continuing.
There isn’t a great deal of challenge to be found here, which is obviously in keeping with the cozy tone, but the progression is paced well enough that it makes for an enjoyable change of pace from more intensive titles and is just a really pleasant experience. As you work through the four or five hours it takes to do everything you’ll be steadily upgrading, finding new geodes to chat to, and gradually unlocking materials for more upgrades.
,Partway through the game you come across an area with carnival style games that you can take time out to enjoy. A bowling alley, shooting gallery, and a hammer pole make for great diversions and reward you with tokens that you need for items on sale from vendors. I found myself working on mastering each of these even if there were only Steam achievements to unlock for doing so. This is very much the idea here, as the game has plenty of mechanics to explore, but never proves frustrating or offers and roadblocks. Indeed, going back through to unlock all the achievements adds replayability and a reason to challenge yourself with specific approaches.
There’s just a couple very minor niggles, such as the jukebox no longer working in the endgame and not being able to return to the starting area to mop up collectables and achievements. Thankfully these are both issues being looked at by the developers.
