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.gg – https://discord.gg/NtRcvhY 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), but also an extra channel for new players. 
I’m going to try and summarise some essentials here, especially those that aren’t covered in SpryFox’s own support.spryfox.com – https://support.spryfox.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500003986521-Tips-for-getting-started-in-Cozy-Grove. 
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 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2452281168 explains. BUT! Going “back in time” is likely to ruin your save file, and by going too far into the “future” you may end up places that the devs haven’t really fleshed out yet. 
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. 
 
 

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. 
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. 
 

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 stack 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 I guess you can recycle some of your quartz. Apparently you’re going to need some later in the game, though, so keep that in mind. 
 
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: goldenberry 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. 
 
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. 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. 
 
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. 
 
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. 
 
 

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: Another reason to get them to 3 leaves of happiness. I don’t have any statistics (someone on Discord certainly does), but goldenberry bushes are always a smart choice because they give you super-efficient “fruit” (and sometimes cocoa) in addition. Buy as many as you can, they’re a great long-term investment. Get some fruit and nut trees as well. Flowering bushes give you blossoms to sell, but you decide if they’re worth the trouble (see the Animals and Plants section on them). 
 
– Crafting: You can craft softwood from branches and hardwood from softwood, but it’s very inefficient. I craft a bit of softwood when I’ve got way too many branches (I never have too much softwood). 
 
– 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. 
 
 

…Cocoa beans

 
You’re going to need them for baking/cooking, and sometimes for quests. 
– Goldenberry 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 birds and later deer, and furniture/decorations. Apparently also for something ominous late in the game, so you should probably hold onto some. 
– Some of your scout badges reward you with them 
– Some donations to the Captain also rewards 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. 
 
 

…Relic ash

 
Needed for fixing tools, some crafting recipes, possibly more. Yet another thing you may want to keep a little stack of. 
– You get it from burning relics that you find with your dowsing rod 
– 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. 
 

Here we come to an end for Cozy Grove Tips and Tricks How To Enjoy The Game hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!