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Toem: A Cozy Game Centered around Photography-Related Quests

Overview
I’m a sucker for the task based “cozy” genre like A Short Hike. Toem probably set the bar for this genre as my new favorite. It does everything right with solid game design choices and is just overall a pleasant experience that was perfect for unwinding at the end of the day.
Story
While I am a fan of the “Cozy” games, I desperately need some kind of drive to keep playing. Open-ended cozy games without a clear story to keep you moving and questing just feel aimless to me and I lose interest. Thankfully, Toem has no such problems and has a clear goal established from the very beginning. You’re on an adventure to tour a mystical sight, but it’s at the top of a mountain several towns away. Thus to fund this trip, you do quests for people to earn bus fare. You then take the bus to the next town and do more quests to earn more bus fare. Repeat until you make it to the final destination! It’s a simple premise and full of enough diverse locations, tasks, puzzles and cast of characters to keep it from getting stale. As a bonus, there was even a free DLC and a short vacation bonus story to play as an epilogue after you finish the base game.
Presentation
This game oozes style with its unique black and white presentation and music you can turn your brain off and hum along to. There are plenty of different locations to explore and each does a very good job capturing a different feeling. Each new biome has its own set of animals to find and snap pictures of, allowing the game to double as a collectathon – gotta snap them all! There is some customization where you can dress the main character up. Some of the dress up is required for the quests, but there’s plenty of optional clothes and accessories as well.
Gameplay
The game is highly integrated with the story – the game is essentially interacting with the world around you which feels very alive. As you take off from the bus stop you can ask to see how many stamps you require to go to the next area. Then off you go to talk with NPCs. As you help them out and complete tasks they’ll reward you with stamps and sometimes accessories/clothes or new gadgets or ways to progress through the area.
The game is appealing to both completionists and casuals in its game design approach. You do not have to help every single NPC as there are far more tasks/stamps available than are required to proceed to the next area. But the number isn’t so overwhelming that you’d want to skip. Its really fun to try to 100% every area and do everything you possibly can.
As you talk to NPCs your card will get updated with tasks for them. Sometimes you may be surprised and help them before you even realize it was a task. Other times it can be more complex or a bit harder to interpret what is meant to be done. But for the most part, the quests seemed to be at an engaging enough level to keep me interested but not so difficult that I ever wanted to skip any. At worst, there were a few times I felt kind of lost trying to hunt down very specific animals which were intended to be difficult to find in the first place.
I played this game in the evenings before bed and it was a very relaxing experience and I never felt frustrated but wasn’t complete brain-off either.
Summary
Overall, Toem was such a delightful experience that I immediately had to send it to several of my friends. It’s cute, charming, and most importantly for a game—fun! It cured my life long depression even if only for a temporary 4 to 5 hours. But what a time that was. Honestly, I prefer shorter games as I am more likely to actually complete them. I think it was just the right length and didn’t ever feel close to overstaying its welcome. Super looking forward to the sequel.