The Utter Joy of the Spirit Crossing Playtest

Cooperative play in the Crosslands is so goddamn satisfying I've spent the last few days playing the Spirit Crossing playtest and man, I gotta put these thoughts down somewhere because it's a TREAT. First, some background When Spry Fox's Cozy Grove launched, it became a household regular for me and my kids. Something about the art, the writing, and the fact that the gameplay was focused on "there's only so many things you can actually do in one day, pace yourself, come back tomorrow if you want to do more" was this incredibly beautiful convergence. I had a free subscription to Apple Arcade (one of the 'benefits' of working for a startup that got swallowed by Apple and eaten alive - story for another day but somewhat relevant here) which is how we were playing it at first but the game left that service a while after Spry Fox was acquired by Netflix as one of their game studios. Sure it was available on other platforms but had a kind of clunky process to transfer a save over from iOS to…