With the nights drawing in, the temperature dropping, and the rain becoming a more common sight, we are entering my favorite time of the year: Fall. There’s no better season to wrap yourself up with a blanket, your hot beverage of choice, and a cozy game or three to occupy your mind while you relax. 

Itch.io is a veritable treasure trove of small, cozy games that can be played in your browser with absolutely no need to wait for downloads or take up valuable storage space. These 10 in-browser games are some of the best I’ve come across, and they’re perfect if you’re looking for something to relax with in the evening, or something quick to pass the time. 

Little Big Space Clicker

Created by pixel artist Lya Mgtt, Little Big Space Clicker is guaranteed to make you feel nostalgic, especially if you’re a millennial like me and remember the release of the Game Boy Advance SP. I remember mine, it was pink, and I carried that thing everywhere with me for years, despite the fact that it almost never had any battery. 

In Little Big Space Clicker, you need to click on buttons and accessories to make money, eventually working your way up to unlocking pixel depictions of the universe and deep space on the screen of the virtual handheld. Progressive accessories cost more, but give you more per click. It’s the basic recipe for a good clicker, and it’s done incredibly well. 

Letting Go

Have you ever moved house or left home, only to realise that you can’t possibly take everything with you to wherever you’re going? You need to clear out the clutter, donate items to charity, and otherwise reduce your belongings to the basic necessities. It’s a hard task, especially if you’re particularly sentimental over memories attached to your stuff. 

Letting Go is about that process, giving you a room to clear out and telling you the story behind each item as you choose whether to trash it, keep it, or give it away. You can only take 10 things with you, and the room is packed with items, so you need to be picky when it comes to choosing what to keep. It’s almost therapeutic, and developer Little Moon Games did a great job capturing the feeling of leaving things behind and moving on. 

Living for Plants

Created by developer Shawcat in just five days, Living for Plants is a gardening sim that challenges you to keep plants alive and thriving. I’ve never had particularly green fingers; every plant I’ve ever had has perished and ended up as compost, so games like this are perfect for anyone, regardless of gardening skills. 

With no actual objectives outside of tending to your plants, you’re a skeleton without worries as long as you’re playing. No pressure, no time constraints, just you and your plants. You can sell those plants for a profit once they’re finished growing, allowing you to buy more, or you can get attached and keep them as friends. The choice is yours. 

Goose World

I love hidden object games. I don’t know what it is about them, maybe they take me back to my childhood spent hunting for Wally (Waldo, for my American friends), but I will never tire of hunting for objects in a crowded scene. Goose World is just that, hunting for items in adorable worlds filled with equally adorable geese. 

Each level is themed around a certain time of year, with Halloween and Christmas getting their own dedicated images to hunt around in, and there are no objectives outside of finding all of the hidden objects. It’s not even particularly difficult, like some hidden object games I’ve played in the past, so you can relax and get spotting without fear of frustration. 

Kabuto Park

Kabuto Park is all about catching bugs in the wild and then using them to compete in bug-based sumo-esque competitions to win money. That might not sound too relaxing or cozy, especially if you’re not a fan of all things buggy, but it’s adorably cute and developer Doot has done an amazing job bringing this tiny world to life. 

I’ll admit that I’m cheating a little bit here, because the only the demo is available to play in-browser, but it’s still worth playing to see whether you want to fork out for the full game. You can purchase upgrades to unlock new areas and beef up your insects to make battling easier when the time comes. 

Love Letters

As someone who has more than my fair share of anxiety, it’s always nice to see my fears and frustrations turned into a video game mechanic. It makes me feel seen, and Love Letters is all about social anxiety, particularly around those that we may find attractive or have hidden feelings for. It’s developed by Nozomu Games, and it is completely lovable.

The mechanic is simple – circle letters to create sentences for our shy main character to say to their love interest. It’s a little challenging, especially as levels progress, but the evolution of the relationship and their encounters are utterly adorable, reminding me of my teenage years when even looking at my crush felt like the end of the world. 

Snug

Have you ever looked at your suitcase as you prepare for a vacation and imagined it as a game of Tetris, trying to figure out the best layout for your items that maximizes how much you can fit in the bag while taking up as little room as possible? No? Just me? 

Well, Snug is essentially that premise turned into a video game, developed by CookieCrayon. It’s like the reverse of Unpacking, trying to fit a seemingly impossible number of objects into a small space. The hand-drawn objects are affected by gravity, so you need to start at the bottom and work your way up, being mindful of larger items that might not fit and smaller items that could possibly fill a tiny space.

Coffee Shop Clues

Coffee Shop Clues is a cozy game that’s perfect for the Fall season. Developed by Sip Up Games, this adorable little coffee shop simulator challenges you to come up with the perfect hot beverage for a selection of characters, based only on the clues they provide in their descriptions of their wanted drinks. And yes, you can recreate the Fall staple that is the Pumpkin Spice Latte… Sort of. 

Can you help the ghost feel more full-bodied? Or soothe the scratching of the hay in the scarecrow’s throat? There’s a beverage for everybody, and you get three attempts to make the perfect brew using the ingredients at hand. With a perfect Fall aesthetic, Coffee Shop Clues is an adorable little cozy hit. 

Cozy Crunch

One of my favorite things this time of year is the browning leaves that fall and go crunchy on the sidewalk, and Cozy Crunch is all about that. Best of all, you’re a cat free to explore the forest, leaping on crunchy leaves to earn bits that can be used to upgrade your abilities. There are secrets to find, and endless joy to be had just by jumping on the leaves. 

Jobblesack Games has done an amazing job of capturing the feeling of Fall and all the joy of crunchy leaves in this gorgeous little pixel adventure game, and it’s easy to spend hours just pouncing and upgrading. I cannot get enough, and all without a download. Perfect.

Granny’s Gotcha

While all of the games on this list can accurately be described as cozy, Granny’s Gotcha is probably the only one that can be described as a little bit odd, but that’s what makes it so fun to play. Brought to life by Joscco, it’s all about a grandma with a purse full of candy, willing to give it out to children rather than answer their most basic of questions. 

The inside of Granny’s purse is surprisingly complicated to navigate, full of obstacles and the wrong types of candy that will get in the way if you let it. You need to move the candy around to reach the right one, as specified by the demands of the children queuing to get their hands on your boiled sweets and lollipops.