Cozy Summerween Games and Activities for a Spooky Summer

Summerween is not just a reading list. Some nights the spooky season mood hits and I do not want to pick up a book at all. I want to run a cat grocery store, or match up a manor full of ghosts, or color a chubby skeleton at the beach while a storm playlist rolls in the background. That is allowed. That is the whole point of this season. It’s to try to slow down.

So here are some of the cozy Summerween games and activities keeping me company between reads. A vampire life sim, a witch survival game, a ghost matchmaker, a genuinely serious cat mart empire, plus some analog activities. Low stakes, high comfort, a little bit haunted.

If you came here for the books instead, they are right this way in the Summerween reading list. If you came to play, then keep scrolling.

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Cozy Summerween games

These four are my spooky season rotation right now. If you want some of the cozy games I keep coming back to all year, especially in a reading slump, I have a whole cozy iPad games list for that too with plenty of free options you can play on your tablet.

Moonlight Peaks

If Stardew Valley moved to a gothic little town and let you play the vampire, you would get Moonlight Peaks. You settle into your own haunted cottage, farm mystical crops by moonlight, raise magical livestock, and befriend or romance the local werewolves, witches, and mermaids. It’s now available on PC and Mac via Steam, Nintendo Switch and Google Play Games.

I started to play the demo version last month and really enjoyed it. You can customize your little vampire, it has a beautiful purplish vibe and it’s overall very cute. While it seems a bit less smooth of a start than a game like Heartopia was for me, it’s definitely beginner friendly. Also, quick note that I play using my keyboard and it’s been fine so far, even though the game setup suggests to use a controller. This is cozy with a set of fangs, which is exactly the Summerween energy I am after.

Witchspire

Witchspire is the witchy one. It is an open world survival game where you play a novice witch, ride a broom over forests, bond with little familiars, and build a magical sanctuary of your own, solo or in co-op with friends. It is in early access on Steam for PC only right now, so expect a few rough edges, but the storybook world feeling is hard to beat on a slow witchy afternoon. Little more pain in the butt because I have to drag out my husbands’ PC for this one.

Love, Ghostie

Love, Ghostie is pure serotonin, especially for romance readers. You are a friendly ghost haunting a manor, and your entire job is to play matchmaker for the adorable residents (a frog prince, a spacey polar bear, a walking talking plant and more) and set them up until love blooms and your matched residents move out. It is short, wholesome, endlessly replayable, and every single pairing works, so you cannot get it wrong. On PC and Mac via Steam, and on Nintendo Switch. The most low-stakes haunting you will ever do.

I’ve been obsessed with this one and once I start, I’ll be there for hours and get a boost in mood when the pairings start to work out and the residents make connections, friendly or romantic, and their mood and self confidence improves.

Cat Mart

And when I want zero spooky and maximum comfort, there is Cat Mart. This is your cozy iPad game where you run a grocery store staffed entirely by cats, expanding from a humble corner shop into a full supermarket while your kitty employees stock the shelves and work the register. Not remotely spooky but perfect for summer, which is the whole point.

You gotta harvest your ingredients, sell them and even make products with them. And honestly, sometimes you need the cozy without the haunts. One honest heads up with this one: the free version runs a truly excessive number of ads, enough that I ended up paying to remove them, and it was worth every cent to turn it into a smooth, actually relaxing experience. This on works for iPad or Android

Cozy Summerween activities

Not everything needs a screen. When I want slightly spooky cozy I can hold in my hands and unplug, these two come off the shelf.

Murder Among the Stacks

For the no-screens crowd, Murder Among the Stacks by Rosie A. Point is a word search book with an actual plot. It is a Cranberry Creek Word Search Mystery: fifty puzzles that double as a cozy bookstore whodunit, so you are solving the word search and the murder at the same time. It is perfect for the porch, the beach bag, or a wind down evening away from a screen. Bookish, cozy, and a little bit deadly, which is a very Summerween combination.

Grab it on Amazon and my favorite fineliners

The Spooky Summer coloring book (and permission to color badly)

Last one, and it is my favorite non bookish Summerween ritual: coloring. The Spooky Summer Cute & Easy Coloring Book by Southern Lotus is exactly what it sounds like. Chubby ghosts on pool floats, cats riding jack-o-lanterns, skeletons at the beach, all of it cute, all of it easy. No intricate mandalas, no pressure to make anything gallery worthy.

Grab it on Amazon and my coloring pencils pack

Here is my whole coloring philosophy, take it or leave it. You do not need the fancy 72-pack markers, and you do not need one ounce of talent. Twelve cheap pencils and forty quiet minutes is a complete and legitimate hobby. I keep a small basic set of Prismacolors nearby, because the supplies were never the point. The point is coloring a ghost in a swim ring and letting your brain go quiet for a while. That is a perfectly good way to spend a Summerween afternoon.

And if you would rather color on a screen, I am still hooked on Happy Color, the color-by-number app from my cozy iPad games list. I have been using their coloring page a day so I don’t even have to make an effort to look for what I want. Same brain-quieting magic, zero pencils to sharpen. So physical or digital, the permission is the same: it does not have to be good, it just has to feel nice.

However you Summerween

Summerween is a mood, not a to do list. Some nights it is a dark romance and a thunderstorm. Some nights it is a cat working a cash register or you color a skeleton at the beach. Both count, and neither one is doing it wrong.

When you are ready to go back to the books, don’t forget the whole Summerween reading list is waiting, sorted by exactly how spooky you want to get. And if you want to make a whole season of it, come play along in our summer reading challenge. However you Summerween, do it your way.

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