TL;DR: Since my first list blew up more than I expected (turns out a lot of you are also cozy-gaming-on-iPad people, hi, welcome), here are three more cozy iPad games that are currently the best in my opinion and I've been playing on repeat:
- Lake Coloring, still my go-to coloring app and journal, because apparently once wasn't enough to convince you all
- Is This Seat Taken?, an indie logic puzzle game where you play matchmaker seating very interesting people; cozy, silly, and weirdly satisfying
- Elnea Kingdom, a farming and building game that gave me full-on nostalgia for RuneScape if you also played that as a kid
So, part one happened, and I did not expect the response I got. So here's part two. Same rules as before: slow, pretty, low-stakes, nothing that asks too much of my brain after 6pm; because that's when I usually grab my iPad and glue myself to the sofa.
1. Lake Coloring
I know I already talked about Lake in part one, but it deserves a spot here too, because I've been leaning more into the coloring journal side of things lately, picking a drawing based on my mood almost every evening. It's become a small ritual at this point, somewhere between journaling and doing nothing, in the best way.
Lake is a coloring app for iPad and iPhone with gorgeous illustrations from independent artists, a huge range of styles from simple to intricate, and a mood-based palette generator that somehow always gets it right. Still working there, still obsessed, no notes.
There's also a new feature since I last wrote about it: you can now import your own drawings into the app and color those too, which opened up a whole new world for me. I've been importing little sketches and even some coloring pages I've bought online, so it's not just limited to the app's own library anymore.
2. Is This Seat Taken?
This one is a little different from the usual cozy-game formula, but it scratches the exact same itch, low stakes, weirdly satisfying, impossible to explain without sounding strange.
You play matchmaker for groups of hilariously particular people, figuring out who can sit next to whom without setting off someone's very specific pet peeve. A party guest with a sensitive nose won't sit next to someone wearing too much cologne, a sleepy passenger can't nap next to someone blasting music, and so on. Every setting, the cinema, a crowded bus, a wedding reception (my favorite!), a cramped taxi, brings a new cast of characters with their own quirks to work around.
There's also a surprisingly sweet story running through it all, following Nat, an aspiring actor who spots a shape just like themself on the big screen and goes on this whole journey to find their hero and figure out where they fit in. It's silly and puzzle-y on the surface, but it ends up being genuinely charming underneath.
3. Elnea Kingdom
Okay, if you were anywhere near RuneScape as a kid, just trust me on this one.
Elnea Kingdom is a farming and building game with that same slightly nostalgic, low-poly, cozy-medieval aesthetic that immediately took me back. You build up your own little kingdom, farm, craft, decorate, and slowly expand your world, no combat pressure, no timers, just steady, satisfying progress.
It has that same "just one more task" pull that RuneScape had back in the day, except now it's fully guilt-free cozy-game energy instead of something I was supposed to be doing homework instead of. If you ever miss that specific kind of nostalgic, chunky, world-building game, this is basically that feeling, distilled and made cozy.
