With crafting, cooking, building, and fishing, Petit Planet mimics a lot of Animal Crossing's mechanics--but doesn't take the crown just yet. In late September, HoYoverse announced its new cozy life simulator, Petit Planet. The developer behind gacha games such as Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero has never ventured into the life-sim genre before now, but from my time during its adorably named Coziness Test, it's certainly learned some lessons from its biggest competitors. Given the responsibility of nurturing your own planet, you'll plant crops, chop trees, mine stone, and upgrade buildings all while collecting fish and insects to research and display in the nearby Omni-Gallery. Sound familiar? It's true that Petit Planet mirrors a lot of Animal Crossing's gameplay mechanics, and it might just have the potential to take the crown for the coziest life simulator when it releases. There's even a lighthearted jab at Animal Crossing's Tom Nook--the tyrannical tanuki who hands out loans like candy, getting players into debt from their first moments in the game if they want to own a house. "By the stars--what've you been through in the past?" questions Mobai, your canine mentor through the initial quests in Petit Planet. "Mo worries, there won't ever be any loans." After absolutely not taking out any loans and constructing your first home, Mobai explains the gameplay loop in more detail. By expanding your planet, you'll gain access to more tools--such as a shovel for planting crops, a paint roller for changing the terrain's appearance, and a net to catch nearby insects or shooting stars. As you complete quests, Mobai will grant you gifts of Luca Water to pour on the central Luca Arbor, which then grows and adds more features to your planet. As it continues to grow, it will expand and grant Luca Fruit slots. By completing quests for your Neighbors--who are friendly NPCs residing on your planet--they'll gift you Neighbor Luca and Luca Fruits. The Luca Fruits are one of my favorite elements of the game. Using these interchangeable items, you can alter the appearance of your planet, adjusting the water to mimic a galaxy with stars and sparkles, adding crimson-tinted mountains, or placing nature-themed constellations in the sky. While the Luca Arbor's growth was limited to Level 10 during the Coziness Test, I assume this expands further when the game's full release rolls around, meaning the levels of customization could be far greater. Similarly to Animal Crossing, Petit Planet timegates some of its content, and other events are tied to real-world time. While the day-and-night cycle is faster than real life, when constructing or upgrading buildings you're often found with a slew of tasks telling you to "wait until tomorrow," for the process to be complete. During my first few days, I found this to be frustrating--Petit Planet had me in its adorable little grip, and I wanted to keep playing. While the timegated cycle will ensure more even progression across players at launch, there's no competitive element to the game so it's something that could be adjusted or done away with entirely. While there’s no indication of microtransactions for speed boosts or time skips being included in the game just yet, it did cross my mind that this could be one reason the developer has kept the timegated elements in Petit Planet. Let me grind your cozy game, HoYo. Speaking of grinding, Petit Planet has a vehicle that you can use to travel across the Star Stratum to discover other planets and collect Lucadrops. The Star Stratum is an overworld map that you can physically navigate between different Islets in your car, while Lucadrops can be used to upgrade your vehicle to travel further, or used to customize the car. There are 150 Lucadrops to be collected right now, and in my embarrassingly high number of hours playing Petit Planet across five or six days, I had only managed to collect 18 of them. The grind to upgrade your vehicle is limited, however, by the fact that you need a Lumia Battery to set off on a journey across the Star Stratum, and that journey comes to an end when your fuel is depleted--prior to any upgrades, this is only three Islets. Where Petit Planet has the potential to excel further is its community hub area, the Galactic Bazaar. While you can invite people to your island in Animal Crossing, there's a lot of frustrating processes to follow in Nintendo's systems just to add a friend in the first place. In Petit Planet's Bazaar, you can simply hover over another player and send them a friend request. For concerned parents, there's the option to turn these off entirely. Chats cannot be read in communal areas unless you're sitting at the same table, or in the same area. From there, you can request to visit other players' planets via the cell phone. It looks like there will be events added to the game at its full release, which should only further enhance the engaging experience. In the Galactic Bazaar, you can also participate in two activities to earn in-game currency and rewards. There's a dancing challenge, which is a short rhythm game for up to four players. There's also the lucky number wheel, where you can use a token to place a bet on which number you think the wheel will land on. Any players who land on the golden number will share some rewards with other players participating in that round. Rounds take place every 30 seconds as long as players have entered. There are several daily goals in the Galactic Bazaar, such as gifting a flower to another player or participating in activities, which will also reward in-game currency. There's a small coffee shop hidden away at the highest point of the Bazaar too, which has an AI-powered vendor who will engage in conversation with you--whether you’re wondering what’s on the menu or just fancy a chit-chat. AI is also used in the cellphone guide. For any information that's not immediately available, you can type the question to the guide, who will then answer it pretty accurately. In my experience, this was fairly useful, and one of the most acceptable ways to implement AI in games in a way that doesn't detract from human creativity--cough, Arc Raiders, cough--as it's something helpful that players may otherwise have had to leave the game to find out. Petit Planet's adorable aesthetic, compelling gameplay loop, and engaging characters coincide with an enhanced social experience to show real potential. If HoYoverse can use its reputable brand to its advantage and hook a similar demographic of players to the ones already engaged with its existing titles, it stands a real chance of dethroning Animal Crossing as the definitive cozy life sim.