Store Page
Cozy Grove
All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

Cozy Grove

Store Page
Cozy Grove > Guides > Just a dog's Guides
99 ratings
How to "time travel" without changing the system clock
By Just a dog
A guide on how to change the clock only for the game, without having to change it for your entire system.
To accomplish this we'll be using RunAsDate by Nirsoft - This utility doesn't change the current system date and time of your computer, but it only injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application by intercepting kernel API calls - https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/run_as_date.html
5
7
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
Created by
Just a dog
Online
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
10 Apr, 2021 @ 12:38am
10 Apr, 2021 @ 12:48am
4,034 Unique Visitors
100 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
1. Pre-requisites 
2. How to setup RunAsDate to work with Steam 
3. How to use RunAsDate 
4. Additional Notes 
Comments
1. Pre-requisites
2. How to setup RunAsDate to work with Steam
  • Step 1. Copy the RunAsDate files over to your Cozy Grove game directory (you can find it by opening the game properties and selecting browse local files)



  • Step 2. Make a backup of RunAsDate.exe -> just copy and paste to make a copy
  • Step 3. Make a backup of CozyGrove.exe -> just copy and paste to make a copy



  • Step 4. Rename the game .exe - CozyGrove.exe to CozyGrove.orig.exe
  • Step 5. Rename the RunAsDate.exe to CozyGrove.exe (this is so Steam knows to launch RunAsDate instead of the game, otherwise RunAsDate gets bypassed and doesn't work)
    You'll end up with .exe files looking like so:



  • Step 6. Open a cmd prompt in your game directory or change directory to the game folder then run the following command:
    mklink /D CozyGrove.orig_Data CozyGrove_Data

    Example:


    You'll see the following result:


    We're making this symlink to avoid the following error without having to actually rename the game directory (which would completely break game updates):
3. How to use RunAsDate
  • When you launch the game through steam you should something like see this:


  • Click Browse and point it to the CozyGrove.orig.exe
  • You can use relative time with a setting of 0 to run with the current date/time
  • Or change to absolute time/date in the future to alter the time
  • Note that going BACK in time can result in savefile corruption (due to corrupted quests/disappearing items) according to the developers, so it's advised to only move forward in time
    https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/1458100/discussions/0/3172198151255226961/
  • Click on Run to launch the game
4. Additional Notes
  • If the CozyGrove.exe ever gets changed to the original game .exe (due to patching or running verify game files) repeat steps 2-5.
  • Just use the backup copies we made in steps 2&3 - that's what they're for (and don't forget to make fresh backup copies)
  • The game .exe doesn't seem to be patched during regular updates so far, so I don't think this should happen very often - but I'm not certain.

27 Comments
< >
AnnaK 29 Jan @ 2:59pm 
THANK YOU. I had a lot of trouble with Step 6 because of Power Shell and admin privileges. I had to piece together a few things from the comments but it worked when I opened Power Shell and typed "cd / d [Cozy Grove Directory] then the mklink command.
Just a dog  [author] 16 Oct, 2024 @ 3:44am 
In the end there should still be a file named CozyGrove.exe in the Cozy Grove directory.

In Step 5 RunAsDate.exe is renamed to CozyGrove.exe in order to ensure there is still a file named CozyGrove.exe
TheComfyMoth 7 Oct, 2024 @ 11:38am 
I followed this guide step by step but when I Opened the game through steam it said
An error occurred while launching this game : Missing game executable -
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cozy Grove\CozyGrove.exe
luckz 7 Jul, 2024 @ 6:12am 
Win+R is faster than Win+X -> R :3:

So:
press Win+R -> type "cmd" (without any ")
now you can enter commands like the 'mklink' ones
Just a dog  [author] 1 Jul, 2024 @ 12:50am 
In powershell you should be able to type cmd.exe and press enter to open the cmd shell before following the other steps such as making the symbolic link.
Another way would be to double click the cmd.exe from the C:\Windows\System32 folder
I often use Win + X -> Run -> cmd
Darthford 17 Jun, 2024 @ 10:54am 
I really don't know, I have Windows 11, I don't know if that tells you anything, even so I have 0 knowledge of this, could you tell me what to do?
Just a dog  [author] 17 Jun, 2024 @ 10:50am 
Ro_V.92 per chance are you using a powershell prompt?
mklink is part of the cmd.exe shell. In powershell it is also possible to create symbolic links, but the command to do so is different.
Darthford 16 Jun, 2024 @ 12:09pm 
Unfortunately, when I try to make it work I get the following

"The term 'mklink' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again."
the_ecips 19 Jan, 2024 @ 8:09pm 
Dayum! Thank you so so so much! Works like a charm. I quit playing the game because I don't like when games tell me when to play (with progress in this case) because I don't have the time 24/7. This made me finaly try and finish the storyline. Thank you!
fish-29 8 Sep, 2022 @ 2:59pm 
didn't work for me :(
did everything step by step from this guide, upon launching the game through Steam a window popped up says something about unable to launch the game due to missing files and seconds later it automatically recreated the original cozy grove file(639 kb) under the game directory and relaunched as a normal version