Bear and Breakfast

I've had my eye on this since I saw demos for it back in January. Picked it up as soon as I saw it was available. 17 hours in, and I can't get enough of this game. This is the first game in its listed genres that I've played, and it's highly enjoyable. What makes this game stand out is there's a backstory that slowly pieces together as the game progresses. At times, it feels less like a management/simulation and more like a traditional platformer. PROS: -cute and vibrant art style -catchy and relaxing music -"go at your own pace" gameplay -all materials respawn rapidly in the same places -easy-access tutorials -storage container for stashing materials and other items when not in use -highly efficient inventory organization -very sophisticated cooking mechanism -auto-saves every few minutes; progress is never lost, even when quitting the game -devs are open to feedback and provide updates quickly (the Steam page has patch notes) CONS: -no GOG achievements, only in-game achievements -inventory/bear stash loot mechanic isn't selective - for example, if you only want cooking items, there's no way to take all of the cooking items only, you have to manually drag and drop the items from the bear stash into your inventory (or vice versa). Can get tedious later on in the game -no way to recycle furniture items after they've been built into raw materials - items are categorized by level, as the game progresses, lower levels become obsolete. The only way to get rid of items is throwing them away in the inventory's garbage, but considering materials respawn very quickly, this might not be an issue for some The cons in this game are extremely minimal and don't take away from the gameplay. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for something laid back and low stress, you won't be disappointed. NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960M Intel Core i7-6700HQ Intel HD Graphics 530 16 GB RAM DirectX 12.0

It really makes you FEEL like a bear running bed'n'breakfests.

I didn't actually make it through the whole game. I got about to the point where you unlock the heater. I was hoping for a game where you focus on running a single B&B, maybe able to expand that building in different ways, have incentives to outfit cute and different styles of furnishings, that sort of thing. This game is about frantically running between multiple buildings in different areas (hello, loading screens), contorting rooms to see if you can technically get one totally non-functional corner of the room in the range of the bathroom, and stuffing every room with as many of the highest-level furniture pieces you have to get the ratings up. It doesn't feel satisfying or at all like you're really running your own B&B. Plus it looks like there's some unnecessary and kinda random larger storyline that the game really just would have been better without, IMO. So ... I didn't hate it, but I didn't much like it either. I wouldn't call it particularly cozy due to how you end up scrambling from one distant area to another doing tedious tasks repetitively instead of doing your own thing how you want to at your own pace.

explore, gather, craft, manage hotels, talk to people, etc. I was vary of the hotel management aspect but it's not too bad. good graphics and music, some narrative, disappointing ending (a few extra conversations after would've helped), rebindable controls, separate volumes, autosaves, quicksave/load anytime, putting it above 95% of farming/crafting games. no hunger, thirst or stamina, can sleep anywhere to skip nights, it isn't mandatory. skipping daytime would've been necessary too, often there's nothing to do but wait for guests to come and go and some sidequests take a while, especially random ones when you're waiting for somebody with the right needs to show up (I gave up on the penultimate one, that and the last would've been tedious even with daytime skipping). and locations are way too busy, can get stuck in rocks and trees even in daytime, even with trees turning transparent when you're behind them. some quality of life unlocks with sidequests (extra inventory, faster movement, remote guest management, etc.) but limited inventory is always bad, especially with ridiculously small stack sizes. 50 rugs take up 10 spaces, cooked food caps at 10, etc. missing quality of life includes sorting, filtering and favoriting recipes, checking them outside a kitchen, sorting and filtering cosmetic items and refilling food and fuel for heating remotely. and while completed quest subgoals get crossed out, numbers stay the same, so if it says +10 guests served, it will say +10 until it's all done, really annoying. the quest log is useless, no extra info, just a way to untrack them but luckily 5 or 6 are shown, not just the one, and others take their place if available. it's also buggy. item duplication happened on multiple occasions, got me some extra rugs, and in one session I got stuttering every single second when I was near a hotel, even an empty one, making anything that needed my presence pretty much impossible. luckily, it went away next time.

All in all, I had a great time with Bear & Breakfast; it simply oozes so much charm and personality: the art, the music, (most of) the writing and overall atmosphere is supercozy and enjoyable. It's also relaxing in the sense that, while it's a management game, there's no pressure whatsoever: you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. The pace of the game is entirely up to you. That said: while I enjoyed the game, there are some significant flaws to tolerate: B&B has a story, but I feel like it didn't mesh well with the gameplay. It starts out pretty strong story-wise, introducing several fun characters, but it quickly transitions into pure gameplay .. and doesn't really do all that much character building throughout most of the game .. then it picks back up towards the end, but it feels quite all-over-the-place there. The gameplay itself has its ups and downs: most of the mechanics are fine, but do get tedious/repetitive over time. The game remidies this by eventually letting in-game characters take over specific tasks for you, if you want. That's great, but in my playthrough it felt like these automation mechanics were introduced too late, when the task already was quite repetitive. This may be caused by being stuck too long on a couple of obscure main quests à la "Go find this thing" .. without giving any clue where to look. The ample amount of charm and personality mostly make up for these gripes, so I do recommend giving Bear & Breakfast a go! I find it works best playing in short sessions. Definitely curious to see what Gummy Cat will be working on next!