Review of Bear and Breakfast – a house in the mountains with a bear on top

When the first guests arrive at your shabby hotel, an unpleasant surprise awaits them at the reception. They run around in fear because a smiling but still stretched out bear is standing at the door. However, once he just puts on a cap and trousers, everything is fine. This is Hank. He may make weird noises and has paws instead of hands, but he’s a good guy with big plans. He decided to lure people into his valley. These pink, soft creatures love to litter and scream in the forest, but they have one amazing thing: money. And since they are completely defenseless, they will definitely need a place to stay for the night and, possibly, breakfast.

Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch (review version)
Publication date: 15/09/2022 (on Switch)
Developer: Marmalade cat
Publisher: Armor games
Genre: construction simulator
Czech localization: No
Multiplayer: No
Download data: 1.8 GB (Switch version)
Game time: 20+ hours
Price: $19.99

Bear and Breakfast, a game about building cottages and guest houses, has been around for a year now, but it still somehow eludes us at the editorial office. Having reached this point this year, we decided to remember the unobtrusive, but at first glance pleasant and relaxing name. What was this experience really like? Relaxing may not be the right word.

Grouchy hotelier

At its core, it’s a classic construction management simulator, but it’s packaged in an unexpected box. As expected, your goal is to build one housing after another and move on to new and new maps, where more and more new challenges await you. One time you build a classic wooden cottage with rooms for undemanding tourists, the other a more luxurious establishment where guests expect a better breakfast than just tea made from a bunch of herbs found in an inhospitable place by the side of the road. But you do all this like a bear who is not quite a private wizard.

Hank would love to attract human visitors to the valley and restore the glory of the park, which was damaged by fire in the past. But he doesn’t have wealthy investors, a Bitcoin machine, or the world’s know-how. So he collects firewood and stones from the forest, and his raccoon friend, who lives in a container, supplies him with equipment for his initially not very nice rooms. He gradually becomes involved with a variety of other supporting characters, such as the junkyard rat mafia or a lonely bus driver, who assign him other tasks. All this with humor, skillfully balancing on a fine line between funny whimsy and childish awkwardness.

There are a lot of cute details associated with it. For example, your human visitors litter constantly. In the bathroom, in your room, among virgin nature. You (logically) have to collect them, but in the end you are happy with such slobbering rodents – the garbage works as a special currency for which you can get, for example, a lamp for the room from your raccoon friend.

Hunting for positive reviews

But property management is not only fun, but also hard work. What you’ll finally find out in this first game from Romanian studio Gummy Cat. The more guesthouses or motels you have, the more guests you have. And their expectations are gradually increasing. At first, a shower in a wooden bathtub may be enough for them, but gradually they will get the hang of it and want more. To receive a five-star review, you must meet all of their requirements, which you can view in your room reservation requests. But each of your businesses is located on different maps, and you’ll have to travel between them, which can get quite tedious over time, especially if you’re playing on Nintendo Switch, where moving and loading individual maps takes a lot of time. time.

Overall, the Switch’s controls aren’t the most user-friendly either, and it takes a while to get used to what each button does. At the same time, “The Bear and the Breakfast” seems to be created for portable mode – the title is beautifully drawn, with a not too complex plot, and its cycles are perfect for a short game when you are traveling on public transport or have a free half hour. After dinner. It’s reminiscent of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing in a few ways, although it doesn’t offer as many options for customizing hotels and decorations, for example.

It’s still clear that this is not a game from a huge studio with a generous budget. You can find out, for example, by a not very pleasant decision when the developers did not make their game very open. You will be able to gain access to various gadgets or room equipment only after completing many tasks. The game distributes its content sometimes slowly and is not “endless” like the two games mentioned above. But it has nice graphics, likable characters, and can be turned off very easily.