Finally, I sat down with the tremendous Bear & Breakfast, a game I’d wanted to try since last year. Now, my personal quest has resumed with a plunge headfirst into this BEARY good game. Here are my thoughts on all the vast building and crafting systems, quests, and exploration features that make this game so good. Not to mention the fantastic hand-drawn woodland setting and the game’s humble (and hilarious as it were) creatures involved. This review was played on PC. It is also available on Nintendo Switch.
First Impressions of Bear & Breakfast
There are certain things about Bear & Breakfast that make it a game that is just fine as a cozy indie. This game has some rather hilarious things to discover too. It takes ALL the bear tropes and just hugs them all together with some relaxing gameplay. Note that in the woods, starting a bed and breakfast with a bird, a wolf, and a woodchuck is not squeaky clean. In fact, GARBAGE is your currency. But it’s full of clean, wholesome fun. Personally, I find this whole theme totally charming. Not in just “ooh another cozy game” charming, but I mean really, it’s a cool game and I laughed out loud many times reading the dialogue. Please bring your sense of humor to Bear & Breakfast because it’s wry, dry, and fly.
I thought that the way the story opens was stark, but it soon turns into a fantastic adventure with great storytelling and picks up quite nicely after learning some basics of the game. You’re suggested to talk to a strange-looking shark costume person/robot/thing camped outside a pawn shop truck to take up the task of turning a dumpy old shack into a bed a breakfast. It’s totally absurd and I love it. The game progresses with full interaction from the player. You collect crafting items and build new items for your bed and breakfast through quests and plain experimentation. This is very similar to the game APICO, a bee-keeping sim many of us played last year.
Features of Bear & Breakfast
This game is humongous. I could see myself dumping WEEKS into it on either PC or Nintendo Switch crafting and improving every little side-system in the game. I will say that there is A LOT of READING. This isn’t bad–actually, the dialogue is super hilarious and high quality. I LOVED the characters, especially Hank the bear and Will the bird. I wish I hadn’t taken so long to try it, because it could have been great–wait, never mind, because it still is great!
After learning many of the features of Bear & Breakfast, the music disappeared, and the game went into a sort of focused mode. I was navigating between areas to unlock quests and encountered many new paths in the game. Considering the game has amazing graphics, sound effects, and interaction: the price is right on point. (It has gone on a few sales since release, but is priced for content.)
I think if you’re a fan of games like The Sims or Stardew Valley, you’re in for a treat with Bed & Breakfast. I found this game totally delightful conceptually, and I think it’s a nice break from the usual ideas as farm sims players love. If you have a sense of humor, a love for bears, and crazy plans, go for it.
If you’d like to play this game, it is available on Steam or Nintendo eShop. No idea if it has plans to head to Game Pass or Humble Choice–anything like that–but wouldn’t that be amazing? If you liked this review, please have a look at some of my other articles, like the ones suggested below. Thank you so much for reading Mr. Dave Pizza, and have a BEARY good day! ????
