Bear and Breakfast Critic Reviews

Bear and Breakfast offers players a pleasant collection of activities, interlaced with a wholesome story and loveable characters in a whimsical nature-filled world.

This is a game all about making your business pop off and maybe befriending a colorful critter or two along the way. I would have liked to discover that the spookier narrative elements amount to something more, but the enjoyable management sim that I found instead kept me pleasantly entertained for hours, offering plenty of creative challenges for me to puzzle my way through, all in the name of making the cutest set of bed and breakfasts there's ever been.

Bear and Breakfast is an in-depth management sim that is all too easy to enjoy for hours on end. There’s plenty of quirky humour alongside an unfolding story filled with mysterious undertones, gorgeous 2D graphics, and classic genre goodness.

Despite this handful of shortcomings, Bear & Breakfast offers exactly the experience most players will be looking for with the title: the ability to play as a cute bear managing quaint bed and breakfast establishments in the woods. Players can continue to complete challenges for their resorts outside of direct story progression to earn rewards like clothes for Hank that add hours of additional gameplay to the title, and can spend as much time as they like making their resorts the perfect experience for guests. Bear & Breakfast is an incredibly cozy game that manages to capture the best strategic elements from the management simulation game genre while still staying true to its intended tone.

Bear and Breakfast offers up a delightful world, engaging strategy mechanics, and a heart-warming story. While it may not be an overly complex game compared to classic strategy titles in the genre, it’s an incredibly relaxing and wholesome gameplay experience. If that’s your jam, Bear and Breakfast shouldn’t be missed.

The game does not shine with its idea or the technical implementation, but creates an atmosphere that lets us forget everyday life for a few hours.

Barring these minor user interface issues, Bear and Breakfast was a joy to play. It doesn’t do anything revolutionary for the genre, but it successfully carves out a niche by perfectly matching its tone, gameplay and narrative. Bear and Breakfast accomplishes exactly what it set out to do, it’s a charming little management sim that doesn’t take itself seriously. It might not be for everyone, but I think a lot of people will find joy in this wholesome project.

Bear and Breakfast is a sweet and straightforward management sim that opts for a laidback approach rather than an intense experience.

Despite some of the game’s flaws, Bear and Breakfast is a game I didn’t know I needed in my life. It’s charming, funny, and an addictive experience. I struggled to pry myself away from it because I kept wanting to up the values of my properties and work through the quests. While some of the drawbacks are disappointing, there’s a lot to love about this game, as there are great rewards that will keep the player coming back. Bear and Breakfast is a wholesome game that will give you all the cozy vibes from start to finish.

Whether your guests’ stay is pleasant or not rarely makes a difference, so the management elements feel like stepping stones to the story Bear and Breakfast actually wants to tell. Hank is a sweet Bear and his friends are memorable enough, but in its storytelling the game seems to introduce and abandon characters for long periods of time. It is a simulation that requires patience in a genre that usually gives players loads to do – it’s a management game that’s obsessed with managing its players, rather than letting them exercise control.

Bear and Breakfast is a unique management sim with memorable characters. Roleplaying as a bear who flips abandoned old B&Bs is unexpectedly entertaining. The dark, existential humour somehow manages to make a depressed turkey feel relatable. But I suspect the game will be much more enjoyable to play once the kinks have eventually been ironed out.

Though aimed to be a ‘laidback’ management game, stripping the expected nature of the busy genre inadvertently makes Bear And Breakfast a restless experience. The Valley is otherwise brimming with colourful and unmet potential, where its inhabitants lie at the heart. Had Gummy Cat utilised them and your combined effects on the world further, instead of pushing you towards an almost singular path of running your bed and breakfast chain, Bear And Breakfast might’ve been an unmissable summer stop for rest and refreshment.

I really wanted to like Bear and Breakfast more than I did. It isn’t a bad game, it’s just lacking the polish that could make it exemplary. With some simple quality of life improvements like faster movement, and cooking and crafting from the box, we could have a much smoother game on our hands. As it stands, it’s a little too jarring — much like waking up at one of the rooms I built for my visitors.

Sadly though, I couldn't find any satisfaction in either the building or the exploring. Everything is just so on the rails. Want to go off and do your own thing? No, silly bear. You're not clever enough to do that. First you need to prove yourself by fetching 10 sprigs of sage. There was none of that satisfying management game feeling where everything was slowly expanding and working and coming together. I longed for the freedom to ignore everything that all the rude asshole characters were demanding of me, and disappear into the wilderness and start a new life. A wilder, more open life where my choices mattered and I couldn't predict what the next day's work would bring. But no. There was no breaking free from the well-intentioned but suffocating bear hug.

There’s a lot to do in Bear and Breakfast, a lot of story to unspool, and a lot of different characters to meet. You’ll pick up tons of trash and serve food to the humans that threw that trash on the ground. You’ll put down carpets and hang photos on walls, install plumbing and hire someone to fuel your fires.