Bear and Breakfast (B&B) is the type of game that reminds you to slow down, have a cup of tea, put on a blanket, and stew in your favorite chair for hours. The small Romanian-based Gummy Cat team delivers one of the coziest management sim experiences I’ve had in a while… and this is their first-ever published game.
B&B does not reinvent the wheel, but it covers it with a fuzzy, warm coat of fur that makes you want to visit Silver Valley. B&B shines in portraying a simple, heartfelt story with a non-preachy message of nature and climate responsibility. The game is also filled with lovable, zany, and outright peculiar characters. The gameplay is purposefully slow, low stakes, and features an addicting gameplay loop. The 2D art style and minimalist original score are beautiful and really set the mood.
There are several challenges that detract from this experience — a lack of quality-of-life features, issues with the downtime between days, the absence of an item sale system, a tendency to handhold and curtail player choices, and no DualSense controller features. Nonetheless, the overall package here is highly ambitious and successful.
Story and characters
B&B has a surprisingly simple but heartfelt story wrapped up in themes about nature and climate responsibility. You play as Hank, a brown bear with plenty of heart, naivety, and up-and-coming business acumen. Alongside a colorful cast of characters, including childhood friends Anni and Will, Hank opens several Bed (Bear) and Breakfast establishments across Silver Valley. The hope is that the “Humans” will be persuaded to come back to and reconnect with nature and the dwindling ecosystem.
The story surprised me. Management sims usually come with a light or absent story. Gummy Cat successfully weaves an apparently simple story that handles very relevant messages, done with subtleness and gracefulness. It is not preachy, and you are not hit over the head with it repeatedly. It asks questions like: “Are the “Humans” the actual pests of the ecosystem?” “Should Hank even try to reconnect the “Humans” with nature, given the present outcome?” “Are the other (talking) animals right to keep the “Humans” at bay, given their complicated relationship with nature?” “Can an ecological balance be achieved?” The game will encourage you to ponder these larger themes.
You will also meet a varied cast of characters. Hank is not alone in his endeavor. He needs the help of several funny, strange, and compelling characters. These are humans and non-humans, including Barbara, the unsuspecting human elderly lady, Charlotte, the “mean” alligator witch (you read that right, she is my favorite), Gus, the concierge opossum, and other wacky and fun characters as part of a large cast. Besides the story, this is another strength of B&B. The cast is so easy to like, to laugh at, to cringe at, and to ultimately care for.
Gameplay
Bear and Breakfast trains your relaxation muscles. It reminds you that “peace” and “take your time” are not mere concepts. The game is low stakes, does not punish the player, and the passage of in-game time does not amount to any missed deadlines. This is why I recommend B&B to casual players and fans of this genre.
The gameplay loop is simple and addicting. Hank and his friends open several establishments across Silver Valley by refurbishing rundown sites, fitting them with rooms and amenities, and welcoming guests. The end goal here is to please these guests by providing them with a greater degree of comfort and luxury than they request, therefore earning the coveted 5 star reviews, a higher prestige score, and money. The money is then used to improve the inns, as guests with higher standards will soon be appearing once your prestige score increases. Hank will also progress to new places and larger inns to rebuild and manage. Over time, more decorations as well as cooking recipes and ingredients, get added to the gameplay cycle for added variety.
B&B uses a grid and block management system for building and arranging the rooms. There is a challenge to organizing the rooms as you are bound by space and money. Amenities like bars and bathrooms further complicate things. That’s because these must be built and linked to the rooms to provide extra comfort. It is very satisfying when you figure out how to organize these items, decorations, and amenities to maximize comfort. Nonetheless, you do not have to micro-manage your guests once they check-in, so that your attention remains on running these resorts.
Because B&B has a material collection and crafting system, the inventory is central to the gameplay. However, this is where the game struggles, given the lack of quality-of-life features. That’s because the player has to scroll through the crafting menu every time a new recipe gets added, which makes it tedious when you have so many of them (and you will). More filters would have been appreciated here.
I also constantly fought for inventory space. In B&B, you can’t sell your items for money. Hank is either left with using the items, storing them in a special Bear Stash, or throwing them away. In this sense, the game does not have a sale system in place for items, which is peculiar, especially when you tend to accumulate so many items that you want to get rid of. B&B, nonetheless, has a system of exchanging trash (the other in-game currency) that you collect for decorative items. However, this makes the lack of an item sale system even more apparent.
The management sim asks you for your patience when you wait for a new day to arrive as part of its day-night cycle. The issue here is that once you have accumulated items, money from guests, and have guests booked in your inns, there is nothing left to do but wait for the game to progress to the next day. There is no way for the player to speed up this process. Hank has to wait until nighttime falls in the game. Only then can you progress to the next day. It makes the slow pacing of the game even slower.
There is also a tendency to handhold the player and curtail choices. There are plenty of tutorials during the first hours as Hank and the player learn the ropes. However, these break up the pacing quite a bit due to their frequency.
There are also limitations to where Hank can build the inns. There are no other free plots of land or additional smaller holds that Hank can choose to build on. In this sense, the game presents the player with five pre-determined resorts within different climate environments that get progressively larger. I would’ve appreciated more variety in terms of player-build choices. This would’ve allowed Hank to have a wider impact on shaping Silver Valley.
Technical
B&B features a great art style that fits this world like a glove. I commend Art Director Ioana Șopov and the Gummy Cat team for delivering a cozy, warm, and soft atmosphere befitting Hank and his adventures. The game features diverse environments, from forests to lakes to deserted highways, a ski resort, etc. The 2D art style and the character designs are outright beautiful and handled with care. This is backed by a minimalist and catchy original score that does not overwhelm your senses. The visual and audio presentation is complementary, enhancing the overall experience.
In terms of polish, the game is generally high quality. During my 10-hour playthrough, I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs. There were small issues here and there, mostly Hank clipping slightly through walls, although nothing else affected my experience. The quality of the English translation and the witty dialogue also come through as intended. The choice of camera zoom is also appreciated as I was easily able to toggle in and out to examine my environment for more materials to collect.
Bear and Breakfast, however, does not make any use of the PS5 DualSense haptic feedback and adaptive triggers to provide an additional layer of player interactivity. I think this is a missed opportunity to differentiate the PS5 version of the game from the Switch and PC versions previously launched in 2022. Effects like walking on gravel, grass, snow, weather effects, crafting, picking up materials, etc., could’ve really benefited the game and the DualSense capabilities. I hope Gummy Cat will include some of these features in future updates.
Summary
In many ways, Bear and Breakfast reminded me that taking it slow in a game is absolutely fine and even encouraged for exploration and worldbuilding. Gummy Cat should be proud of their accomplishment with this aloof bear and inn sim — a thoroughly warm and inviting low-stakes management sim with a surprisingly engaging story and a colorful cast of characters. The art style and original score work very well together to welcome you into this world. The addicting gameplay will make you stay or make you come back for more. Nonetheless, it has some limitations, including the lack of quality-of-life features, the absence of an item sale system, curtailed player choices, and the lack of DualSense features.
With that said, I can’t help but feel appreciative of the passion and effort that the developers put into making B&B a high-quality indie package, something that is so rare nowadays, especially for a first-time project. I recommend this game and look forward to more from Gummy Cat in the future. Until then, you’ll find me eager to return to Silver Valley.
The Review
Great
