Note: Since playing and while writing this review, a small content update was released for the game, I address this in a later paragraph with an * but having not played since the update I can’t comment on it too much. This review is focused on gameplay and any unchanged fixes prior to the update.

Management games can be a tricky thing to get right. Even if you’re given a satisfying level of freedom when designing and running a business, the nature of tasks, demands and requirements that define the genre can often lead to tedious, even stressful gameplay. Removing the challenges would most likely result in a dull experience, so it’s difficult to know how laid-back a game about running hotels should be. Bear and Breakfast seems to hit that sweet spot, for the most part, and ends up being a rather enjoyable title, but not without its faults.

You play as a dozy yet lovable bear named Hank, who, at the request of a corporately owned shark robot, works to bring humans back to the valley he calls home. As the title would imply, this is achieved by setting up hotels in derelict areas you’ll come to unlock and explore. Along the way, Hank interacts with an eclectic cast of animals and humans alike, who all have their own opinions about the masses coming back. Recurring themes of environmental issues, human interference with nature, and self-indulging businesses are all exquisitely layered between cute and often hilarious characters and dialogue. The interactions and quests given by the locals fit perfectly alongside managing hotels, however, there’s an element of the story which I have mixed feelings about, but I’ll come back to it later when discussing the game’s epilogue.

There’s some generous breathing room for how you go about designing your establishments, meaning that your hotels will end up looking drastically different compared to other players. To truly succeed, you need to meet certain criteria, such as comfort and decoration, so that guests are satisfied and will leave a good review. You’ll gain the furniture to do so by crafting (using materials found around the valley), or from Took the Racoon, who sells you decorative items from a bin in exchange for litter that guests leave behind, a gameplay mechanic which I think is genius. With sites that progressively get larger, more challenges are presented when designing a suitably laid out building. As you venture into colder regions, heating becomes another factor to consider, alongside others like hygiene, food availability, and special facilities like a bar, cinema, or lounge. You’ll need to choose where to put the boiler rooms, bathrooms, and dining areas needed to fulfil these criteria, while also considering the maximum amount of bedrooms you can fit into the floor plan to maximise profits. Eventually, you get to hire some of the characters you’ve met to ease the load, and manage the ever-increasing demand from guests.

From collecting the previously mentioned litter, or managing the heaters in the late-game hotels, these hired hands make elements that would otherwise grow tiresome, a lot nicer to manage. One of the earlier characters on the payroll is (the particularly handsome) Gus, who once you’ve fed some egg dippy, will automatically book guests in for you, a feature which is nice to have once you’re managing multiple B&Bs. Disappointingly, you’ll never see him or any of the staff physically working on-site, which would have been nice as a lot of characters like him are forgotten about later in the game. This makes sense, as some have a more prominent role than others, but sometimes the characters that you’d assume have more play in the game’s story, actually don’t. Hank’s two best friends (The cat and bird in the cover image) begin the story alongside him but are then heavily absent until the epilogue, which feels like a wasted opportunity. Not just story-wise, as Hank’s only real recurring friend, is an old lady he’s just met (who does have a rather interesting character arc), but I think gameplay-wise, they could have acted in some kind of support role, helping if the player is stuck on a particular task or just checking in with Hank as he progresses through the game. 

I spent hours meticulously designing and then redesigning layouts of my hotels until I was happy with what I’d created. While the outcome often left me feeling satisfied, the janky user interface was often taxing when spending extended periods using it. Small things like having to place an item into your inventory before being able to trash it, menus that operate differently from one another, and not knowing how to delete doors that are left behind (It’s just the delete button btw) are all irritating but not substantial enough to ruin the enjoyment. What can ruin the enjoyment, however, are bugs that cause these menus to either be stuck on your screen, not respond or not open at all, requiring a game restart. This happened quite a few times throughout my 25hour+ playthrough and I’m hoping it’ll be fixed in a future patch but is for now pretty annoying.

Other bugs that are present range from small to actually impacting in-game success. Toilets are mysteriously locked with nobody in them as guests get frustrated outside, which thankfully doesn’t reflect the guest scores. I’ll enter one area, only to be teleported out the other side into a completely different one, and look that’s not too bad, but I’ll tell you what is: some mystical force that decides to stop the food services in my hotels, despite having the money and staff to do so. I have no clue why, when all the sliders are saying ON, I have to toggle each of these or I’ll get complaints from guests. The whole point of having Julia prep food is so you don’t have to constantly check the food supply but with this bug, I never managed to escape that process.

While bugs aren’t intentional, I do have quite a few, individual “design gripes”, which I may as well just list in this paragraph (there are a few so feel free to skim this paragraph). Early on, there’s a lot of downtime, as you wait to be able to skip the night, this is because once you’ve run out of money, you have no means of acquiring more until the morning comes. This is especially strange when all the items have a monetary value in your inventory, but cannot be sold. You don’t know if certain characters have quests for you until you venture out to check each one, which towards the end of the game happens quite a bit. Levels of furniture make sense progression-wise, but it leaves you with few options later on when it comes to things like beds, where certain designs are superior stats-wise. There are so many options with the cooking portion of the game, but I doubt anyone playing cooked anything complex unless it was for a quest, which makes me question why they added such a vast catalogue of recipes. On the subject of recipes, later on, you’ll manage hotels with multiple buildings, but to meet food requirements you’ll need to have a dining room in each individual building, which seems practically wrong. The game sort of just ends, with no real, final task. Underwhelming but I guess it didn’t take away too much from my experience. This last one is gonna sound ridiculous but, when you use the fast travel buses, for some reason they decided to accompany each use with a high pitch squeaking bus noise which just… I hate it. I can’t explain why I do so much but I prepare my ears each time it’s about to happen, and that’s not something anyone should have to do. 

Getting back to that narrative problem I was mentioning earlier. When you start up a new game, Hank awakens from a mysterious dream featuring a dark shadowy figure… Spooky, yes, but the next time anything to do with that dream comes up is after you’ve completed all the hotels, and essentially beaten the game. This very, very, minimal teaser eventually picks back up as the post-game questline, and despite feeling very out of place, is pretty cool stuff. Not to spoil too much, but it involves higher beings in the form of animal gods and offers some answers to questions raised at the end of the game’s understated main storyline. I think my issue with it is how tacked on to the end it feels, despite how well it links to certain events in the game’s world. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, it just doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the game’s pretty grounded and laid-back vibe.

In conclusion, I know it seems like I’ve gone quite hard on this title, but that’s only because there are a lot of small things to point out. An upcoming announced update is something I’m very interested in because it seems Gummy Cat are going to do something about selling items or something similar, (*They added recycling which is also a good fix, but might not help with the downtime I previously mentioned) I however, played this game prior to any of these problems potentially being fixed. Again, I know I’m complaining a lot but I do think this is the right type of casual business sim. The game is a well-balanced mix of challenge and creative freedom when it comes to hotel design, and its playful cartoon art style lends itself to tackling deep narrative points in a unique and clever way. The adventurous and inviting soundtrack makes extended design sessions feel momentary, and the interactions with characters all succeed in immersing yourself in Hank’s world. Despite some odd choices along the way, Bear and Breakfast is an enjoyable time, and with updates on the way, might end up being one of the more unique management sims out there.