Beastro

I was too good at slamming my clam, now my friend won't slam clams with me anymore. Outside of the jokes: This game is sorta mixed for me. I love the aesthetics, I enjoy the characters, but the gameplay loop is kinda... 'eh'. Both searching for ingredients and the cooking minigames seem to be the 'cozy' portions of the game, but I personally found it repetitive and annoying to do them. There's even minigames during the card card fight sections and they feel equally tedious. Overall, I'd say it was an interesting experience. Despite being somewhat bogged down by unskippable tedium, I would recommend this game, what follows after this is my genuine feedback on what took me out of the experience, and I'm only posting it with the thin hope that the developers will see it. My enjoyment of the game mostly came down to designing dishes/decks and running through that section of the game. Granted, at a certain point, it's just a snowball towards success, but I sorta liked getting powerful and broken. By the time things are going smoothly for you, the game is over, and that's kind of a bummer. [b]Point 1: Expenses[/b] The 50 currency it takes each day to scan the water for what fish are there is sorta pricy at the point you get it in the game. In addition, the ingredients you can purchase from the merchants are egregiously overpriced. By the end of the game you're getting maybe 600-750 currency a day, and single item purchases can cost 80-150 each. One particular meal takes two of the 150 currency ingredients plus additional ones to make. It's crazy, there's basically no reason to go to the merchants besides seeds, and outside of that, most of the time you're putting that money towards upgrades. [b]Point 2: Day/Night Ingredients[/b] It might just be me being impulsive, I may not even need all these items, but at a certain point it becomes a bit painful to run around town searching for things. The grubs are the biggest pain point, given the night grubs are all relegated to a single area, while the daylight ones are spread far and wide through the town. The dough was a bit rough with this too, but I didn't see much use out of that, so it wasn't as bothersome. [b]Point 3: Minigames[/b] After the first few times doing these, they don't feel particularly fun to do anymore. I know there's an "upgrade" to alleviate some of the burden but it comes far too late and only lets you skip one part of the cooking process. I honestly wish I could just skip that step in the process entirely. There's more I could say, but those were my biggest issues. The cozy side of the game kinda took me away from the fun side of the game, and a lot of mechanics felt like (pun fully intended) they needed more time in the oven.

Gra jest na pewno urocza, spokojna i nie wymagająca dużej zręczności. Oczywiście, posiada elementy minigrowe, podczas przebiegu godzin otwarcia restauracji. Uważam, że nie wymagają one dużych zdolności, a są proste i nieskomplikowane. Krojenie warzyw - ćwicz refleks. Gotowanie w garnku - ćwicz dokładność. Smażenie - ćwicz precyzje. Pieczenie - ćwicz równoważenie. Tłuczenie - najlepsza minigra na upust emocji moim zdaniem. Dodatkowo, podoba mi się rougelike przygoda marionetkowa na końcu każdego dnia. Uważam, że postacie i potwory są bardzo ekspresyjne i podobają mi się ich grafiki - podobne według mnie stylistycznie do Slay the Spire, z tym że dochodzi do rozgrywki mechanika koła żywiołów: odpowiednie smaki, ze sobą współgrają lub gryzą(balansują). [ SPOILERY ] [spoiler] Historia świata jest straszna, zawiera elementy wyginięcia całego gatunku bronią masowego zniszczenia. [/spoiler]

Beastro is a delightful genre fusion of cozy games, card games, roguelights and some light sim game elements. The world of Beastro has a magic system derived from the 6 flavors: Sweet, Spicy, Salty, Sour, Bitter, and Umami. Long ago a remnant gate was opened and ravenous monsters poured into the realm. The guardian Flambe fought valiantly to close it but at a great cost. Recently another portal has opened and while Flambe tried to close it they found themselves to weak and decided to retreat to far away village of Palo Pori. As the game opens you assume the role of Panko, a sous chef in Palo Pori, who is thrust into a greater world after the guardian Flambe collapses near their garden; recently the head chef at Panko's restaurant goes missing and she must carry on running the business with help from Flambe. As you tend your garden, fish and gather ingredients to prepare at your restaurant Panko discovers that food she prepares with assistance of Flambe's flames imparts magic to the caretakers that are trying to close the remnants. The gameplay of Beastro involves three phases: Prep time, Reservations & Restaurant, and Ventures. Prep time is where Panko gets to engage in many of the cozy game elements like gardening, fishing, foraging and shopping for ingredients. These ingredients will later be used in the Reservations & Restaurant's phase to set a menu for your patrons. After engaging in some light cooking mini games and serving your patrons you will prepare a special meal for the caretake who has tonight's reservation. Each ingredient you place into their meal will become a card in their deck for the Venture phase of the game. The Venture phase takes place later at night after the restaurant has been cleaned and closed. You will go the community center and have the caretaker from tonight's reservation recant the story of their outing earlier that day. This is where the deck you crafted earlier will come into play as their is a perspective shift for the player that sees them guiding the caretaker through an overworld map. As you venture across the map you'll encounter ravenous monsters from other worlds. Combat is resolved through a trick taking game utilizing palette based magic system. Higher cards will when the trick and defeating these monsters let you harvest their parts for new ingredients. The better the ingredient the higher number that is associated with it for combat. The combat has nice nuances where players need to match or balance the monsters card that is played. Balancing cuts the monsters number value in two. Lastly, right before the combat resolves the player can discard complimentary flavors to boost the power of the number on the flavor card they played. It's not the deepest cards-as-combat system but it's little nuances give it enough staying power to carry you through this short games story. I found Beastro's story writing to be earnest and adequately entertaining and it's delightful blend of game mechanics carried me through the game's short run time.

The routine of this game's 3 phases of gameplay is a great way to reach a bit of a zen state after a long day. I think each phase is full of just enough mechanics to make them all interesting to go through, but if you play too long of a session the ingredient-gathering can get a little repetitive. I usually only play for an in-game day or two at a time to avoid any of that though. As a tip for some of the mini-games, make sure to check if it has both a timer and a maximum number of attempts; I've had a few times where I've focused so much on the timer that I didn't realize I was wasting all of my shots on misses. Story-wise, there are great hooks for both the ongoing story, and the setting's history. The fact that one of the first lines of dialogue implied that someone's actions lead to the loss of a whole flavor got me invested in figuring out what was up with that, and the character as well. The majority of plot progressions comes out at well-paced times across the progression through the combat parts of the game, though that can cause an issue if you get a bit stuck on a boss for a while due to your meal prep not covering everything you'd need for them. All-in-all a fun experience, especially for those that enjoy cooking games and bringing people together through meals.

This was not the game I thought it was going to be... I expected a bit more from the deckbuilding/card-fighting. It was cute though, both the story and the style of animations. The gathering got a bit tedious, even with the end-game option of paying to no longer have to wander the village yourself. I had beaten the game with every character before gathering each type of ingredient or even doing the whole of the book with things to complete, I had to intentionally try to faint or use the caw-bell several times to 100% the book and achievements. Even so the whole of the game was fairly well done, so if you like a simple game and come just for the cute animations and mostly relaxing music you'll probably enjoy this.

great little game, heavily underrated

Lovely little game full of charming characters and an interesting gameplay loop. Conceptually I really like the idea of upgrading your "base" with the spoils from the night's dinner rush, and building your deck with what you feed your hero. I feel like while I didn't dislike how short the game was, it didn't encourage much exploration either. I didn't travel through any of the adventure areas more than necessary, which resulted in me unlocking the base automation on my penultimate day. A lot of finale felt a bit rushed, and I wish that there could've been a post-finale infinite day system, as I left a lot of things unfinished, but didn't feel the need to go back to since the game was over anyways. I still think this is very much worth checking out if you enjoy the cozy cooking or simple deck building genres.

Like all great things in life, it's only problem is that it's too short, though the price point more than compensates for that "flaw". But a remarkable little game nonetheless, clearly made by people with refined taste! /chef's kiss