Oct 3, 2024Indie Highlight
Hell’s Gate Cafe is an adorable little restaurant management game that you can play for free right in your browser. You play as Baabette, the cute little Baphomet-like character as she’s stuck in Hell. It’s not a fun place to be, at all, and your options are limited. To leave, your only choice is to open up a cafe, earn soul shards, and open the portal out of Hell!
So, you do just that! Run your surprisingly cozy little cafe every day in order to earn soul shards. Purchase items like coffee beans and dragons to roast those beans. An octopus who makes cookie and donut dough will help you serve even more fun treats. Then, interact with the cast of fun characters in Hell’s Gate Cafe as they show up in your cafe. Serve them freshly brewed coffee and fresh baked cookies. Even talk to some of them to learn their stories. Satisfy them, and they’ll pay you in money that you can use to buy more upgrades, but they’ll also leave you precious soul shards! Can you make it out of Hell?
Release Date
You can find Hell’s Gate Cafe on itch.io right now and play for free!
Jul 31, 2024Reviews
Thank you to Broccoli Games for a copy of this lovely game!
Coffee Caravan by developer Broccoli Games is a wholesome and cozy cafe management game. Think PlateUp!, but with a pastel color palette, you only serve variations of coffee, and there are difficulty levels that affect the whole game. Start your coffee-making adventure with the smallest trailer and basic equipment. Serve a variety of different customers in order to earn money. And experience an enjoyable, but sometimes challenging cozy game with a roguelite element!
This charming game puts you in charge of running your very own, albeit tiny, coffee shop. You start your journey with the smallest trailer possible and with the basic necessities like coffee beans, a grinder, coffee pot, sink, and cups. As you complete levels in Coffee Caravan and earn money, you’ll be able to access the shop to buy upgrades to your equipment, new equipment and helpful items like counters, and add more coffee recipes to your list. If you successfully complete a whole run from start to end, you’ll receive a larger trailer, too! Plus, there are decorations you can buy that offer useful buffs and you have control over how your kitchen, seating area, and decor is set up. So, organize the kitchen to best suit you, and serve some coffee!
I love everything about Coffee Caravan. No, seriously. The start menu is relaxing and easy to navigate. The background music is chill, but upbeat. I enjoy the pastel aesthetic and the faceless character design adds a charm to the game. Being able to select recipes, organize my space, and decorate is a lot of fun too. The choice of easy, normal, and hard difficulties is perfect for different days. Some days I want the easy game, some days I prefer the challenge of hard difficulty. So, I have a save slot for each one!
What I’d never thought I needed was a roguelite element to my cozy games, but I love how it plays out in this one. No game will play the same as your roadmap will be different each time. And how you choose to play one map may differ from how you play others. The unique way Coffee Caravan lays out level choices adds freshness, too. You can choose from a laid-back level, or maybe visit the shop. Unless you prefer the challenge of a more hectic day, then choose that one and then hop on over to a bonus stage that might reward you with a new item, extra money, or even be a chance at another shopping spree at the shop. Or you’ll earn new customers or conditions to play through.
Overall, it’s a great little single player game. Play on whichever setting you prefer, and experience an ever-changing game with fascinating roguelite features. There’s also tea service you can unlock, and coming with the free summer update is ice cream! It’s a perfectly cozy game, or make it as challenging as you want, if you prefer that. Coffee Caravan really aims to provide a varied gameplay experience and they achieve that! I can’t recommend this game enough to the casual gamers out there.
I give it:
You can find Coffee Caravan on Steam now!
If you’re looking for more reviews, check out the one on Rusty’s Retirement, Minami Lane, and Times & Galaxy for a few different game ideas!
Jul 4, 2024Indie Highlight
Happy Sheepies by developer Berker Games is an adorable and cozy sheep farming sim. Kick back and relax with its simple drag and drop gameplay as you take care of your herd of sheepies. They’re your most valuable asset, so caring for them and keeping them happy is important! Feed them crops you’ve harvested, offer them water to keep them hydrated, and they’ll reward you with wool and milk.
Use what your sheepies produce to craft different items at worktables. Make things like cheeseburgers and leather jackets, or one of the other 150+ items to make from recipes. Use the different workbenches and some fun automation tools in Happy Sheepies to increase production, which will increase profits. And every 3 days, sheepies will want to breed. More sheepies means more profit, too! Plus, there’s no enemies to fight off, so you can simply take care of sheepies and make money in a relaxing environment!
Happy Sheepies is releasing on Steam July 8th. That’s just four days away! Add it to your Wishlist now to get notified of its release.
Prefer llamas? Check out Wish Upon a Llama!
Jul 3, 2024Snack Size News
Grab three of your friends and dive into an exciting co-op cooking and restaurant management experience in Biotech Gameworks’ Kebab Chefs – Restaurant Simulator! In this fun simulation game, you are in charge of a whole restaurant and everything that involves running a successful one. Design, cook, and serve customers to rise to the number one kebab shop spot!
Grab the eye of potential customers with inviting designs and interesting decor. Customize the outside sign board to suit your restaurant’s style while also attracting new patrons. Use decorations, wallpapers, dining tables, and kitchen appliances to set the mood inside your eatery. Go for a traditionally cozy feel or a modern sleek design, or whatever else you like!
Learn to cook numerous tasty dishes in Kebab Chefs, too. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and your diners will enjoy the options. So, learn how to make soups, appetizers, main courses, and deserts from all over the world. Then decide on the menu you think will best suit your customer base. Cook each dish to absolute perfection in order to earn the highest possible income. Work together with your friends to better achieve this goal, too! And when your day is over, head to the pub to chill with your friends to chat, listen to music, and play games to unwind after all your hard work running a restaurant.
You can find Kebab Chefs on Steam now!
Fruitbus and Yum Yum Cookstar are both really cute casual cooking games!
Jul 3, 2024Indie Highlight
If your favorite part of life sim games is filling in the different collections for places in town like the library, aquarium, or museum, then Museum Keeper by developer Red Thorn Interactive might be perfect for you! In this cozy exploration game, you get to build your dream museum from almost the ground up. Located in a small town, the museum is the town’s shining hope for an economic revival. So your job is to get that museum up and running to attract tourists and revive the town!
You have total control of how the museum turns out as you get to decorate the place to your heart’s content. You also get to staff it, choose the exhibits, and go hunting for the artifacts you’ll display! Go exploring the underground where you’ll find artifacts based on real life historic artifacts found around the world. Engage in battles against monsters who want to stop you from your research. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for museum thieves, too! You’ll encounter them in Museum Keeper and they’re determined to make money off the valuable artifacts you display. And get to know the quirky cast of townspeople as they come visit you or you visit them. Each one has their own unique interests that draw them to the museum.
Museum Keeper is currently listed on Steam where you can add it to your Wishlist. There is no release date available, however.
May 1, 2024Indie Highlight
Coffee Caravan by Broccoli Games promises an engaging coffee shop management experience. Become a barista in your very own tiny coffee shop on wheels. Immerse yourself in 3D, pastel-colored environments as you design your shop, brew up tasty coffee recipes, and serve your customers. Plus, explore the world through a road-trip type adventure, where no two journeys are the same!
Start the game in a small caravan where you hand-place your equipment to ensure the perfect set-up for you. You also get to choose your coffee recipes for the day in Coffee Caravan, which allows you to cater to your customer’s tastes! Use that money to buy new, more efficient appliances to make your business run smoother and faster. You can even buy decorations like trees, lampposts, flowers, and more to beautify your seating area. There are also different coffee recipes you can buy and experiment with to create the cozy coffee empire you always wanted!
The most exciting thing about Coffee Caravan now is that Broccoli Games announced that the game will release May 20th! That’s just a few weeks away. Then you get to experience the cozy wholesomeness of running your own tiny coffee shop. Until then, add the game to your Steam Wishlist and check out the demo, which has quite a few levels for you to play!
Apr 17, 2024Indie Highlight
Leave behind your old life and settle into a charming town by the sea to run your tiny bookshop in Tiny Bookshop by developer neoludic games. The picturesque town of Bookstonbury-by-the-sea is ideal for your little endeavor. Explore the tiny town to get to know it and its inhabitants. Discover the stories of the quirky cast of characters as you become a beloved member of the community. All while running your mobile bookshop!
Tiny Bookshop is a cozy narrative management game, so the focus is running your cute bookshop. Keep a stock of different genres of books that suit the different tastes of the community. Even collect second-hand books and decorations to make your shop inviting. Your decorations and collected items do affect your sales and new mechanics to the game, so pay attention and experiment! You also get to travel around the town with your bookshop instead of being stuck in a single location. This makes getting to know the town and the people easy. Where you go each day, how you interact with people, and what items you bring along all affect how the story unfolds. Choose wisely!
Tiny Bookshop is listed on Steam, where you can add it to your Wishlist. There is currently no release date, though.
Book of Hours has you playing as librarian in a mysterious bastion of knowledge.
Apr 4, 2024Indie Highlight
There’s something so satisfying about playing restaurant management sims. Managing the decor, the employees, food options, and customer satisfaction without the real life clean-up is so much fun. But what if you had to deal with difficult workers and had to fend off disasters? Well, Recipe for Disaster lets you experience both! The game expertly captures the fast-paced, drama-filled environment of a professional kitchen. Build and decorate your dream restaurant, build your own menus with recipes you’ve created, manage staff, and satisfy customers!
Assemble your perfect restaurant using intuitive built-in tools. Design the layout and decorate with furniture and decor to create your ideal environment. From plants to lamps and lanterns, fun table designs and wall textures, you’re able to create whatever type of restaurant you want. Hire staff from a pool of people. Consider their traits and skill levels to gather a competent staff. You need to manage their mood and stamina levels to avoid breakdowns and poor work ethic. Recipe for Disaster also lets you assign each person to a specific task. They may or may not enjoy that task, so shuffling workers around may be necessary to find balance. Even use the recipe editor to freely create your own recipes, but remember that the customer is always right, so your recipes may need to be adjusted to suit their tastes or even allergies.
Recipe for Disaster is available now on Steam!
This game reminds me of Restaurant Empire II in the management sim-type similarities. However, I think you should try out Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!, too!