Beastro Preview
I saw a brief preview of Timberline Studios’ upcoming Beastro at the Day of the Devs this year. I’ll be honest, though, I wasn’t sure what exactly it was about except, you know, cooking. Turns out, the game is way more than a cooking sim, blending together a cozy game, a stew of cooking minigames and a card battle game, which is either the main course or dessert, I can’t decide. In any case, I played about an hour and came away intrigued.
Serving the Heroes
If you enjoy games about anthropomorphic animals and fanciful critters, you’ll feel right at home in Beastro. You play as Panko, a chef in the little town of Palo Porti. The town is surrounded by monsters out in the wilderness and protected by a wall that keeps them at bay. You have a little companion spirit named Flambe.
Most games place the player character in the hero square, but in Beastro your task is to serve up meals for the band of town protectors called Caretakers. Because, as we all know, the people behind the scenes are the real heroes.
Each day has three components. We’ll think of them as breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the first part, Panko does cozy game things like planting seeds, harvesting, fishing, visiting with townspeople. Basically, gathering the ingredients he’ll need for the second part of the day. Next, he opens the restaurant and uses the ingredients to make the day’s dishes. During this cooking section, Panko engages in a series of charming minigames to prepare different parts of a recipe. Recipes — like the card battles — are focused on balancing different flavors.
While the restaurant is open it will be patronized by a Caretaker, and Panko has to up his game and craft meals designed to boost the stats of the Caretaker in battle. The more you cater to a Caretaker’s tastes, the better his abilities become. It’s really a clever way of connecting cooking to combat.
Battle of the Cards
The third part of Beastro is a round of turn-based combat using a card battle mechanic. Well, there’s quite a bit more to it than that. First, the Caretaker of the day recounts their adventure out in the wilds, which also includes exploration, conversations with NPCs and potentially several combat encounters.
It’s perhaps not surprising that combat has a food theme, too. In this case, cards are aligned with different flavor categories like Salty, Sweet or Umami. Points can be won or lost by balancing an enemy’s flavor cards. It’s a bit complex, a little abstract and hard to explain. With a little time, the mechanics start to come into focus.
Curb Appeal
With it’s stylized cartoon graphics and saturated colors, Beastro certainly looks the part of a cozy sim. One creative touch is that the Caretakers’ adventures and battles are presented as a puppet show. It makes sense within the aesthetic and narrative but it’s also a little static, as the characters in the show are flat cutouts mounted on sticks.
Beastro has a lighthearted musical score that’s nearly constant, as there’s no voice acting in the game. It certainly charmingly captures the vibe of the game but gets a bit repetitive. The cooking sound effects and battle are effective.
Beastro is like the best recipe, combining familiar ingredients in a surprising way. In this case, a cozy game, a cooking sim and a roguelike deck builder are stirred together and the result is a delicious stew where the flavors complement each other well. I literally had just a taste of Beastro and I’m looking forward to sitting down to a full meal when it releases.
***PC code provided by the publisher for preview***
