Teddy's Haven

Would I recommend this game to other players? <Yes or No>. Black or White. For me, a recommendation for this game doesn't fit into strictly black or white. It's a "Maybe." I personally like the game, but I do not have a single friend who would like Teddy's Haven. I like relaxing games. I got bored with the constant bombardment of combat-first games almost thirty years ago. I'm an older player, I have a lot of patience, and cozy or casual games are pretty much the only games I play anymore. For now, the game is too limited in scope. The player doesn't get to design and build a shop; you just manage it. You can knock a wall or two out to make it bigger, but that quickly becomes more expensive than Elon Musk's entire space program. It feels like the developer doesn't want you to change things around. The playable world is tiny, so there isn't much to explore, and what there is to see can be seen in its entirety from just above the shop. So each day you gather some resources, spend time restocking your shelves, and then either open the shop and check-out a long line of customers, or you start doing things that people do when they are insanely bored out of their minds... like rearranging your fruits and vegetables by color... or alphabetically. The premise of the game is great, but it is a long way from what it is now to what it has the potential to become. The developer of the game seems better than most: he's talented and has a good imagination. And he actively updates the game regularly. I hope he has a lot more content up his sleeve than what we see at the moment. I will wait for it because I'm a patient old fart with nothing better to do. Bottom line is this: if you like slow and easy paced casual/cozy games, this one might be for you. If you want immediate rewards seasoned with fast action and edge-of-your-seat suspense there are at least a billion games like that already. You shouldn't have any trouble finding one. My compliments to the developer for doing something different - or at least, different enough :)

Played demo, thought it was cute. Bought the full game, binged 14 hours in one night. This game is adorable. Cute little creatures, lovely art style, and wonderful self-contained little setting. I was legit surprised with each new event and the character introduction; to the point of saying "Yo, wtf. That's sick" several times. Gameplay loop is pretty typical of supermarket simulators. However this has quaint little farming and crafting mechanics that keep it ongoing and interesting. At 14 hours of gameplay I feel I've seen most, if not all of the gameplay loop. But I still have a few more hours to go to unlcok all the upgrades, and I'm happily spending that time designing my perfect little market getaway. Performance is fine, however I do have a 9800x3d and 32gb ram. Cute, chill, and comfortable. Would play again.

I do like this game, it's beautiful. However, after playing for quite a while there is just some tiny things that makes me not want to play anymore. Specifically the crafting - I love a good crafting but having to autofill each and every one of them every single day is exhausting. And it's not just a click and done, no, you need to go grab the stuff, then go to the machine holding the correct stuff, then clicking the machine and holding your button for what feels like forever, and then repeat that times 50 if you want some decent crafting. I appreciate how you eventually automate most things, but the most annoying thing in the entire game is unfortunately unautomatable. Without this, I would give it a solid 8/10 and a recommendation. But while this is still unaddressed, 4/10 and can't recommend in its current state.

This is such an incredibly sweet, charming little game. Despite still being quite early access and still a bit rough around the edges, you can really tell just how much love was put into this game, for both the game itself and its namesake. I have seen others lamenting its bare bones and minimal gameplay loop, which is slowly being added to, and I will admit, the core gameplay is quite simple, and may prove to be too simplistic for some. However, to me, that's part of its appeal. I work a very mentally taxing job, and when I come home at the end of the day, I often have very little cognitive capacity left. This game is perfect for that. It is simple and relaxing. I don't have to think about day/night cycles or running out of time or stamina in the day or worry about dying when wandering into the wilderness to gather materials. I don't have to worry about customers getting angry with me for being too slow when bagging items and counting out change-- which can easily be automated, but I choose to do it myself. I don't have to worry about maintaining a good reputation, and don't have to worry about potential bad reputation harming my business. With this game, I feel like I never truly *need* to worry about anything, and it is just so refreshing at the end of a long, tiring day. But I also recognize that such low stakes may not necessarily be appealing for everyone. Not needing to worry about survival or be cognizant of day/night cycles may make the game not stimulating enough for some. The game does lack significant challenge, with the only real challenges being saving enough money to expand your shop or decorate as you please, and that may not be enough for some people. But to me, the game itself isn't necessarily *about* challenge. It's about finding a moment of peace and relaxation and a space to simply *be.* Is it totally perfect? No, of course not. Does it have everything? Certainly not; multiplayer is a hugely requested feature and personally I would love to be able to decorate and play around with my house in addition to my shop. I would love to be able to craft more things, like weapons and clothes and brew my own potions. The game is in early access for a reason, and so I do my best to allow for as much grace there as possible. Significant updates are slow both due to a very small dev team size and the main dev's health. But updates do come, even if a bit on the smaller side and less frequently. Do I recommend this game? Yes, but not necessarily to everyone. People who want their games to be more mentally stimulating or have higher stakes will probably not like this game, or will enjoy it at first but quickly grow bored with it. But if you're a player who values relaxation and exploration and is okay with taking things a little bit slower, this game is absolutely for you.

A "cozy game" that's actually cozy: creative freedom for decorating; cute visuals and coherent design; open-ended goals; positive, affirmational dialogue; fun and light sense of humour; some fun rewards for going out of bounds; regular-ish random events... And fishing! This game has got it all! It's not perfect, but it's a real labour of love, and that love practically oozes out of it. When I found out that the dev made it to honour a beloved pet, it all made sense - I know how it feels to have so much love left over and nowhere for it to go. I'm glad it went into a game like this. What a great legacy for what must've been a great boy.

This game is very cozy. You can clearly tell that a lot of love and care went into making it. I like how it doesn't have too high of stakes which makes it even more cozy. It perfectly scratches that itch in my brain that says make the numbers go up. I'm very excited to see where this game goes next, what content gets added etc Thank you dev for making such a relaxing experience :)

There are some things I love about the game. I loved that there was no world timer. When I first started I spent the entire day running around the map exploring and harvesting things. Then I went back to my shop. When you start selling the shop is on a timer. (You can not end the shop timer early and you can not save and exit while the shop is open. The shop opens for 10 minutes.) Customers looking around at a wide variety of products actually reduces your income and shop exp for the day. I just spent hours getting goods to sell and the game mechanics punish me... There is no way to sell off excess goods, with out waiting for a lot of 10 minute shop days. There is some crafting, but it is very janky. You can mine ore and create metal ingots, but you can not create weapons. Weapons are in the game and you can only buy them from the book wizard. You have tons of food products, but you can not cook anything. You have thread and wool, but you can not make clothing. The game gives you tons of potions to sell, but you can not craft any yourself. The dev clearly copied ideas from other shop games, but did not think about why those mechanics exist in that game. Shelf stocking is a common feature in other shop games. This mechanic is used for time management and usually rewards the player with shop exp, money or reputation, if you can keep the customers happy. There are no rewards in this game, only punishments. If a shelf empties as a customer is walking to it they just walk away with out buying anything. No waiting. Even if you stock the product 1 second later, the customer walks away. The game has bagging and change for customers. In other games this is often part time management with a reward system. Checking customers out quickly can improve your shops reputation and increase future customers. This game has no rewards. The customer will sit and wait till you check them out, but this blocks the arrival of any new customers. Don't worry the dev also included another mechanic to get around this bad game mechanic. Fun fact: even if you end the day and come back the next all of the customers will still be there wandering your property. They must really need your products. Fast travel sucks. You can teleport home, but you have to use janky zip lines to travel away from home. (People can use magic to teleport and shop, but you get ziplines...) Unreal Engine's weather effects make it very hard see the zip line tips, which have to be manually targeted... The ziplines have a very awkward slow down as you near your destination, making lots of short distance zip lines unpleasant. Very Generic The game has a lot of 3d assets jammed into, but over 90% do nothing. A lot of the shop items are color change skins. (Most of the crafted items are just color changed skins.) The animal models do not mesh well with rest of the game. You have very random dinosaurs added to the game. I would prefer more fantasy creatures, but perhaps the dev got the assets for free... Cows look like they just got probed by aliens. It feels like a lack luster cash grab. I highly suspect the dev has abandoned this game. No real updates for a while. (New 3d assets do not count since I am fairly certain they are just purchased from a third party.) Created an almost empty DLC to raise funding for game expansion and then shortly after released a brand new game... (Most of the janky elements of the game do not need tons of money to fix, just time and attention.) P.S. the community are jerks :) P.S. the dev is a jerk Banned me from the forum and deleted my post after 6+ other people started harassing my post. Here is a copy of my starter post and the ban: "You have been banned from Teddy's Haven Community Hub You have been banned from Teddy's Haven Community Hub by a Teddy's Haven developer for your post in "Teddy's Haven General Discussions": The sales/customer mechanics clash with the cozy vibe. 1.) Shop exp comes from customer count. -This game mechanic encourages players to setup a register next to the portal and only sell one item, so they can cycle customers as quickly as possible to level... not very cozy or fun. 2.) Customers have a fixed amount of money. -Reinforces that the individual customers do not matter. You make more money (and exp) by selling a single high value item and sending them to the portal. (I can make over 8k in single day with this method... I earned much less when I tried to run a larger store with tons of products.) 3.) Stocking, Bagging, and Checkout are not fun. -These mechanics are not fun. They are used in other shop games, but these games use them as part of a timer system to rush players to make profits and keep customers happy. Anything rushing the player does not feel very cozy to me. That said, I do have some ideas that I think would make the game more fun and not force a radical amount of changes to the core loop. SUGGESTIONS START 1.) Customer count for the day is locked. (No timer only x# of shoppers. Time moves naturally as customers finish shopping.) 2.) Customers come to the store with a shopping list. -The more list items you complete, the more shop exp you get. -The store gets bonus money for completing batches of the list. (i.e. % boost to earnings for every 5 list items completed) 2a.) Customer shopping lists get bigger as your store grows. (Shop level, shop size...) 3.) Dump stocking, bagging, and check out. I am sure that the helpers can be used in other fun ways, like crafting, fishing, smoking in front of your store while they should be stocking the shelves... SUGGESTIONS END Thank you for your time and your effort into this project. You have a good foundation, but I would really love to see it polished into an fantastic game. Have a wonderful game... day :) Ban Reason: Repeated personal insults, inflammatory comments, and antagonistic behavior toward other community members after multiple disagreements. Criticism and differing opinions are welcome; harassment and personal attacks are not. While this ban is active, you will not be able to post or comment in the Teddy's Haven Community Hub or upload new content to this community hub. If you believe this ban was issued by mistake, please contact Steam Support. This ban will expire on Sep 29 @ 9:48pm. Until then, you will not be able to post in Teddy's Haven Community Hub. " In the dev's defense I did imply that he was scamming people in my final post. So I can see why he wanted to delete it. (If he really is scamming people, even more so :) He must really not like my review. After I updated my review with data, he issued this: Ban Reason: Repeated personal insults, inflammatory comments, and antagonistic behavior toward other community members after multiple disagreements. Criticism and differing opinions are welcome; harassment and personal attacks are not. While this ban is active, you will not be able to post or comment in the Teddy's Haven Community Hub or upload new content to this community hub. If you believe this ban was issued by mistake, please contact Steam Support. This is a permanent ban. I guess he is scamming people and really does not want to risk me talking in the forums again... Is it ethical to ban someone from your forum because they give you a negative review?

I don't know how, but this feels like a game that was made with so much love. You don't need super fancy UIs or dynamic models and animations. It's just so ... lovely. When I was exploring, I had a brief moment of panic when I saw dinosaur looking animals ahead, wondering if I missed a combat tutorial. No! Pet the dinosaurs for some scales. They even give you little hearts! And when an entire flock of ducks strolled into my shop to purchase potions? The best. I haven't played very long yet. I was going to play for awhile but I got so relaxed that I actually feel calm enough to head to bed. I really really REALLY recommend this game. It's just so good in the purest way.

the game is kinda bad after the cozy façade wears off. it's a boring slog with little innovation. and don't even get me started on the performance issues