State Of The Bear

Hello everyone. This is not a political management spinoff game with Bears (although..), but it is an update about Bear and Breakfast and the team of people behind it.

I’d like to start by apologizing for the radio silence. We’ve been focusing on health related things that have left us kind of physically and mentally exhausted. It’s been a while since we’ve told you what’s been happening with the team and Bear and Breakfast, so it’s time to rectify that:

TL;DR about the team:

We’re doing okay. Our Art Director, Ioana’s been undergoing treatment for breast cancer for the past 8 months and will soon go through surgery, followed by radiation therapy. We are currently cautious, but hopeful.

TL;DR about the game:

Work on the free update we announced some time ago is still ongoing and we’re doing our best to have it ready to ship this year. We have a couple of smaller, but special announcements (not update related) coming up sooner, in probably less than a month.

That’s the quick summary. If you’d like to know more about the situation, here’s a few more details:

The Team

In case you missed it, a few months ago we announced that our Art Director Ioana has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer. Stage 4 means that the cancer is not isolated to just its point of origin, but it has also spread to other parts of her body. In her case, it spread to two of her bones. It was devastating news, especially for Ioana, but also for myself and the rest of our team.

Since our last update, she has been steadily following the treatment provided by her oncologist and is feeling okay. Early signs are positive and indicate the treatment is at least partially effective, which has recently prompted her doctor to recommend surgery and radiation therapy. Ioana is now preparing to go through that surgery in a couple of weeks and her recovery will inform our next steps. In short, we are cautious but hopeful that things are going in the right direction.

The Game

Work on Bear and Breakfast has been slow, but relatively steady. Our support team (thank you Tass) and Andu have been keeping tabs on bug reports, as well as tinkering away at the update. In general, working on the game has been a good excuse to not think about health stuff.

Our plan is to release it for free once we’re happy with the amount of content and testing we can get done.

Here’s a sneak peak at some of the new content as well as the new more sandbox-y game mode:

And here’s a list of frequent questions we’ve gotten:

FAQ

When’s the game update coming?

Later this year.

What’s gonna be in it?

New Story Content, picking up where the original game left off
New Areas, New Hotels, New Furniture and New Characters
A new and more flexible sandbox style Game Mode
It will be available for free on all platforms where you can currently find the game

Why is it taking so long?

Small team dealing with major health issues, causing slower development.

Why not just hire more people?

That was the plan until we got the bad news.

When the game launched, our core team consisted of me (game/studio director), Ioana (art director) and Andu (lead programmer) as the three full-time employees (plus a handful of contracted members, which are invaluable to us and the game, but were not permanent team members). We were looking to expand the core team, keep updating Bear and Breakfast as well as start working on our next game in tandem.

Ioana’s diagnosis meant that both her and myself, two leads, were suddenly unavailable, or at best, unreliable. Hiring new people in this environment would be irresponsible, as well as unfair to any new team members, who would need to be onboarded and who deserve a proper manager and team to work with.

What’s next for the team?

Step 1: Kick cancer’s ass.

Step 2: Make more bear stuff.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit and make many more games for years to come.

Anything Else?

Well, yes, since you asked.

We have two small non-update related announcements coming soon, possibly of the merchandise variety. More on that real soon.

One last thing

Before I go, I wanted to give a short but very sincere Thank You for the frankly inconceivable amount of support you’ve given us since the day we announced our little bear game. We are now able to take this time and care for ourselves and our loved ones because of your support. It means the world to us. We want to keep making more and better games, and it’s because of you that we’re able to even entertain that possibility in our future, even under these circumstances. We keep pushing forward.

Thank u, love u

- Rares from the bear team