Info about The Brew Barons:

Official game description:
A tranquil world becomes ever more corrupt by the day, spoiled by a strong-armed pirate organization that forcefully impose their brewing monopoly over the lands. Armed with your own brewery and seaplane, it's up to you to explore, forage, craft, sell and deliver your handcrafted brews with aid from fellow pilots who've joined your cause to overthrow the corrupt pirate organization and restore peace.  
*   Assemble your plane from a variety of parts, each with their own traits.  
*   Chose your pilot and copilot of whom have strengths and weaknesses.  
*   Explore the world in search of ingredients to bring back to your brewery.
*   Pick and choose which foraged ingredients to blend.  
*   Distill and/or Ferment, each producing a different outcome.  
*   Design and name your bottle to your liking.  
*   Design your very own bar to sell your brews and bring fame to your establishment!  
*   With fame comes special delivery orders from other bars to stock your brew

Release date: 1 Mar, 2024

Categories: Open-World Exploration, Resource Management, Crafting, Business Simulation, Vehicle Customization, Real-time Combat, Single-player Story, Brewing Simulation


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Fun, relaxing, and engaging gameplay (weight 0.93): The game provides a relaxing and enjoyable experience with a unique blend of gameplay mechanics. It's praised for its chill atmosphere, fun factor, and ability to provide a good time, especially for casual players. The game strikes a balance between relaxation and engagement, making it easy to pick up and play.
- Charming "Porco Rosso"-esque art style (weight 0.6): The game's art style and overall aesthetic are frequently praised, with many reviewers drawing comparisons to Studio Ghibli's "Porco Rosso" and other similar works. This unique visual style contributes significantly to the game's charm and appeal, creating a cozy and immersive atmosphere.
- Extensive and impactful plane customization (weight 0.47): Players appreciate the extensive aircraft customization options, which allow them to modify both the appearance and performance of their planes. This customization extends to paint jobs, decals, and the ability to mix and match parts, enabling players to tailor their aircraft to specific tasks and playstyles.
- Enjoyable and intuitive flight mechanics (weight 0.45): Reviewers consistently highlight the enjoyable flight mechanics, praising the intuitive controls and satisfying physics. The game strikes a balance between arcade-style accessibility and a sense of depth, making it fun to simply fly around and explore the world.
- Resembles "Crimson Skies" in spirit (weight 0.42): Several reviewers note the game's resemblance to "Crimson Skies", citing similar themes and aesthetics. This comparison is a positive one, suggesting that the game captures the spirit of the beloved classic.
- Unique, less intense combat (weight 0.4): The game incorporates combat, often against pirates, but it's designed to be less intense than typical air combat games. The use of water-based weaponry and puzzle-like boss fights contributes to a more relaxed and unique combat experience.
- Engaging brewing and business management (weight 0.24): A core element of the gameplay involves brewing and selling alcohol, which reviewers find surprisingly engaging. This includes gathering ingredients, experimenting with recipes, and managing a bar, adding depth and variety to the overall experience.
- Challenging sky pirate combat (weight 0.07): The game features combat against sky pirates, which involves aerial maneuvers and targeting weak points. The pirates provide a challenge through various boss fights, including submarines, warships, aircraft, and zeppelins.
- Immersive and dynamic music (weight 0.07): The game's music is dynamic and immersive, changing based on the player's actions. The soundtrack is fantastic and blends together well, complementing the art style and contributing to the great atmosphere of the game.

Common complaints:
- Poor, distracting AI voice acting (weight 0.41): The game's AI-generated voice acting is widely criticized for sounding unnatural, emotionless, and distracting. Many reviewers found the AI voices to be a significant detractor from the overall experience, with some even stating it was a deal-breaker. The poor voice acting was often cited as being worse than having no voice acting at all.
- Frustrating, unclear boss fights (weight 0.17): Boss fights are criticized for being frustrating due to poor hints and unclear objectives, sometimes feeling like point-and-click puzzles during combat. Bosses often require hitting small weak points to deal damage, and the lack of feedback on the state of these weak spots adds to the frustration. Some players had to look up solutions online.
- Buggy, unpolished, janky experience (weight 0.16): The game is described as janky, buggy, and unpolished, with many aspects needing fixing. Reviewers noted various bugs in the menus and a general lack of polish throughout the game. Poor optimization also hinders the overall experience.
- Poor UI and controller support (weight 0.15): The game's UI and controller support are poorly implemented, leading to a frustrating user experience. Reviewers noted unintuitive menus, inconsistent button mappings, and difficulty navigating the UI with a controller. The UI is often described as clunky, unresponsive, and in need of significant improvement.
- Repetitive, grindy gameplay loop (weight 0.15): The game's core gameplay loop, particularly resource collection and brewing, is described as repetitive and grindy. Players find themselves spending too much time traveling back and forth for minimal reward, and the lack of automation for tasks like delivering brews exacerbates the issue. The bar and brewing aspects are considered the weakest parts of the game.
- Poorly designed, lacking map (weight 0.05): The game's map is poorly designed and lacks essential features, making navigation difficult. Reviewers noted the absence of route tracing, waypoints, and clear markings for important locations like bars and resource nodes. The map primarily serves as a resource index and rough location estimator, rather than a helpful navigation tool.
- Punishing crash consequences (weight 0.04): Crashing in the game can lead to significant setbacks, including the loss of progress and high repair costs. Some reviewers reported corrupted save files after crashing, forcing them to restart from the beginning. The high repair costs, especially early in the game, make it difficult to recover from crashes and continue progressing.
- Unrewarding, repetitive side missions (weight 0.04): Side missions and contracts are criticized for being unrewarding and repetitive. Some side story missions are too challenging, requiring plane downgrades, while others are pointless to redo. The pacing of side mission availability is also slow, making it difficult to engage with this aspect of the game.

Gameplay feedback:
- Brewing, flying, and bar management (weight 0.33): The core gameplay loop revolves around flying a seaplane to gather resources by shooting or bombing them, brewing alcohol, and managing a bar. Players explore islands, fulfill contracts, fight pirates, and upgrade their plane and business. The unique harvesting mechanic involves using water-based tools to collect ingredients.
- Open-world exploration and pirate combat (weight 0.12): The game is set in an open-world waterworld with archipelago islands, where players explore, fight pirates, and salvage resources. Combat involves water-based weaponry against various enemy types, including planes, ships, and submarines. Pirate bosses control resource islands, leading to conflicts.
- Bar management and contracts (weight 0.1): Players manage a bar, fulfill contracts by delivering drinks, and customize the bar's appearance. They can hire staff from pubs, track brews, and attract customers with different types of alcohol. Bars specify drink types, ingredients, alcohol content, and quality for contracts.
- Arcade-style flight with light simulation (weight 0.1): The game balances arcade and simulator flight elements, featuring simple controls and biplane aerial combat. Players manage a water-based energy bar for abilities and monitor the plane's state. The game supports HOTAS hardware and includes a first-person view.
- Plane customization and upgrades (weight 0.07): Players can customize and upgrade their planes with different parts, each having positive and negative traits. Multiple planes can be owned for specializing in different tasks, such as fighting or cargo transport. Planes are slower and resemble small GA planes.
- Pilot quests and skill improvement (weight 0.07): Pilots and partners improve by flying together and completing quests, unlocking new content and improving skills. Specific pilot combinations trigger quests that reveal their personalities. Story missions improve the crew.
- Detailed brewing process (weight 0.06): Brewing involves mixing ingredients, adding yeast, and fine-tuning to meet specific requirements like alcohol content. Recipes are found in various ways, and ingredients are gathered using 'gunnery' or 'bombing' skills. Gathering materials can become repetitive.
- Unique water-based weapon system (weight 0.04): The game features water-based weaponry, including water guns, water bombs, and water jet propulsion. These weapons are used to fight against air pirates. Enemies simply leave when they get too wet.
- Forgiving flight mechanics (weight 0.03): Flying is forgiving, and crashing results in being teleported back to base with a repair bill. Players manage basic flight elements like avoiding collisions and landing correctly. Pilots have tradeoffs that require traveling back and forth to HQ to change them.
- Collecting, crafting, and delivering (weight 0.03): The game involves collecting, crafting, and delivering items. Players island hop to discover shipwrecks and make deliveries. The game includes delivering drinks to bars on different islands based on contracts and is largely about exploration and gathering resources.
- Notoriety system and final boss (weight 0.02): The game has a notoriety system where reaching full stars triggers a final boss battle. Achieving 5-star fame forces a fight with the final boss, which is a submarine-ship-plane-airship hybrid.

Performance notes:
- Crashes and graphical glitches (weight 0.04): Multiple reviewers reported experiencing crashes and graphical glitches, such as the screen going black, which disrupt gameplay. These issues appear to be widespread and significantly impact the user experience.
- Poor optimization, low FPS (weight 0.01): The game suffers from poor optimization, particularly on the Steam Deck and in the hangar area. This results in low FPS and a less-than-ideal experience, especially for players using specific hardware or in certain in-game locations.
- Costly bugs impact progression (weight 0.01): Rare bugs can lead to costly repair expenses within the game. This can create a frustrating gameplay loop where players are penalized financially due to unforeseen software issues.
- Unimpressive ultra graphic settings (weight 0.01): The game's ultra graphic settings do not provide a visually impressive experience. This suggests that the graphical fidelity may not justify the performance cost associated with the highest settings.

Recommendations:
- Fun, relaxing, worth the price (weight 0.39): Many reviewers recommend the game, praising its fun and relaxing gameplay. They consider it worth the price, especially when on sale, and are impressed by the small development team behind it. Some suggest it's a great game for casual play or to unwind after work.
- Mixed feelings, needs polish (weight 0.29): A few reviewers express mixed feelings, wanting to recommend the game but also cautioning against high expectations. They acknowledge the game's potential but note the need for more polish and improvements. Some suggest waiting for patches or sales before purchasing.
- Appeals to niche interests (weight 0.16): The game appeals to players with specific interests, such as aviation adventures, seaplanes, or steampunk aesthetics. Recommendations are often conditional, suggesting the game is best suited for those who enjoy particular themes or gameplay styles. Some reviewers compare it to similar games like Crimson Skies or Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin.
- Potential for future improvements (weight 0.13): Several reviewers express hope for future improvements, sequels, or expansions. They see the game as a promising foundation with potential for more content and refinement. Some reviewers are waiting for updates or fixes before fully recommending the game.
- Overpriced, poor gameplay/AI (weight 0.06): Several reviewers feel the game is overpriced for its content and quality. They criticize the gameplay, AI voices, and controls, stating that the experience is not worth the time or money. One reviewer even considers it their worst purchase on Steam.
- Lacks gameplay variety, polish (weight 0.06): Some reviewers suggest improvements to gameplay variety, plane components, and enemy engagements. They also mention the need for bug fixes and polishing the flight model and UI. Despite these issues, some enjoyed the game for 20+ hours.
- Flying/management better than combat (weight 0.02): Some reviewers find the sandbox flying and business management aspects more enjoyable than the combat or brewing mechanics. They suggest the game is best played in stages, returning to it for relaxation and business building. The game is great to play in stages.
- Turn off narration/mute audio (weight 0.02): Some reviewers suggest turning off the narration or playing the game on mute. This implies that the audio aspects of the game, such as voice acting or music, may be problematic or unappealing to some players.
- Focus on enjoyable side missions (weight 0.01): The reviewer suggests focusing on the side missions that you enjoy and ignoring the ones you don't. This implies that the game has a variety of side missions, but not all of them are equally enjoyable.
- Doesn't live up to potential (weight 0.01): The reviewer feels that the game only fuels a wistful daydream of 'what could've been...'. This implies that the game has potential, but it doesn't live up to it.

Other player notes:
- Small team, passionate development (weight 0.07): The game was developed by a very small team, often just two or three people, who put a lot of passion into the project. Despite the small team size, the game is considered wholesome and well-crafted, with attention to detail in its various aspects. The team is also actively working on improvements.
- Evokes classic game feel (weight 0.04): The game's controls and atmosphere evoke a sense of classic games, with some reviewers drawing comparisons to the controls of War Thunder and the art style of Valkyria Chronicles. The art style is expected to age well.
- AI voices divisive, ethically sourced (weight 0.03): The game uses AI-generated voices, which has been a point of contention for some reviewers. While some find the AI voices to be of poor quality, others are not bothered by them, especially since the game is not heavily story-driven. The AI voices were ethically sourced.
- Unique dieselpunk/waterpunk aesthetic (weight 0.03): The game features a distinct dieselpunk or 'waterpunk' aesthetic, drawing inspiration from works like Porco Rosso. This unique visual style contributes significantly to the game's overall atmosphere and world-building.
- Aerial combat experience helpful (weight 0.02): The game requires some familiarity with aerial combat mechanics. Some players find it optimal to use a controller for flying and a mouse for other interactions.
- Brewery management and aerial combat (weight 0.02): The core gameplay loop involves managing a brewery and bar while engaging in aerial combat with pirates to gather resources. Players have suggested ideas for expanding content, such as smuggling, cold war scenarios, new locations, character missions, farming, and more complex economic activities.
- Store page vs in-game language (weight 0.02): The game's store page is in Japanese, but the in-game text is in English. More languages may be added in the future.
- Poorly advertised time sink (weight 0.01): The game may not be well advertised and can be a time sink.
- Narrative and feeling of romance (weight 0.01): The game has a well done 'good vs evil' narrative and a feeling of romance and respect for the sky and sea.
- No tech tree, freeform customization (weight 0.01): The game does not feature a traditional tech tree, allowing players the freedom to experiment and combine parts as they see fit. This open-ended approach to customization gives players more control over their aircraft designs.
- Fitting and non-repetitive music (weight 0.01): The game's music is consistently praised for being well-fitting and non-repetitive. This contributes positively to the overall player experience.
- Decent playtime, high replayability (weight 0.01): The game offers a solid 15-20 hours of gameplay, with the potential for 60+ hours for players who enjoy the gameplay loop. Replayability is driven by building different planes, perfecting recipes, and upgrading the bar.
- First and third-person views (weight 0.01): The game offers both first-person and third-person perspectives, allowing players to choose their preferred view.
- Responsive developers on Discord (weight 0.01): The developers are responsive to bug reports submitted on their Discord server, indicating a commitment to addressing player issues and improving the game.
- Day/night cycle implemented (weight 0.01): The game features a day/night cycle, adding a layer of realism and potentially affecting gameplay.
- Alcohol from fish is strange (weight 0.01): The game features the ability to make alcohol from fish, which some reviewers found strange.
- Ideas don't mix well (weight 0.01): The game has an interesting set of ideas and concepts that simply don't mix well.

Emotions:
- frustration (weight 0.15): Emotion: frustration
- disappointment (weight 0.12): Emotion: disappointment
- excitement (weight 0.12): Emotion: excitement
- satisfaction (weight 0.32): Emotion: satisfaction
- joy (weight 0.13): Emotion: joy
- enjoyment (weight 0.04): Emotion: enjoyment
- nostalgia (weight 0.01): Emotion: nostalgia
- hope (weight 0.01): Emotion: hope
- boredom (weight 0.01): Emotion: boredom}