My favorite part of Ale Abbey's Steam Next Fest demo is when people call me “your Maltiness”, and that's saying a lot, because the whole demo is so much fun.
Ale Abbey is an upcoming tycoon game with a twist: you are in charge of a brewery run by Catholic monks. When you arrive at your monastery, you are greeted by its bishop, who charges you with expanding “our sacred brewing mission.” Specifically, he wants you to help him build a thriving brewery that will make your monastery the most popular around. Luckily, he'll walk you through that process step-by-step through a series of tutorials, starting with setting up a desk and formulating your first beer recipe.
At this point, your options are very limited to a single type of light beer, but you will eventually be able to brew over 20 European beer styles, which you can modify with various optional ingredients to unlock special attributes. You will also be able to adjust the price, quantity, quality and mash temperature of your beers in order to keep your customers happy and your monastery well funded. Part of that involves knowing when to send your beers directly to market or store them for aging.
I only played the relatively limited demo, but based on that experience, it doesn't feel like Ale Abbey is trying to reinvent the business simulation genre. What he does, he does very, very well. The art style and animations are adorable, the simulation is deep but accessible, and the writing is hilarious… did I mention “your Maltiness”?
During my time with the demo, I happily tinkered around my monastery, rearranging furniture and decorating my living quarters and office while the monastery's monks worked on the brewing stove and fermenter. My first few beers were horrible and as a concession I priced them low enough that my buyers were at least happy with the deal, but after investing time in the Research skill tree and learning from my failures browsing brewing system, I was on my way to a thriving brewing operation.
Most of all, I love how cute Ale Abbey is. Its depiction of Catholic monasticism is fun but respectful, its characters stroll through the monastery with a rhythmic beat to their steps, and the whimsical music reminds me of the old Ultima games, which is some of the highest praise I can give. I play a ton of games that deal with the darkest topics possible, especially during the Halloween season, and Ale Abbey is the one. ideal counterbalance to all that pessimism. I would recommend it!
And now, a toast to best simulator games to play right now.