If it weren’t for the swarms of technical bugs that ruin much of the gameplay experience, it would be an exceptional tycoon – deep, innovative and simply fun. [01/2020, p.52]
Crossroads Inn might not be the first medieval sim (that honor probably goes to 2011’s The Sims Medieval) and there are quite a few castle builders out there as well, but as a narrowly focused genre blend of builder and sim, Crossroads Inn stakes out some specific territory. Whether the game reaches its potential to own that little niche depends on whether the developers can squash the many bugs that plague the game and degrade the experience of playing it.
Crossroads Inn is like a giant onion. After peeling away many delicious, unique layers, you won’t escape tears and almost certainly will find a bug or two. Nonetheless, there are dozens of hours of creative fun inside.
Technical difficulties sadly sabotage what could otherwise have been an enjoyable medieval management sim. Perhaps future patches will soften up these rough edges.
If Crossroads Inn was an Early Access title, it would be one of the most promising ones in the management sim genre. Unfortunately, the team behind it made the wrong move, and decided to destroy months of work by releasing its product without first completing development. Due to the lack of any competitors in the 'medieval inn simulator' arena, some may find it easier to accept its many issues. Most, however, are advised to wait for some - hopefully inevitable - renovations.
I actually enjoyed this whole thing. Sure, it's kind of crude, has ridiculous pathfinding and general mechanics errors (although the team patched up most and I suppose they keep working on it).
Pros: the idea rocks! The idea behind mechanics and joining a story to it, also rocks!
Drawn graphics and their feel,, you go girl!
But, there's always a but. Or a few in this case: my biggest two issues are a bit non transparent ui that makes you look for stuff in all the weird places. Also managing workers is a pain.
And the graphics. I mean the 3d, it's kind of realistic/naturalistic but the topic on the other hand isn't at all + it doesn't stick with the 2d graphics. I'd probably go with some sort of caricature, or cell shading next time... The graphics as is remind me of "Banished" a low cost one man made strategy (surprisingly nice one too!)
All in all, if you like sim games, go for it (with a bit of trust credit)
If not, you will probably want to kill it with fire.
Crossroads Inn is a game that I have been waiting for for a long while. The simulation genre is a favorite of mine, and as a lover of fantasy settings, this was right up my alley.
However, the gameplay itself is clunky at best. The tutorial isn't extremely helpful, and weirdly enough, the people do not match their portraits at all. The sound is also a little funky, as you hear very loud gulps of ale and almost nothing else can be heard over that sound. Furthermore, the characters sometimes glitch out, but that's to be expected from a small company **** that just came out.
On the good side, however, there is a lot to be said. The gameplay is extremely unique for the genre. The management you have to do for your inn is very in-depth and immersive. You have to order supplies regularly, and micromanage a lot of things all at once to be a successful Inn. The music isn't too bad, although it has shotty soundtrack transitions at times. The storyline in the main campaign is actually really good and makes me want to keep playing to find out what happens. Your choices actually matter and shape the politics of the region.
All in all, there are clunky things, sure, but these can be surpassed and the game can still be enjoyed at a high level.
Advertised as some sort of semi-AAA 2nd coming of jesus christ when its just a rather shallow business manager with hell tons of bugs and glitches. Meh. Huge disappointment.
VERY buggy, Feels like Early Access, I played for 4 hours and encountered at least 10 bugs. Some minor, others major.
These include but were not limited to: staff not cleaning anything despite all rooms dirty and putting everything in cleaning on maximum priority, even closing. Staff pathing bugs, constantly walking in and out of the same room. Dirty dishes multiplying on their own in a shelf. Garden not growing randomly. Staff unable to refill candles and giving no candles error despite having hundreds of candles in stock. Staff and customers getting stuck in furniture. Game randomly crashing without any error whatsoever. Weird textbox glitches. Pathfinding in general not working as expected. I then uninstalled and wait a few months until this mess is patched.
As Early Access / Beta title I would give this a 7/10 because bugs have to be somewhat tolerated, as a full release after 1.0 this is a total disaster. Has potential though, just need to wait at least a few more month as game is clearly nowhere near finished nor has any QA been done.
Almost nonexistent animations, barely working AI, convoluted menus and nerve wracking generic music fit well with ugly graphics, amateurish writing and one of the worst build modes I have seen in a long time.
Clunky icons, lacking tutorial as well as introduction or explanations, horrible sound, UI from hell, and to top it off most game mechanics only work occasionally: Pathfinding is terrible, the "world" is a joke, and it was even too much work for the "developers" to adjust character models and their portraits to fit each other.
If you've been waiting for a game where you manage a tavern, you'll have to wait some more. Don't encourage software trash like this by throwing money at it.
SummaryCrossroads Inn is a real time management sim set in an original fantasy world of Delcrys. Build and manage your tavern, make visiting adventurers happy, and make your services famous all over the land.