When life gets difficult. I sometimes dream of opening a little eatery, where I decide everything. My signature on everything, from furniture to the menu. Now I have played Crossroads Inn and I will have to think again about that particular dream.
Crossroads Inn is a mix of RPG and Management Sim, developed by Kraken Unleashed and published by Klabater. The game starts like my dream. I get an inn and have the run of the place. At first I am guided by my uncle Martyn, but as the game progresses I more and more become the boss.
And what a job that is! To run the inn, the first thing needed is space, a room to set up areas where guests can sit. A counter where one can prepare drinks. A kitchen to make food. And the list keeps growing. Those spaces need to be filled, with furniture and appliances, and then comes the constant restocking of everything you need. Food, drink, plates and mugs, however well stocked, dwindle at an alarming rate. At times it feels as if all my guests take home every single piece of cutlery they use.
As the title states, my inn is at a crossroads. And that is not only true in the literal sense. It also at a crossroads in the troubled history of the area it is located in. Located near to the point where the borders of several countries meet, the inn is swept into the political machinations of rulers far above the paygrade of a simple innkeep.
And this is the point where the RPG elements come into play in a big way. The decisions you make can influence both the little world of your inn and the big world outside. The world that is moving toward a war now the calming voice of its ruler has fallen away.
Wars have factions, and factions within factions. All of those are vying for your attention, for your help. That way you slowly move from running an inn toward running an inn while doing all kinds of jobs for the rich and important people that want you to do their bidding. It is up to you to keep a clear head to make the best decisions.
The campaign is well-written and offers you twelve different endings. To me that is an invitation to play it again. And replayability is always a plus in my book. The game looks quite nice, despite some weird graphical issues. Most are non-consequential, but I was a bit annoyed by the discrepancy between the little picture in the personnel-file and the way the person is depicted in the game world. It makes it impossible to identify a specific worker, thus forcing you into the menu over and over again to find the correct employee.
In general, the mechanics around the management of your inn run fine. The game has seen several patches since release and I have no longer encountered any game-breaking bugs after patch 2.04. Some issues linger but can be worked around.
The developers seem quite responsive on the forums and keep bringing out a steady flow of fixes and patches. While leading, as always, to some complaining by players, I believe the devs are doing whatever they can to fix issues and make the game as good as they can make it. I hope that they can fix the few small issues that are still around. Then they might not have a massive hit on their hands, but a very nice title in the rather small niche of tycoon and RPG mashups. And I can’t wait for more of those.
