This Bed We Made Indie Video Game Review

When I first saw This Bed We Made I really didn’t know anything about it. After looking into the game a little bit though, I was intrigued. I generally like a good mystery/puzzle games, and the game had an interesting premise. Instead of playing as a detective, you play as a chambermaid who falls into a mystery when her curiosity gets the better of her. This premise showed a lot of promise in my opinion. This Bed We Made is an unique and interesting mystery that fans of the genre should really enjoy, even if they might wish there was a little more to it.

In This Bed We Made you play as Sophie. Its 1958. Sophie works as a chambermaid at the Clarington Hotel. The Clarington Hotel was once a prestigious hotel, but it has somewhat fallen on hard times in recent years. While Sophie is a good chambermaid, she is also kind of nosy. While cleaning rooms, she has a tendency to snoop through the guests’ things. This has usually been innocuous. Things change when Sophie finds something suspicious in one of the guest’s rooms. This leads to a wider mystery involving several of the hotel’s guests. Can Sophie piece together what is going on in time?

This Bed We Made shares a lot in common with your typical mystery detective game. While you are a chambermaid instead of a detective, much of the game is built around trying to solve the mystery. This involves searching for clues in guests’ things, and trying to find connections to solve the larger case. This is where Sophie’s snooping comes into play.

While looking for clues you will perform your duties as a chambermaid. This mostly involves picking up trash, making the beds, cleaning up messes, etc. Most of these require simple button presses or moving the cursor over the dirty areas.

As you start to acquire evidence you will need to start solving some puzzles in order to learn more about what is going on. These puzzles are pretty typical of games in this genre. If you are stumped you can press a button to hear Sophie’s thoughts. These usually give you a hint at what you are supposed to do next. You also have access to an ally who helps you piece things together. Early on in the game you can choose between street-smart Beth and book-smart Andrew.

What initially intrigued me about This Bed We Made was that it was an interesting twist on your typical mystery detective game. Accidentally discovering a mystery due to snooping through customers’ rooms seemed like an interesting idea for a game in the genre. This Bed We Made does a good job with the premise. 

How the game is structured the mystery builds up over time as you snoop through the customers’ possessions. This will lead to you going back and forth between the rooms as you learn more information. It is a really interesting way of framing a mystery, and I think it works really well for the game.

As for the mystery itself, I thought it was well designed. It is built around moving between the different rooms on your designated floor as you find out more information. I would say that the mystery and the puzzles are on the easy to moderately difficult side. I didn’t really find anything to be too challenging. If you are thorough you shouldn’t have too many problems. The game also does a pretty good job giving out hints if you need a little help as well.

While it is not a huge part of the game, I for some odd reason found the chambermaid aspects of the game to be kind of satisfying as well. I honestly don’t know if you even have to bother with cleaning most of the rooms as it seems optional. Cleaning the rooms is not particularly deep as it usually just involves clicking on objects and making simple movements with the mouse to clean things. I found these mechanics kind of relaxing and fun though.

I think what really makes This Bed We Made is the story and atmosphere the game creates. The game really nails the late 1950s vibe as you explore the hotel and the rooms of your guests. While This Bed We Made is not scary, it actually does a good job building tension at times as you snoop through the customers’ things. When you hear footsteps walking down the hall you never know if someone is going to come in just as you are looking through their things. This does a good job making it feel like you are snooping through other people’s possessions.

Let’s move onto This Bed We Made’s story. I won’t be going into many details. A lot of this is due to the story being a big component of the game, so I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. The story may not be for everyone, but I thought it was really good. The story is set in the late 1950s. A lot of the story is based around what it was like living in that era. The mystery was intriguing and I wanted to see how it would end. After seeing one of the endings, I wanted to check out the other endings to see what changed. The story still kept me interested until the very end.

While I really enjoyed my time with This Bed We Made, I had a couple of issues with it.

First I would say that the game could be a little more optimized. I will preface this by saying that I did play a pre-release version of the game. That likely had an impact. I only encountered one bug while playing the game (a kind of hilarious bug that didn’t really impact the game). The game did run a little slow at times, but it was still playable. I usually got around 30 fps after I turned down some of the graphical settings. My computer meets the recommended settings, so if your computer is closer to the minimum settings you may encounter more issues.

The biggest issue I had with the game is that I wish there was more to it. My first playthrough of the game took around five or so hours to complete. Like most games I took my time and tried to explore every room thoroughly so I didn’t miss any clues. I would guess most players could complete their first playthrough in around 4.5-6 hours.

While this is a little short, This Bed We Made claims that each of the decisions you make in the game have an impact on how the game/story develops. I only somewhat agree with this. Early on in the game you have to choose Beth or Andrew to be your ally. The one you choose becomes pretty integral to the story as they help you piece things together. The other doesn’t have much impact on the rest of the story. This changes the dialog some, but doesn’t have a significant impact on the actual story/mystery.

Other than picking your ally, I don’t think your changes make that big of difference on the story. The mystery itself doesn’t really change all that much no matter what decisions you make. This Bed We Made has around four to five different endings. Some endings have elements from a couple different endings. Outside of guiding you towards one of these endings, your decisions don’t have a huge impact on the story. In fact if you save before the ending you likely could go back and change a few things at the end to get a different ending. You can get several of the endings in one run just by changing a couple of things at the end. You likely will have to play two or three times though to get all of the different endings and achievements.

While I don’t think the length is bad, I kind of wish there was more to it. The game just had this feeling where it ended too soon. I kind of wish there was another mystery or other rooms to explore that didn’t have a direct impact on the main mystery. This is mostly because I really enjoyed the gameplay, and I was hoping it would last longer.

This Bed We Made is not going to be for everyone, but I really enjoyed my time with it. While it shares a lot in common with your typical mystery detective game, it has some unique twists on the formula. It is fun trying to piece together the mystery, while playing as a nosy chambermaid. The mystery is quite good. That is combined with a compelling story and atmosphere.

I only had a couple complaints about the game. It does have some optimization issues, but they aren’t a huge problem as long as your system is powerful enough. The biggest issue is that I just wish there was more to the game. I was really enjoying the game, and it just ended earlier than I was expecting. While there is a reason to replay the game, your choices don’t change the game nearly as much as the game makes it seem.

My recommendation really comes down to your thoughts on the premise and mystery detective games in general. If the premise doesn’t sound all that interesting or you don’t usually care for mystery detective games, it probably won’t be for you. If you are intrigued by the game’s premise though, I think you will really enjoy This Bed We Made and should really consider picking it up.