Forest Camp Story

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

Without a doubt the most prolific developer and publisher of Management Simulation games on Nintendo Switch is Kairosoft, who specializes in games with a retro-style isometric pixel art style, often with the word “Story” in the title. As of this writing, Kairosoft has released 62 games on Nintendo Switch, most of them Management Simulations.

After their earlier games, Kairosoft had established a few templates for their Simulation games that later games would largely follow. Game Dev Story established a Simulation-style game more focused on managing employee time and focus, Hot Springs Story established a Simulation style in line with Theme Park Simulators where you try to cater to guests’ tastes to maximize attendance and income, and Epic Astro Story established a Simulation style akin to games like Sim City, where you’re building out a town or settlement. And then there’s a template that has you managing not employees but members of a sports team, something we first saw in Grand Prix Story.

Forest Camp Story originally released on mobile devices in 2021, then received a port to PC and Nintendo Switch in 2022, then to PlayStation 4 in 2023, and then to Xbox One in 2024. This is a game that fits in that second “cater to guests” category, with players building up the amenities in their campsite, and shortly afterwards building up the offerings in a local sporting good store to sell to aspiring campers.

In a way, these two elements are almost like two games in one, or at least two Kairosoft-style game, because both work differently. Yet they definitely form two halves of a cohesive whole that make for a fun gameplay loop – players earn different types of research points in the camp when campers make use of different facilities, with those points gradually allowing you to open up new facilities and wares to sell, and more interest in the camp drives up foot traffic in the store. Meanwhile, the store is a large part of how you earn income needed to buy all this stuff, and increased traffic in the store drives up interest in the camp.

This makes it all the more perplexing that you don’t even open up the store until a little while into the game, leaving players wondering early on how they’re going to afford things when upkeep keeps draining their funds and only seemingly random events refill them. I definitely feel like this element could have been handled better.

As for the presentation, this is in line with what we’re used to from Kairosoft. As I mentioned above, this game makes use of Kairosoft’s signature presentation style using simple retro-styled pixel art visuals (here presented in an isometric overhead view perspective), paired with bouncy synthesized music that seems at odds with the game’s more natural themes and environments. For the most part, everything about this presentation is really endearing, though by this point we’ve seen more or less the same thing in numerous other Kairosoft games.

Overall, I think Forest Camp Story is a game that takes a little while to get going, but once it does it’s a satisfying take on Kairosoft’s usual formula that splits the game into different sections that work synergistically. I think Simulation fans that give this one a chance will likely find it an enjoyable simple take on the genre with some fun ideas.

tl;dr – Forest Camp Story is a Management Simulation where players manage a campsite, and shortly later also a camping good store. The early moments in this game feel uneven since they lack the revenue-generating store, but overall this is a fun take on Kairosoft’s usual Management Simulation formula that’s well worth trying out.

Grade: B

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