Booze Masters: Freezing Moonshine

Introduction

Booze Masters: Freezing Moonshine casts players as Quella, crafting spirits in a remote, snow-covered corner of a deeply strange world, blending plant cultivation, puzzles, and dark comedy. Developed and published by Asmodev — the studio behind cult favourite Priest Simulator — it launched on Steam on 13 December 2023 at NZ$21.99. Nearly two years later, its 25 English-language reviews sit at 76% positive, Mostly Positive. This review read all 6 negative reviews in that sample alongside a range of the positive side.

A real, devoted fanbase

This developer clearly has an established audience, and it shows directly in the review sample. "A great experience after the excellent Priest Simulator," reads one positive review, calling the studio's work "the opposite of the mainstream." Another: "Another weird and wonderful game from Asmodev." A particularly enthusiastic review sums up the appeal in a single line: "10/10 whatever you think this is, it's not. 10/10 play and find out." That reputation for embracing the bizarre — sentient snowmen, reality-warping machinery, and story beats several reviewers compare to Monty Python — is clearly the studio's calling card, and fans come to Booze Masters expecting exactly that.

Where expectations and delivery diverge

The negative-review sample, notably, mostly isn't arguing the game fails on its own terms — it's describing a mismatch with what the store page promises. "This is a total mess going into it, people aren't kidding in the reviews that its in no way related to its simulation side, its a walking-sim story game, with horror aspects," reads one detailed review. "If your looking for a booze-sim, this is not it." A separate reviewer makes the same point more concisely: "If you are looking for the brewing game with at least some simulation and economy elements — look elsewhere. Here you brew booze only to move further through the story. Feels VERY repetitive." That's a genuinely useful distinction for prospective buyers: the "Simulation" tag on the store page sets an expectation the actual game, by wide agreement even among some fans, doesn't primarily deliver on.

A specific, real accessibility gap

Separate from the genre-framing complaint, this review found a specific, repeated technical issue worth flagging plainly: there's no mouse Y-axis invert option, a basic accessibility feature many first-person games include by default. One reviewer notes requesting the feature without a response for a long stretch of time. Controller support draws its own detailed criticism — on-screen button prompts that don't match the controller actually connected, and menu navigation reviewers describe as an awkward virtual-mouse workaround rather than proper controller-native UI.

Verdict

Booze Masters: Freezing Moonshine delivers exactly the surreal, devoted-fanbase comedy experience its developer is known for, and existing fans of Asmodev's earlier work clearly find real value here. But this review's read of its negative-review sample surfaces a genuine, specific problem worth knowing before buying: the store page's simulation framing oversells the brewing-economy depth actually on offer, and a real accessibility gap around mouse and controller support has gone unaddressed for some time. Worth it for the right audience, misleading for anyone drawn in by the tags alone.