Tavern Keeper Hands-On Preview
I first saw Greenheart Games’ Tavern Keeper at PAX in 2023 and knew it would be the type of game I would enjoy, so when Paul asked me if I would like to preview it, I jumped at the chance. I had been impatiently waiting for a demo to come out, but when I finished it, I just felt disappointed. Not because the game was terrible, but because it was too brief of a teaser with less than an hour of game to try.
If you haven’t heard of Tavern Keeper, it has two main modes. The story mode, which is what I got to play, and the Freeplay designer mode which was not available in the demo. The story mode is comparable to Two Point Studios Two Point hospital except with a tavern in a Dungeons & Dragons fantasy-styled setting. Players will start off with awful taverns that will need a bit of work to improve as well as having a selection of not the greatest employees to hire. Such is the way of starting off small.
The first tavern I got to work with was a small one on the edge of a swamp. It had a bar, a table with two chairs, and not much else. Before even starting, I had to purchase a tap to be able to serve drinks to customers and hire a worker. Players aren’t able to serve the drinks themselves, they are more of an overseer than directly involved. The travelling merchant will arrive every second day so the tavern can purchase alcohol to sell. Once the worker has placed the keg on the tap, the tavern can open. Customers will come into the tavern and wait for the worker to take their order and give them their drinks. Customers will only wait so long as some have less patience than others. If there aren’t enough workers, patrons will leave before being served but the player can placate them with the offer of free drinks. Patrons will also drag in dirt so the workers will need to stay on top of the cleanliness of the place. Some patrons will have a book over their head meaning they have special circumstances. In the demo, I got to encounter two. One was a hero wanting a quest and the other was a skeleton who was tired of his job. The skeleton can later be employed which is great because he doesn’t get sick or need to sleep. This silly type of humour is spread through the game increasing its already existing charm to new heights.
As I said earlier, players have no direct control over what happens, so a lot of the time it’s more about just managing the overall aspects of the tavern, such as what beer is on offer, how the tavern looks, or whether it has toilets. This means that if your workers aren’t doing something you want them to, it can be difficult. I found that for the first few days, no matter what I did, my workers would leave all the kegs on the pier, which increases the rate the alcohol spoils (Yes, the alcohol spoils). I resigned myself to the fact I would waste money on it. It would have been nice to know that taps can only distribute one alcohol at a time, meaning having a variety at the beginning is a loss unless you can afford a tap for all of them. By the fourth day, the two workers finally started putting the kegs in the storeroom and cleaning the tavern, but they were neglecting customers instead. I’m guessing this is just a bug though. It might have helped if my workers had uniforms, but I couldn’t afford the lockers that allow players to do that. I wanted to decorate and sink my teeth into what seems to be a robust system, but as I was always hurting for cash due to mistakes made from inexperience, I couldn’t really try it out. With the freeplay design mode unable to be accessed I couldn’t really discern the depths of the system. It looks like there are a lot of customisation options, and time does stop when players are designing, which is nice. Time can be controlled at will, meaning if nothing is happening, like say, when the tavern is shut, players can fast forward or even skip time.
Despite the minor issues I encountered, the big problem is that the demo is too damn short. But from what little I did play; I knew that I would absolutely love the story segment of the game. The humour is really something special and suits the setting of a D&D style tavern perfectly. The option to help change the patrons’ lives adds a bit of flair which breaks up the monotony. I think it’s worth keeping an eye on this one.
