Tavern Master
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Tavern Master is about managing your medieval tavern. You can buy tables and benches, serve different kinds of drinks, hire staff, equip your kitchen, create a food menu and increase your tavern size to give you more space for your imagination!The game is coming to Steam so if you like it you can add it to your wishlist!
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Steam User 74
As of 6 hours of playtime: An excellent management sim. A lot of fun, and not too complicated. I am really enjoying it so far. But it does suffer the same issue as most management games, and that is that progress really slows down when you get closer to the end.
As of 10.9 hours of playtime: Was a fun game overall (the first two-thirds), but the end game (especially if you want to 100% Achievements) is just a waiting game and is boring and tedius. I don't recommend continuing after you get the king and queen to visit, just count that as the end game, anything after that isn't worth it. Everything get's done automatically after a certain point, so all you do is just wait. I'm going to stop playing after getting 14/17 of the achievements, and only 3 starts (out of like 60) to get the 5 stars on all foods, but it was just taking for ever. Literarily took 5 in game days to go from 0 stars to 3 stars on the food for the prince. Just not a fun back third of the game.
Steam User 70
Tavern Master is a stress-free management game where you run the only medieval inn in town. So long as you've got a spare seat at the table and the kegs haven't run dry, you'll attract enough patrons to turn a profit each day. Profits are easily reinvested into expanding the business as you relentlessly progress through a host of unlockable amenities. Failure doesn't seem possible; overreach and within a few hours of regular trading you'll be back in the black. The only thing to worry about is the occasional after hours visit by a persistent thief, tiptoeing into your establishment and making off with a barrel of wine. But hire a guard and the scofflaw (sorry, I've been rewatching Seinfeld) is easily thwarted.
I played Tavern Master almost as an idle game and it felt like the right approach. Much of the operation is automated. Hire a bartender and he'll pour the drinks as the orders come in. Hire a waitress and she'll take the orders, deliver the food and drink, and collect the empties. Hire a chef and he'll prepare the food. You can just sit back and watch them do all the work, listening to the gentle hum of pub chatter.
At some point the kegs will run out or the chests that store food will be empty. You simply click on them and pay for a complete refill, if you have the gold, or top them up to a level you afford. Later, even this simple action can be automated after the purchase of an on-site storage room. There's a little bit of strategy involved, but not a lot. Special events occur that require you to serve specific items, so you'll have to make sure you're well-stocked in advance with those. And you'll also take on quests that ask you to tailor your service in various ways. If a quest wants you to only serve soup for a day, for example, then you'll want to scrub all the desserts and mains from the menu.
Mostly though, you're just making sure that things are ticking over as they should be. I found it simple enough to make this a daily check-in. I'd hit start on a new day, tab out to do some other work or get mad about something stupid on Twitter, then return at the end of the in-game day to see what new development required my attention. You can fast-forward time, meaning it'll take only a few minutes to simulate a day, and it even helpfully pauses as the clock strikes midnight and the last patron staggers home.
At the end of each day I'd take stock -- literally, in some cases. I'd check the kegs to see what was running low, cross-check with the calendar in case the next day was a special event and I'd only be needing wine or ale or something, and refill accordingly. Then I'd do the same for the food. Sometimes I'd unlock a new recipe that would require a new ingredient, and I'd hire a group of adventurers to head out and protect the wagon delivering the cheese or send them deep into the forest to hunt for delicious meat. You don't get to participate in these adventures -- you're just issuing the orders -- but since resources are limited, and there's always a chance these brave mercenaries will fail, it feels like you're making meaningful decisions about how to best utilize their skills.
The other thing I'd do each day is manage my staff. They earn experience as they work and will level up, allowing you to increase various aspects of their speed and efficiency. Do you want your waitress to be able to carry a lot of glasses at once, or do you want her to move fast when she's not carrying anything at all? Is your chef going to make incredible desserts or soups, or be able to handle the lunch rush with ease? You can also tweak their priorities. I hired a waitress whose special trait was that her mood never dropped while cleaning, so I gave her a high priority cleaning duty while my two other waitresses focused on serving food and drink, and everyone was happier for it. These choices aren't particularly taxing, but it's satisfying to get the balance right and end the day with no reports of unhappy customers. It feels more like you're applying a spot of oil here and there, just to get things running smoothly, rather than building the machine from scratch.
That said, you do get to build your tavern pretty much from scratch. You start with a small room with a bar in one corner and a few tables opposite. Pretty soon you'll realize you're hitting capacity every day and you've unlocked a few extra items in the research tree or via completing quests, and it's time to start expanding. Walls and floors can be slapped down to create new rooms. You plonk down tables and chairs to increase the seating capacity. Rooms need to be properly lit, too -- for some reason, medieval tavern-goers hated sitting in the dark -- so throw up some lamps and torches on the walls. Decorations, like banners, heraldic shields and potted plants, can be added to enhance the prestige of the place -- useful for attracting a higher class of guest and completing certain quests.
Eventually, you'll have a multi-story establishment with several bars, a full kitchen, fireplace, various performance stages for entertainers, and -- in my case at least -- an entire floor dedicated to guest rooms and a library. You mightn't think the fittings of a typical medieval tavern would deliver all that much variety -- and truth be told, the selection here is limited when compared to The Sims and similar games of interior decoration -- but there's enough to feel like you've put your own stamp on a place. What at first seems like a generic collection of wooden furniture, gradually transforms into somewhere you might be happy to call home.
Tavern Master is a pretty simple and straightforward game at heart. There's not much in the way of frills, and it would likely benefit from some injections of personality. If I was playing backseat designer, I'd love to see the addition of conversations with regular patrons or some extra narrative dressing around the special events. At present, while on Tuesday you play host to a wine tasting and on Friday there's an executioner's meetup, the only real difference is for the former you have to put cheese on the menu. Still, with the sun rising over the castle walls, the stream gently gurgling in the background, and the birds chirping away in the nearby woods, it really is a lovely spot for an executioner's meetup.
Verdict: 7/10
Steam User 42
i like it, it's a chill and cozy game! however, if you don't like a bit grindy/repetitiveness, you might not get many hours out of this game.
for achievement hunters: it doesn't really take long to 100% either
would definitely recommend if the game seems interesting to you too :D
Steam User 28
I opened my inn "Liver let Die"
From my humble beginnings serving overpriced water to desperate dark age peasants who just want to avoid catching dysentery for the sixth month in a row, to finally operating a multi-story den of wild alcohol abuse that is responsible for sudden spike in absent fathers and fetal alcohol syndrome.
It's all fine though, remember this is most adult males die of some terrible war or other, and you don't need to be a MENSA member to push your plough across a field, so I see my inn more as a community service then reason to create public health laws. The men at least die happy and intoxicated, and the next generation will find comfort in dull peasant life, it's a win-win.
Kind of lacking in end-game content, and I can't help but feel like this game has a lot of mod potential to turn your inn into a high class brothel or a crack den, depending on how sociopathic you're feeling that day.
Steam User 18
I feel it is a very nicely done and relaxing game. The game doesn't require complete concentration and I often play while cooking or doing other tasks around the house. I see so much potential as well for future improvements but unfortunately it seems the devs have moved on to other projects. I'll keep hoping that they return for another update soon but won't hold my breath. Cheers.
Steam User 21
You're the owner of the tavern the adventurers go to at the end of the day. Build your dream fantasy tavern from the ground up (literally). Research progression feels kind of slow, but the default tavern isn't hard to be successful with. The winter tavern is a fun challenge. I haven't noticed many bugs, just slow progression. Overall I'd recommend if you're a fan of resource management.
Steam User 18
The game has room for improvement but its worth the price. I would add the possibility of producing your own food. Also would be nice to have different types of customers like dwarfs (who eat meat and drink ale) and elfs (who eat veggies and drink wine) and so on.