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Tavern Talk

The Summer of Demos - Day Twenty-Four

Tavern Talk

The village tavern is at the heart of every fantasy adventure. The hub for all the local gossip, the only decent bed for miles and a good place to scope out new party members alike. In Tavern Talk, you play as an innkeeper on the periphery of a diverse cast of adventurers.

A “cozy visual novel”, gameplay mostly involves having conversations with your customers and lending a sympathetic ear to their troubles with occasional choices. You keep a journal containing character profiles, rumours, recipes and more. Rumours can be collated into quests for your noticeboard once you have enough related details, with some of your clientele taking an interest in a side quest.

Outside of talking, you also mix drinks in a minigame similar to other barkeeping games like The Red Strings Club, VA-11 Hall-A and Coffee Talk. Here, drinks are made up of five parts and can be made of any combination of the five bottles : Dexterity, Intelligence, Defense, Strength and Charisma. Very Dungeons & Dragons. Recipes can be put up on the chalkboard to copy; three parts from a single bottle is as far as the demo recipes go, with most drinks leaning towards one quality but having a balance of others. At times you will have to choose what quality you want to imbue your drinks with to change the direction of the story, but can always discard them into your pet Andu if you get cold feet or mess up.

The first “entertainment game” from a team with experience in the Serious Games sector (educational games teaching things like coding fundamentals, cybersecurity and climate change), Tavern Talk is pleasant but not particularly innovative. It’s clearly a cross between Coffee Talk and classic fantasy, namely D&D. However, not trying to muddy metaphors with urban fantasy allegory may well work in Tavern Talk’s favour.

In a word : content.

Tavern Talk is a fantasy innkeeping visual novel developed and published by Gentle Troll Entertainment for PC and Mac via Steam and Nintendo Switch. Steam Keys can be purchased directly from them “for maximum team support”. The game is currently receiving Quality of Life updates through the end of the year. All images copyright of Gentle Troll Entertainment GmbH unless otherwise stated.

This article is part of the Summer of Demos series, where I’ll be releasing a Demo Diving preview article each day in July. If you liked this article, be sure to share it with a friend or enemy. If you back me on Patreon, you get access to articles one day before they release anywhere else. If we reach £25/month before the end of July, I’ll extend the Summer of Demos into August.

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