Screenshot by Bonus Action
It’s a moment most D&D adventurers and Skryim fans know well – weary from your travels, you step into a tavern to seek refreshments and rumors. Here, you’ll fuel up and maybe even grab a new quest before hitting the road.
In Tavern Talk, you get to step behind the bar and become the Innkeeper doling out drinks and quests. But there’s more than meets the eye to these old shoes you’ve stepped into, and you’ll uncover your own past as you influence your patron’s futures.
Key Details
- Publisher/Developer: Gentle Troll Entertainment
- Platform: Steam, Nintendo Switch
- Price: $17.99 USD
- Review Copy Provided: Yes
Craft Magical Mocktails & Collect Rumors to Design Quests
As a cozy visual novel, the gaming elements of Tavern Talk are a light touch. You spend most of your time getting to know the well-developed, fascinating characters that stop by your tavern seeking wisdom, quests, and a strong (non-alcoholic) drink.
However, each time your customers order a drink, you’ll enjoy mixing the various ingredients to craft beautiful, colorful recipes. Each one offers a different ability boost for your patrons, and I really enjoyed mixing up all the different combinations.
The mechanic is simple, but it keeps you engaged with the story – especially since your decisions about which drink to serve can influence the characters’ fates. I love that you can feed your mistakes to the adorable dragon familiar, Andu – and yes, you can pet him, too.
My one complaint about drink-making is that the recipe variety requested by the characters felt a little repetitive. While you learn new recipes that you can mix and match to give characters what they ask for, one ability in particular only had one recipe until very close to the end. I got a bit tired of constantly serving up the Swift Strike every time a character asked for Dexterity, but it’s a minor complaint in an otherwise enjoyable game.
The other interactive element of the game is designing quests. As you talk to characters, you collect rumors that you then get to put together to create quests for your noticeboard. This, too, is a light touch, just enough gameplay to keep you invested and feel like a part of the world. I’ve always loved getting a good quest in a tavern, and it was a ton of fun to comb through rumors and craft them myself for a change.
I Laughed, I Cried, and I Felt Responsible for My Virtual Friends
The storytelling is where games like Tavern Talk shine, pulling you in and making you care about the characters. I loved getting to know all of the different people who stopped by, becoming invested in them right along with my Innkeeper in-game persona.
The character art is beautiful, bringing each of the many adventurers and friends to life with a variety of expressions and details. You’ll have no trouble telling them apart – or guessing their class the moment they grace your tavern. There are truly beings of all kinds, from tiny catfolk to massive half-giants, and each one has their own backstory and personality that brings them to life.
I’m a girl who loves a story with humor, and Tavern Talk truly had me laughing out loud with the little jokes and turns of phrase peppered throughout. You’ve got some great pop culture references and self-referential jokes about the genre, like how Rhea keeps teasing you about being an NPC with pre-set lines or when a character mutters “oh how the turn tables.”
As much as this game brings the humor, it also brings the heart. When I reached the tense final moments of this captivating story, I found myself so invested in the characters that I even cried whenever things didn’t go quite to plan.
The story itself is compelling, with twists and turns to keep you invested in finding out what happens next. But the fact that your choices truly impact the story pulls you in in a way that’s tough to pull off. I couldn’t help but feel a little responsible for my virtual friends, since the drinks I served might have caused their adventures to go awry. This made me feel like I was part of the story, really there behind the bar getting to know these brave adventurers.
Uncover The Consequences of Your Choices
Not every drink has dire consequences, but when you pick the potion for a particular quest, you’ll influence its outcome in a major way. I know, because I’m the kind of gamer who had to A / B test the universe and see where every choice would get me. Trust me when I say that the drink you pick really does influence where the story leads, sometimes in pretty major ways.
This kept me invested along the way, eager to see the adventurers return from their quest to see whether my choice of Charisma over Strength served them well. I didn’t always choose the best option, and I had to live with that every time my new friends brought up the results of my decisions.
Along with the actual choices you make in the game, you’re not playing any old copy-and-paste Innkeep. You’ll slowly discover there’s more to your character than meets the eye, and have to contend with the choices you made long before you picked up a mouse to serve virtual drinks.
Verdict: 9/10
If you’re looking for a cozy visual novel with a diverse cast of fascinating characters, you absolutely must give Tavern Talk a try. The writing is spot-on, full of wit and humor that pays homage to its D&D roots while still feeling fresh.
This is a story that will pull you in and force you to get invested, thinking through the best way to support your new friends – or try to lead them astray, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Mixing the drinks and crafting up quests is just the right touch of gameplay that I expect in a visual novel, making it interactive without taking away from the story element that sits at the heart of the genre.
** A PC Steam code was provided to Bonus Action for the purpose of this review**
Want more story-driven gaming goodness? Check out Cande’s love letter to Tres al Cuarto.
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