I love myself a good simulation game and if you throw in some medieval vibes, then I’m double down to clown – or jester, I suppose. Since this is a demo for Tavern Manager Simulator, I won’t be discussing any scores. Rather, it’s just going to be a commentary on my experience.
The bare-bones pitch of Tavern Manager Simulator is that you’ve acquired a run-down tavern and are now responsible for fixing it up and serving the village. I’ll go more into that in a bit.
Getting down to brass tacks, the demo is about an hour long and is all tutorial. As someone who feels their soul drain from their body over long tutorials, let me put you at ease and say that it’s not bad. It’s intermittent and designed like quests.
So, when you get a new quest, a pop-up will tell you about the functions and how to execute the means to achieve it. Then, depending on how you prioritize, it takes anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes to complete. All in all, you spend most of your time playing the game.
I wanna get the basic stuff out of the way first. In terms of music, it’s not the best, but it grew on me. It’s one tune that repeats, so generally that’s a hard no for me. This one tried to blend a hip-hop vibe with medieval themes and it kind of missed the mark – but only by a centimeter. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but it grew on me.
As far as graphics go, I’m fairly certain this is asset dumping and not original art. But, that’s not necessarily a negative in its favor. You just won’t find anything extremely unique from it. The tavern itself looked good and I’m just grateful that the people looked more cartoony. When games use the wrap that tries to go for realism, it’s usually nightmare fuel.
And one little detail about graphics I want to mention is the sign out front. You get to name your tavern, pick the logo, and even choose the shape of the sign. It’s a little clunky to change the words. In fact, you probably won’t realize you can. You have to click the name already there to change the words. And, while there are many options for the logo, a lot of them give clip-art vibes.
I went with the ale logo and named my tavern ‘Nice to Mead You.’
For the story, there doesn’t seem to be any presented in the demo. So, if there’s a plot here, I wasn’t exposed to it. You’re just someone who has a run-down tavern and you’re fixing it up.
When the Tavern Manager Simulator starts, it drops you outside of the tavern and I would be lying if I didn’t test the limits of the borders. I was surprised that it let me go so far, but because I did, I found some graphics issues. Nothing game-breaking, but watching tall grass shift an inch back and forth at ground level to simulate wind through the blades was amusing.
Once I followed the instructions and got inside the tavern, the next steps were extremely familiar. You have to clean up the dirt and grime, order some stock, wait for the delivery, put the wares in the warehouse, and then pour your drinks.
In later gameplay, they add sausages that you have to keep on hand. So, I’m betting that there are even more food items and possibly even drinks that you’ll have to juggle in the full version.
From here, you’re serving customers, picking up the dirty dishes, cleaning tables and floors, and then taking the dishes to the washing bucket. It was in washing the dishes that I started to feel the slog.
Not only does washing dishes take a solid 3-5 seconds, but you have to pull water from the well out back. I will give the game props in that you wash two dishes at a time and it seems you get about 10-ish uses from the water (so 20 mugs). But, it’s just a mild inconvenience when dropping them in the water would be good enough.
Also, don’t be shy in buying resources or pouring ale. I figured that it would follow most simulation games in anything left over from the day would be wasted.
One ale, two ale, three ale… floor.
That’s just not the case. The day lasted eons. You want to keep your ale stocked at all times. I played the demo for about an hour and I barely got into day 2, if I did at all. I didn’t check at the end of the gameplay, but 40 minutes in, I was still on day 1. This might be because it’s the demo and the days will move differently in the base game.
As you serve customers, you slowly learn the mechanics. But, trust me, the damn tray is gonna be your enemy. Your serving tray needs to be physically put away before you can do pretty much anything and you’ll forget often.
Once you start completing the quests, you’ll gain more reputation by serving customers. Pouring drinks has a bit of a mini-game attached to it where it’s a slider and you have to stop it in either yellow or green. Obviously, green is the best, but until you get the hang of where to stop, you wanna stop early.
Yellow is just a regular drink and doesn’t give you any downsides. Green is the best and grants you an additional tip. Whereas red will go one of two ways. Either you serve the drink that hit red and it drops your reputation or you have to pour it out and waste resources. Not only that, but the red represents spilling over, so now you have a mess on the floor to clean up.
Like any simulator game, there are ways to improve the tavern. Not only can you have access to better furniture, decorations, and resources. But, you can also level up your tavern. In doing this, you open up more space and get the option to level up your bars and tables too.
I believe the game mentioned that there are personal upgrades as well and I’d love to see you be able to up your speed or tray capacity. To me, it would make sense to be able to hire people to help out, but I’m not sure if the game went this route.
Come to the bar and tell me what is ale-ing you in Tavern Manager Simulator.
Leveling up comes with pros and cons. You get more options out of it, but you also get more responsibility. Leveling up the tavern to a level 2 unlocks an outhouse behind the tavern. Ignoring the fact that it’s Shrek’s outhouse, this thing is set pretty far back from the tavern and is a pain to get to.
With all the things that you’re juggling between fetching water, washing dishes, ordering, and getting deliveries… the last thing you need is another chore outside of the tavern. And not only that but another sliding mini-game to boot. With the outhouse, you have to hit the green three times. I hit red once but wasn’t penalized. I don’t think you get a downside other than losing out on time.
All in all, I think that Tavern Manager Simulator has a lot of promise. However, if it doesn’t have automation upgrades in the full game, then it will sink like a rock. Tavern Manager Simulator has you go-go-go and I only opened up one of the tables. As far as I can see there are places for at least three more.
Hopefully, the team has found that balance of being challenging without being grueling.
If you love simulators, you should try out the demo for Tavern Manager Simulator. And if the medieval times aren’t for you, you can check out the review I did for Gas Station Simulator. The gameplay style of this heavily reminded me of that one.
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