Tavernier

I've run through it about 5-7 times now, it is not a tavern sim (or I wouldn't call it that) and I wouldn't say it has a strategy even. As long as you choose one thing you can get a good ending. It's more of a interactive storybook with set amount of events (good chuck have no good outcome as well) with a predictable outcome where the 'twist' comes in.

The 'multiple' endings are the same thing but slightly different text but same good-end/bad-end image (it doesn't change if you do something different to get it).

A fairly minimalist VN with some limited management options.

I enjoyed the writing, and the air of menace with some of the encounters. I also liked the art style - the mayor looks genuinely creepy.

I do wish that upgrading furniture actually had a visual effect, and that a few more of the encounters actually had unique sprite art (your waitresses are always female wanderers, for example).

A cross between a base builder and a visual novel with a simple enough resource management, this game takes only minutes to learn but it is pretty short, it can be finished in a couple of hours at most meaning I would wait for a good sale price.

I am missing neutral option, but since this game has too many Yes, I vote No and let me explain: This game reminds me old titles like Dictator on ZX Spectrum in 80s which was kind of like first Tropico without building:-). You have very few options to do and have to decide on each turn, what to do with some random event (mostly blindly guessing, what it will do). This is the same, except that you have fixed amount of time and have to get to some situation, which is only partially hinted in the tutorial. So in the end you probably have to repeat the game at least three times to know your goal. You can continue after that, but it is not hard then if you are careful. And yes the events are sometimes funny, but they don't tell much a story. They are mostly events of a week without any story arc. And sometimes they even tell a bit different outcome from your decision, then you really get in numbers (for example saying that some group of customers did not like it, but there is no change in the numbers for them). And your options for managing the tavern are extremely limited. I have no idea, why there is that "cave" or cellar, because I did not find anything to do that, which I could not do upstairs. So if you are bored, or if you like Visual Novels even if they are not great or if you simply want to try something like that old Dictator, then yes, it is cheap during the sales and buy it. But otherwise it is waste of time.

A hidden gem of a fantasy business roleplay game. I paid 49p in the Steam Winter Sale for this game, a price even including trading cards. It feels like a steal at this price. The full price is a very fair £1.99, I would personally pay around £4.99 for this game so the developer is being extremely fair here with the pricing which I hope rewards them with more customers – thank you!

The game looks simple and I was conscious of some reviews saying it is a “short story” – but that all depends how quick you skip / read the text and mull over the strategic options. I finished my first game (52 turns is the time limit) in 2 hours but can see me playing this many times over to both win the game and collect the achievements. For 49p (or even full price £1.99) this represents excellent value.

The game reminds me of the art style and era of Merchants of Kaidan. Where as in the excellent game Merchants of Kaidan you were travelling the World to make a profit as a merchant in a text based RPG, in this game you focus on running one Tavern business. But in both games the art style and characters you meet is fantastic. The options for running the Tavern “appear” simple at first but they more you play the more the game expands out with new options, for example introducing a magic ability for your character at one point.

The basics of the game is there are initially 4 factions to make happy, but strategy means you should focus on 1 faction at the expense of others. You prepare meals for your tavern and choose music to attract the right sort of client. Decorate your inn, expand your inn. In each turn you have to deal with an interaction that occurs and your choices dictate the outcome – gain/lose money, gain/lose customers, lose magic mana, etc. Your decisions also affect whether your tavern is seen as “cool” or more business like (and if so save on taxes). By the end game there are quite a few things to manage.
Alongside the business aspect is a core political story which develops, the first time round I was not successful in that so will try again.

For the money, this is a 8.5/10 game: 85% Must Buy. I don’t usually write reviews after 2 hours but I feel I already have my moneys worth and it is fun and I can tell this is a long term winner. If you like the idea of running a business in a fantasy setting in a light text/art based RPG, this is for you.

A mild thumbs up for interesting and friendly concept, and low price ($2.99) at my time of purchase. However, I finished my playtest wanting the game to be more than it is. I would be giving a neutral rating if this were possible.

- The music is great; the art a sort of pencil-sketch style that does a good job. The English wasn't written by a native speaker, however. The grammar is generally okay, but you consistently encounter words that are completely inappropriate. For example, "the right SPRINKLES are what makes a people come and go" (referring to extras that improve the tavern; I believe the word they wanted was "touches"). Other times, the game refers to the "cave" when I believe it means "cellar".

- It makes excessive use of anachronisms (your bard can play rock music, for example) and fourth wall breaking (in one weekly event, I have too much to drink and see my beer floating before me. My choices are to grab it or "press the space bar". I chose the latter, and my bar floated into (outer) space, and I was able to grab the beer, which gave me a bunch of gold and increased my reputation with several of the customer types).

- Something about the core game mechanic is unfulfilling; there just isn't enough to do in the tavern management, and no real sense of story in the choose your own adventure part. You have four types of customers (guards, rogues, wanderers, etc) and can change the menu, music and decorations to draw more of one or another; your one "choose your own adventure" choice each week inevitably changes your reputation with one or more groups. These A / B choices do not give a sense of story so much as they simply move sliders around. The management part feels similarly unfulfilling; you're given a money dump at the end of each week, which happens as soon as you make your "choose your own adventure" choice. The money seems to pour in no matter what, and the net at the end of the week doesn't really feel like it has much to do with my choices so much as like I've been given an allowance by Mom and Dad.

The game would probably do better if it were re-tooled into a real-time mode (like the old SIM series) with a more rapid-fire series of events to respond to and the ability to pause. It would probably be better if there were some micro-management to do in real time, and the events occurring more than once per week.

Tavernier is a light management RPG that feels like Reigns but with better art and more interesting choices. You control a tavern at a macro level, choosing decor and food to draw in certain factions, each of which brings different kinds of scenarios you must deal with. Depending on your preference or distain for a given section of the community, different choices may open themselves up leading to a pretty entertaining combination.

Pros:
+I really enjoy this art style. Almost a comic woodblock, see also Darkest Dungeon.
+Music is all-around really great and actually acts as a mechanic in itself, with different music choices drawing in different customers.
+Low price tag. I got it on sale but the current full price of $2.99 is pretty good for the fun I got out of it.
+The overarching narrative is intriguing with fun twists, especially with the first run through or two as you get different endings.
+Many of the weekly scenarios will make you think or can just be off the wall and hilarious.
+Good, clear, skippable tutorial.
+You'll want to give the game multiple run-throughs to see the different scenarios, endings, and achievements.

Cons:
-The game can be quite short. Once I figured out the game's most efficient pathways and knowing what the various quests were ahead of time meant I could eventually knock out a full run-though in minutes.
-Actual tavern management is limited. You have a small-ish selection of tools, furniture, and food to select but the entire experience is on rails so there isn't much space to experiment or go free form. It wasn't a huge negative for me but worth mentioning.

Meh:
=The game makes a big deal early on about your cave/cellar, but I found it was only some of the games' menus compiled into one place, seems like a waste?

Overall:

Tavernier is a light game with some interesting surprises. To me it almost feels like a board or card game with some twists. It's great to pick up and play for a few minutes and easy to jump back into. It has its flaws but I quite enjoyed it for what it is.

This is one of those titles that I kind of wish I could give a neutral review for.

I mean, I suppose I shouldn't have been expecting much, given the price of the game, but still not sure that it was worth it; more so the time I could have spent playing something else, TBH.

It's quite short; a full playthrough will only last about half an hour tops. Replay value kinda seems minimal once you've gone and beaten the game one. There's other achievements to be had, but hunting them out seem more like an exercise in tedium than anything else.

Not too much in the way of depth, or story. Overall, I probably wouldn't recommend. Even for a dollar at the -66% off Summer sale price point, there's better use of your time.

Tavernier pitches itself as tavern-management but it is all interactive fiction with all of the gameplay loop based around effecting up to 7 different bards for your customers and your 'professional vs coolness' and growing customers for more money. The game has 52 weeks and in each week you make a decision to an event that is relatively short and mediocrely written with many issues. The "tavern management" is setting what meals and decorations but for meals you select food items and decorations its just choosing items to display, not that it is shown in game. All these do is impact those bars or your money or customer count. There's no depth here and while I generally like narrative experiences there's no real payoff or compelling story here.

Don't get me wrong, I actually had fun with the game... for about the first hour or so. It had interesting twists to it I wasn't expecting, and it was fun trying to get enough gold to buy perks. However, it's EXTREMELY short, and about 30 minutes in, you'll start to see the results of the choices you make repeated over and over. You can focus your play on the different faction for some variety, but the results are still the same. If you got this for under a dollar, kudos, but if you have to pay more than that, I wouldn't waste your money if I were you.

So Tavernir, what to say about it? It's a very intersting management game. I say it's a great buy during a sale too. I personally feel that it takes some getting use to in order to really get things evened out and I have yet to discover that way but I am determined to do so on my own, guide free...for now.

Le me Tavernir: Welcome to my tavern!

Customer: I think you have a serious problem here, nothings exploded.

Le me Tavernir:: Oh...

A: I totally agree with you, let's make everything explodey. +5 cool points

B: Are you out of your mind! Be gone foul beast you shall not pass. +5 pro points

Le me Tavernir: Chooses B. Hello sir, goodbye sir, sayonara, Au Revoir, no thanks.

Customer: Che whatever -leaves and blows up half of establishment

Le me Tavernir: -watches place explodes received +5 pro points- Worth :D

Tavernier is a fun, short experience with an intriguing but short story. Its price of only £2 makes it hard not to recommend.

There isn't much gameplay as its a simple management game with a choose your own story mechanic that doesn't have a lot of depth. This however doesn't take away from the fact that it's fun in a way Cooking Mama or Papa's Pizzeria where simplistic things are executed well and are enjoyable to play. The basic gameplay, as fun as it is, did not make me want to play through the game again. I liked the story but I felt like it wouldn't differ much on a second playtrough, however your experience may vary.

The game only costs £2 and I felt like I got my moneys worth for the experience and I recommend you to buy it if you enjoy a fantasy setting and a casual management style game that has a pretty interesting story that you will unravel fairly quickly.

It is a good game for such a low price; if it is on sale, even better!

This is a short game, and you'll encounter many of the same encounters on each play-through. The game makes it very easy to quickly speed through the dialogs, and the interface is large and easy to navigate. The artwork is attractive. The sound effects and music are minimal, but also well done.
I’m considered the Grammar Nazi at work, but I did not find much wrong with the writing in the game. Maybe it was patched after some of the negative reviews mentioned it? A few lines were odd, but nothing so bad as to be confusing, or detrimental to the game.

First game, I lost.
Sure, I did the tutorial, read all the encounters, made choices...etc. I just didn't understand how to win.

Second game, I won on the last turn.
Learning from my failure, I figured out a strategy.

Third game, I won on turn 40.
I'm getting better, but the strategy for each game is much the same once you figure it out.

Fourth through twenty something games, I was mostly picking up achievements and seeing if I missed any interesting choices or situations in previous tries.

Overall the game is enjoyable. I “finished” it quickly, but continued for several more hours to see more.
The only thing I was not a fan of was the victory conditions. You must meet specific requirements to progress in the main story line. These requirements are essentially the same for each game, so once a recipe for success is known, it is similar for subsequent games.

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy. - Mikhail Bakunin

Tavernier is the debut game coming from the French indie developer studio, From the Bard, presenting a tavern management simulation in a fantasy setting. For me it is a brilliant idea, since we rarely take a look on the NPC side of any fantasy story. I've been playing RPG games for years now, both on computer and tabletop. In nearly all those games that I've been to, all player characters voice a dream one time or the other: dealing with the main quest and being able to retire to safety one day to open an inn or a tavern. It's the optimal retirement plan for any medieval adventurer, ask anyone! Now, you can actually do it, yet again another adventure is included for you nonetheless.

Your uncle was a Tavernier before you, and now your time to take the establishment over has come. As he retires, he shows you the basics and leaves for you to handle the management of the tavern in the town. As you start, you'll have guests coming from many different social groups: folks, guards, rogues and wanderer to start with. They all prefer something else on the menu, a different kind of music for the local bard to play, some other treatment coming from the Tavernier, etc. It will be your job to attend them and pick one to favor above others to get a reputation and a social standing for your own self. As you go by though, a mysterious visit from the town mayor occurs. He comes in, picks one of your patrons and no one ever sees that man again... This unsettling occurrence repeats every month and townsfolk are reluctant to talk about it. Only if you manage to earn the trust and acceptance of one group, you may delve into this eerie mystery and uncover the scheme which threatens to destroy the whole town! Enjoy your retirement!

Now that we're done with establishing the base setting, let's hit our other subjects. For the display, nothing is marvelous or spectacular, but all artwork are fitting for the setting as hand drawn characters and environment. I enjoyed different kind of customers and their various outlook in game. There is no voice acting whatsoever, but you are free to choose your background music - folk, metal, jazz, classical, you name it! - fitting for the social group you are trying to impress. All musical numbers are free sample legends, playing on the same piece until you change it.

As for the game mechanics, it all is quite simple: easy to learn, yet hard to master. According to the kind of customers you favor, your complete number of customers for the week and the random encounter you face, your whole income is regularly calculated. You have to deduct your taxes from that though. With your earnings, you are free to garnish your tavern furthermore, to attract more customers. Random events occurring at the end of each week will depend whether you have the right decoration, have appropriate amount of money, whether you are considered a professional or just a cool guy too. Each new group you favor will unlock different random events for you to enjoy, and their outcomes will affect you furthermore.

Each month, an event relevant to the main story will occur, and if you've managed to fulfill its criteria, you'll progress in the main story. If not, you'll try next month. In 52 weeks, your game will come to an end, whether you've managed to solve the plot and face the main villain or not. So, I foresee various trial and error periods before you manage to complete the game with the good ending. Once you get a hold of how the main scenario works, you won't have that much of a trouble though. Then, achievement hunting begins - which is the real challenge. There are 4 main social groups and 4 more that you can unlock in your progression (you have to pick 2 for a single playthrough) according to your choices. They all will present you different abilities like tipping, attracting customers, being able to use magic etc. So, this simple little indie game presents a surprising amount of replay value for you.

Well, at the end of the day, Tavernier is obviously not the best thing since sliced bread, but it is a successful indie management game with a good story in store for its value. I do recommend the game for your discovery. Good day, and good gaming to you all!

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A highly amusing indie fantasy tavern management game with surprisingly solid replay value. I have to confess it was a drunk buy when I came home from the, well, tavern. And, cconfession #2: its the perfect game to play during that window of time from when you come back from the bar and have like, one or two more drinks before you pass out.

Look, I cant be the only person on steam that has come back home from a night of carousing, thought "I could do with another beer or two" and then you start going through your steam library looking for something to play. No, anything involving other people is out b/c screw them. Last thing I need harshing my buzz is having some nerd yelling over my headset while Im tryna play Battlefield. And Im not looking for anyhthing too complicated; Europa Universalis is out. I mean that game is hard enough to deal with when Im sober.

Enter Tavernier. Look, youre in the right mindset to run a saloon as youre already half in the bag-and if youre reading this review youre probably the kind of person that has thought "I would love to run a pub in the Shire." So this game is that magic crossroads that actually gives you All The Things. Booze. Pubs. The occaisional orc. If youre still here just buy it already, yo. Its 3$. Thats less than a price of a pint in every city on the planet. W/e Im having one more whiskey and going to bed.

I would use "Neutral" instead of "No" for my recommendation, if I could. This game is too simple and straightforward for me. The story is not bad, although I did not proceed far enough to know the end. I expected more from the time management aspect but that was incredibly easy. Only buy it if it's on sale ~ it's not worth it otherwise.

I would compare the style of gameplay to Papers Please, which is way more challenging and the storyline more complex. The replay value for Papers Please is also higher by far.

I do tend to enjoy this sort of game - there's a bit of management in there, mixed with some visual novel storytelling - but I didn't enjoy Tavernier. This is a game with a lot of glaring issues that pop up constantly.
Firstly, there are grammatical errors. A lot of them. And not simple, forgiveable things like a misplaced comma here or there, but great big flashing misspellings and broken paragraphs that launch me right out of the game, not that that's terribly hard because the story is completely nonsensical. Not to spoil it for those who still wish to play it, but the primary antagonist shows up multiple times throughout the story in disguise to actively help you, and this is never explained. You can also apparently become captain of the guard just from having a lot of coppers drink at your establishment.

Finally, the choices you get given throughout the experience have bizarre outcomes that don't make a lick of sense, including random radical alignment shifts, which can be devastating for a game that flat out requires you to fo all out with your alignment choices. Being anything but abusive to the guards that show up on occasion apparently makes everyone (including the guards) think you're less "cool," while the only way to regain coolness seems to be to do things that actively hurt your business.

It's all rather poorly thought out and irritating, but it also seems to be the very first game from this developer, so this is to be expected. The art is nice, and FromTheBard may go on to make some genuinely good games in the future, but this is not one of them.

Short and sweet. Took me two hours to complete (and beat) the game on my second playthrough. It's not particularly complicated or deep. Over the course of 52 weeks (52 turns) you must generate gold and increaase your customer base by selectively buying decorations and food. Also, each week you have to make a decision on a random event that has just happened, but this boils down to a choice of two or more text based options. There is an overarching plot but again it's presented in the same way as the weekly events.

I think what I'm trying to say is that it's a basic managemnet sim with a VERY light RPG element to it. It's worth the £2, if only barely.

Pros:
Nice artstyle
Pleasant UI
Inexpensive
Good story, has a bit of mystery.

Cons:
Easy, at least after your first playthrough
Lacking a bit of depth to the consequences of your actions

I love the artstyle of this game and the UI is pleasant. It's a fun game although I wish you could make it more difficult. I mean, on my first playthrough I only just beat it on the last day (and I'd just like to mention that I've only played story mode), but I'd been a really cautious player. Overly cautious, as it turns out there isn't really that much nessecary managing to do and your actions don't have too much of an effect on you. All consequences are immediate and small.

For example A rogue asked me to spike a drink and offered money, I took the money but did not spike the drink. He ended up dead and another rogue threatened me "We won't forget this". Nothing of depth ever came of that threat. It was just a loss of population amongst a group already at 0% population in my tavern. Immediate and small.

The price completely justifies this though. I just love the potential this game had (has?).

Great little choose-your-own-adventure game, very worth the small price. The art style looks nice, and the writing got more than a few chuckles out of me. There are even nice atmospheric touches like changing the look of the tavern as the game progresses and giving you new music about halfway through (to give you a break from the track you've probably been playing for the past half hour).

It took me two playthroughs and a little over an hour and a half to figure out how to get to the end of the story, but there are several factions you can focus on, so I'll probably play through it a few more times just to see more of the dialogues. If you find you're stuck, use the "management" mode instead of story mode. It'll show the rewards of all possible actions, so you can make better decisions about how to build the stats you need.

A very fun, cheap little game. I finished the storyline in 30 minutes, however I am a very fast reader and I did not pimp my Tavern out as much as I could have, because I didn't realise that more categories unlock as time goes past. There is a storyline to follow and I think the hourglass on the counter tells you how long you have to complete the storyline. I haven't tried the management mode yet, but I will soon! It's a good game, you pick sides, pick a type of customer to focus on, buy loads of perks and set up a menu. I'd definately recommend it as a fun little time water with potential replayability due to the RNG events you get constantly.