Tavern Talk Stories Dreamwalker Gamescom demo preview

Tavern Talk is a bit of a special game for me as it marked one of the first reviews I wrote for GamingTrend. I was still a wide-eyed baby who thought ‘damn I can review indie games for a website and just anyone can read them?’. It’s been over a year since then and I’ve written nearly 100 articles and just got back from reporting on Gamescom, which was a phenomenal opportunity, and I still don’t think I’ve recovered. That’s why I bee-lined for the chance to play Tavern Talk’s new game, Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker at the Indie Arena. A new title set in the same universe, but 30 years prior to the events of the first game.

For those who don’t know, Tavern Talk is a visual novel and drink making simulator that resembles games like Coffee Talk and Va1-hAlla. What makes it special is its Dnd setting where your patrons are adventurers and travelers that have come to tell you their woes. From the comfort of your tavern, you’ll experience all kinds of adventures and even influence them too. The Tavern Talk games are characterized by player choice, just like Dnd and the drinks you give to people will influence the results of their quests. It seems like Tavern Talk Stories will borrow all these elements from its predecessor but with a new coat of paint and some reworked gameplay.

In this demo, we got to serve our very first traveler and learn the revamped gameplay systems. Tavern Talk is still visually gorgeous, with striking character designs that are burned in your memory as soon as they enter the tavern. Also, this time around, our tavern is on the beach with a driftwood and treasure filled environment that feels so cozy. We get to meet brand new NPC, Mariyam, who hilariously is made related to you through your own choice, whether that be best friend, acquaintance or arch nemesis. As a Tavern Talk veteran, I know this isn’t a half-assed choice but one that will continue to impact the dialogue you receive. The other NPCs you meet are familiar-ish faces, including a young Quasar and a mysteriously cloaked traveler with Andu across their neck! Yes, it’s you from Tavern Talk! Don’t worry, they’re still anonymous. Their face is a silhouette and they refuse to give their actual name, making it consistent with the previous game. It’s intriguing to see this mix of new faces and old ones, adding more depth and context to the first game. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the duo.

If you’re familiar with the drink system, then you’ll know that Tavern Talk stumbled a bit in its execution as you would end up mixing a lot of the same drinks and also lacking a bit of challenge in making them. However, I liked the new system, which still involves pouring certain attributed liquids into your cocktail – the 4 staples, dexterity, charisma, strength etc - but changes how you distribute them. As pictured below, potions will now not only contribute one skill but have a mix of two so balancing them to meet the requirements requires a bit more thought. For example, the first drink you make is a Voyager’s Dream, so you go into your journal, choose the recipe and get concocting. This one will need plus 2 in dexterity and plus 1 in strength, charisma, and defense. When you add a potion, it’ll move that counter on the chart in either direction, left for negative and plus for positive. However, the challenge comes with how to maintain a plus 2 in agility but a plus 1 in defense, as the potion gives a plus 1 to both. That means you’ll have to find a potion that subtracts from just defense. I admittingly struggled with this first drink, but after playing around with the system, it gets easier but still challenges but introduces more potions to use. Overall, it’ll be interesting to see how I feel about the new drink system after playing for a few hours and if it’s an improvement over its predecessor.

Another key features is the revamped rumor system. As before, the travelers that occupy your tavern will bring scraps of rumors of things going in the world. You’ll collect these and at the end of the day will combine threads to form a quest for adventurers to pick up. This time you’ll have your 8-tentacle friend, Slinky, to help by not letting you progress until you have formed all possible quests for the day. Another key difference is that some rumor scraps can end up becoming useless, maybe to throw you off instead of knowing you can pair everything together. These can be dumped in the shell and can either be used later or not all. Overall, the changes to both gameplay systems are nothing too overhauling but will definitely feel a lot smoother to play with in the full game.

Whilst playing the demo, I got to ask the devs a couple of questions:

Why go back 30 years and make a game instead of making a sequel?

Our team wants to expand the Tavern Talk universe, and we have so many stories to tell. This isn’t the only project we are working on and that anticipated sequel will be surfacing at some point! We also chose to go back 30 years because we wanted to explore old characters.

Why revamp the drinking system?

We are always aiming to respond to player feedback, in the first Tavern Talk we saw that a lot of players weren’t satisfied with the drink making gameplay, so we released a few free updates that would improve it. But now that we are creating a new game, we wanted to take the opportunity to make a whole new system that fans will enjoy more.

Overall, I’m super excited to see what Gentle Troll has in store with this successor to a beloved game. She’ll be landing sometime next year and you best believe I’ll be getting ready for my DnD adventures in the meantime.

For all Tavern Talk news, stay tuned to GamingTrend!

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