Tavern Keeper is not the first fantasy barkeeping video game, nor will it be the last, but as of this month it's comfortably my favourite.
It's a management sim that puts you in charge of a series of taverns in a fantasy universe, with a very breezy tone. The goal is to design a floorplan, build some stuff, hire some staff and keep everything running smoothly enough that you can unlock some more, cooler stuff.
Which is all very management game, but two things about Tavern Keeper stood out for me in particular.
First, this thing isn't just a management sim, it's a toybox. In addition to a stock roster of objects and decorations you can fill your pubs with, Tavern Keeper also has a surprisingly weighty creation suite that lets you build your own bookshelves, apply your own lighting effects to candles and even create your own paintings to hang on the walls. You can then share anything you build online, as well as download other people's creations, a circle of creating and sharing that could have been a game in its own right.
These tools take centre stage because Tavern Keeper, like Town To City, knows the real pleasure of building something isn't being stressed over everything that could go wrong, it's the joy of building itself, and of being able to enjoy surveying and playing with the thing you've made. The extent to which you can make each pub in this game yours, down to which suit of playing cards is left lying on a dimly-lit table in the back corner (which you lit dimly!) is remarkable. I haven't gone this hard dressing the finer details of a video game sandbox since the last time I played The Sims, and that was a long time ago.
Despite what the cartoonish visuals and warm fireplaces might suggest, there can be real challenges here, from the expected (keeping floors clean and customers happy) to the Gordon Ramsey-esque, where kitchen staff will break down as they're overwhelmed by food orders for items on the menu you've run out of because you didn't order enough stock and the floors are too dirty oh and also something is on fire, but the key to Tavern Keeper is that you can scale all this stuff to suit your tastes as much as you want. The game has a bunch of sliders you can adjust before starting that can give you everything from the management nightmare described above to a laidback pub creation focus that kneecaps the game's difficulty and pumps your coffers with enough cash to not ever have to worry about money.
The second thing that stood out for me was Tavern Keeper’s humour. This is a deeply funny video game. Not immediately, and not obnoxiously, but get a few minutes into the first tutorial and its quirks start becoming obvious. The writing is funny, sure, in the way that so many management games these days are funny, but somehow this entire game is funny, from its menus to its tutorial design. Its jokes have broken containment, and could be anywhere.
My first few hours with Tavern Keeper felt like playing through an episode of The Eric Andre Show, or a kid's variety program from the 90s that dumped slime on unsuspecting guests, in that anything I clicked on or looked at could have been hiding a gag. The skeleton barkeep who just walked in, he's funny, but you might also laugh at a chest unlock sequence, a character's stats or even an introduction to tooltips. It keeps you on your toes!
Tavern Keeper is still in Early Access, but I'd have given this two thumbs up--the closest I'll ever come to a review score--if I'd been told this was a 1.0 release. It's always fun running a pub, pubs are inherently great, but running a pub that's truly yours, right down to the designs on the cushions and the placement of the silverware, is even better.
