Tavern Master Review: Design and Build Your Own Medieval Tavern!
Tavern Master, released on November 16th, 2021 is a brand new building simulator game for Steam. It is essentially a tycoon-based simulator game where you manage a medieval Tavern and fulfill the needs of your guests.
Like many other sandbox games out there, Tavern Master has a lot of creative elements to it. Building and managing your tavern is arguably the most enjoyable part of the game since you get to witness your work in action. When you first start the game, you will be given a small shack with minimal furniture, but over time you can upgrade that to be much larger in size. When compared to other tycoon games on the market, Tavern Master is a bit more on the simplistic side.
Gameplay
As mentioned before, the gameplay involves managing a medieval tavern and taking care of your guests. However, along with this simple rule, you will also manage your finances, hire new workers, and expand the tavern itself. Your finances are a very important asset in the game, so it’s essential you keep your guests happy as poor customer satisfaction will make it slightly more difficult to progress in the game. Hiring employees is also a crucial step to getting your business running.
You will need a mix of chefs and waitresses/waiters to ensure that the business runs smoothly. You can also hire special employees/services like musicians, for example, that will play music and attract special customers. You should also do as much research as possible so you can unlock everything quicker. There is also a hierarchy of different classes of guests. When you first play the game, you will start off with low-class customers; however, as you progress, you may start getting more prestigious customers over time. Eventually, your tavern might get enough popularity even to grab the Queen and King’s attention.
You can unlock new techs by organizing special events, but keep in mind that you can only do that every three days. This means that you’ll have to wait and watch for a long time. The provided “fast forward” speed is too slow.
Should you buy it?
Tavern Master has some redeeming qualities that make it a fun little charming game. Unfortunately, Its simplistic nature and an underwhelming amount of late-game content make replayability quite mediocre. Updates are coming from the game, according to the game developer; however, the initial launch is quite lacking. At its current level, it isn’t very feature-oriented and is quite short at only 15 hours of gameplay.
The building mechanics are quite good for the most part, but I do wish there were slightly more decorations. All these caveats aside, the gameplay is really fun, and the music is quite exceptional. If you are a big fan of tycoon-style games, then this game will most definitely fulfill your needs as a gamer. At times it does feel somewhat linear in terms of depth, but it is still an enjoyable experience nonetheless.
Conclusion
Given the fact that this game was created by an indie team, I must say it’s quite impressive. Arguably there are some bugs and problems that need to be addressed, but for the most part, this game is functional and straight to the point. Replayability isn’t the greatest, and its gameplay can become repetitive after a while, but overall it is definitely a solid game.