Typically, when I visit a fantasy game inn, I do it to rest before heading out to fight a dragon, take on a quest, or have a low fight with an NPC to finally convince him to join my party.
Conversations in the tavern he subverted my expectations by putting me in the shoes of an innkeeper and tasking me with doing little more than chatting with guests who came in on their adventures. It’s a nice change, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it needed a little more oomph towards the end.
Simple but mostly satisfying
Conversation in the tavern (PC [Reviewed]Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Gentle Troll Entertainment
Publisher: Gentle Troll Entertainment
Released: June 20, 2024
MSRP: $17.99 / £14.99
You will become familiar with the basic gameplay mechanics Conversations in the tavern quite quickly. Every customer sitting at the bar needs a drink of some sort. Some of them will tell you what they want, while others will simply indicate what drink they want to try with dialogue clues that are quite straightforward to decipher.
Once you know more or less what your customer needs, it’s time to mix up the order. You have a set of ingredients that you can pour into a glass and you need to balance the statistics in that glass to satisfy the customer’s needs. Most often, the result is two or three tinctures of two specific ingredients and one for flavor.
The system is straightforward to learn, but I don’t think that makes it basic. I had a great time balancing the infusions, pouring a glass of a stat-boosting potion for each client I met every day and night. This is definitely the most engaging part Conversation in the tavernand serves its purpose of breaking up the bulky dialogue sequences that make up most of the rest of the time spent in the game.
If you mess up your drink, you can pour some of it out for your pet, Andu, which I think is a great little touch. The game is full of little tidbits of this fantasy setting, whether it’s in the conversations you read or the missions you can complete. They fill the world without you having to leave the inn, allowing you to live vicariously through anyone who passes through them.
Match three
Don’t get too excited about the idea of tasks. This is another gameplay mechanic to add to the list, but it’s very elementary. While talking to each character, you will hear bits of information about the world. For example, people are disappearing in a nearby town, there are rumors of a werewolf, and the warrior you serve is unable to go out and kill this supposed beast.
This gives you three notes that you can put together to create a task and post it to your job board. The character will then drop in, pick up that task, and head out to complete it. How they do this depends on the drink you make them before they leave, but you won’t get a satisfying cutscene or a macabre story. Instead, you’ll hear about how the character succeeded or failed, with more gossip and hints of stories from the wider world, thanks to more customers.
If you’re looking for more from a fantasy tavern simulator, so am I. But that’s not what this game is about. Conversation in the tavern saves you from confined interactivity with amazing writing, both in the story and behind each character, that keeps you glued to the screen. It’s straightforward to become immediately invested in the customers you meet and their lives outside the four walls of the inn.
My favorite is definitely Fable, the elf you meet from the very beginning of the game. Her narrative arc, as with any character, focuses on who she is as a person, rather than forcing her to go from scared farmer to impressive warrior in the blink of an eye and forcing her to somehow fit into the narrative for the sake of action .
Conversation in the tavern tells about the real lives of the characters in a fantastic setting. You don’t always have to deal with a world-ending event, and not everyone is always elated and positive. For example, sometimes your thief needs to feel like he’s worth something and have someone who is genuinely curious about how he’s doing, or a warrior’s hesitance to kill something that he often mistakenly thinks he needs to recognize rather than ignore. character.
It fills the world in ways you almost never think about. The only time I really think about the same topic is when I’m playing Fairy tale 3a game in which the player is actively encouraged to play in a world where he can move around and notice petite, everyday things. Conversation in the tavern it’s a game about all this, and you, like a fly on the wall, watch it all unfold in the relative safety of your inn.
In a way, this game made me realize how shallow even games are. Fallout 3 it can be about their dialogue and character development when you think about how certain actions can really affect them. This doesn’t mean that other games are bad, quite the opposite Conversation in the tavern it makes these characters seem so much more real, even if all you do is pour them a drink and ask how they’re really doing underneath their armor and facades.
If you like visual novels and games very similar to this one, e.g Conversation over coffee franchise, then this is absolutely for you. However, this is a snail-paced burn that does not accelerate or lead to scenarios that could be described as epics or turning points for the universe. This is a game for those who want a real answer from their friends when they ask how they are. It’s a visual novel that you don’t have to rush through and that focuses more on triggering something rather than throwing you with impressive fights, fates, and fantastic visuals.
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