One of the most beloved figures in any tabletop RPG is the innkeeper. Countless campaigns have started in a tavern, with the adventuring party accepting a quest from the proprietor. Tavern Talk is an upcoming “cozy visual novel” that puts players behind the bar and into the role of the tavern owner at the Wayfarer’s Inn.
In Tavern Talk, players can live out their dreams of “running a tavern in a D&D-inspired fantasy,’ – mix drinks, collect rumors, interact with patrons, and send them on epic quests. Just like a Dungeons & Dragons DM, your choices will affect how the characters react and influence the overall story.
In an interview with All Access Arcade, the game’s writer, Jassi, discussed how the Gentle Troll Entertainment team tried to capture the atmosphere of playing traditional TTRPGs in their game.
“We want the game to feel similar to that incredible feeling of playing a TTRPG with your friends around your kitchen table. This often includes meta jokes being thrown around, and so we wanted some of that in our game as well.”
Meta jokes are on display throughout the Tavern Talk demo, with several fourth-wall-breaking moments and pop culture references. I won’t spoil any of the moments, but there is mention of a famous series many players should know.
Jassi said, “We sprinkled several pop culture references throughout the game, mostly because they were funny to us, and so we thought other people might find them funny too. After all, what’s the point of making a fantasy game if you can’t reference The Lord Of The Rings at least once?”
Tavern Talk is bursting with fantasy vibes, from the setting to the characters. Selima, the game’s creative lead, said the characters were “inspired by some famous TTRPG character tropes and seasoned with a little bit of spice.” Each character in Tavern Talk brings something unique to the game, just like different players in a TTRPG.
The first character introduced is Fable, an elf ranger who is a regular at the inn. After a conversation featuring lots of food metaphors, Fable orders a drink, and the game guides players through a tutorial. Other characters frequent the inn throughout the demo, including Caerlin, a Vukakin who provides the quest tutorial. The full game will feature 18 characters total, in addition to some “tavern visitors.”
Fable, an anxious elf ranger who wants to write songs about their great adventures.
It’s easy to draw comparisons between Tavern Talk and other “barista-style” games. The drink-mixing mechanic is reminiscent of games Gentle Troll cited as inspirations, such as Coffee Talk and VA-11 Hall-A. It also has a lot in common with Potion Tales, which was inspired by the same titles. Despite these influences, the initial idea for Tavern Talk was actually the result of a video Selima saw on TikTok.
“The idea of Tavern Talk came quickly. One day, I was scrolling TikTok and saw a video where an innkeeper greeted an adventurer that had lost their whole adventuring party on a quest that the innkeeper sent them on. This kind of triggered an aha moment: Imagine this but as a game like Coffee Talk. And thus, the idea of Tavern Talk was born. After a few days of wild brainstorming with our CEO Michel, we quickly took one of the artists and threw together concept slides with very early artwork so that we could pitch the game at Gamescom 2022.”
The original video that inspired Selima was from Quincy’s Tavern, a fantasy innkeeper-themed account on TikTok. The inspiration “came full circle, with [Gentle Troll] now collaborating with Quincy’s Tavern to enrich Tavern Talk with Quincy and Minthie’s essence.” Both their characters will be making an appearance in the final release version of Tavern Talk. The Kickstarter campaign also unlocked Quincy’s Hot Chocolate and Minthie’s Cursed Coffee.
The Kickstarter for Tavern Talk was funded in under six hours and received support from 3,461 backers. “It’s fair to say that the reception of our Kickstarter blew us away,” Jassi said. “When we first started concepting Tavern Talk, our goal was to reach 20k wishlists before release, and as this is our first entertainment title, we weren’t sure we’d even be able to reach that. Now we’re already on the way to 50k wishlists, with over 3k backers on Kickstarter, over a thousand Discord members, and a community we love to bits.”
Gentle Troll’s background is in “serious games,” mainly focusing on education and learning titles. “But,” according to Selima, “there has always been the wish to create entertainment games.” Tavern Talk isn’t the team’s first attempt at an entertainment title, but it is the first to be published.
“I want our games to be like a good book that you put back into your shelf after reading and hold dear for the rest of your life.”
Michel Wacker, Gentle Troll CEO
Unfortunately, their first two titles, Underdown and Grimm’s Curse, were never published. Selima said, “While it’s sad it went nowhere so far, we got a great deal of learnings out of that. We learned what’s important if you want to pitch your game to publishers.” For Tavern Talk, the team “improved our internal processes and focused on finding fun and emotion early on.”
These improved processes led them to get funding from the German Games Fund and FFF Bayern, and they are already working on a second game, Dragon’s Roarmance, set in the Tavern Talk universe.
The upcoming game “will be set many years prior to the events of Tavern Talk in a point of time where (most of) our beloved characters have not yet existed. We will instead dive more closely into meeting the mythical characters of Asteria, namely the great Dragons that rule this world as gods.”
The Gentle Troll team “always had faith in Tavern Talk, but to have others see it too, is something entirely else. This game is a really personal and important project for us that the whole team has put so much love into over the past year, and to see all that love returned to us with open arms has been an incredible experience. We love this game, and it means a lot to us that people believe in it as much as we do.”
The Tavern Talk demo is available on Steam. To keep up with the game’s latest developments, social media manager Tommy advises, “Just keep an eye, fingers crossed, and if you haven’t yet, make sure to wishlist Tavern Talk.” You can follow Gentle Troll on Instagram, Twitter (Gentle Troll and Tavern Talk), and Bluesky.
Add comment