Tavern Talk - A Cozy Visual Novel

The art is fantastic and the character design is nice. I like the concept of building quests based off rumors and having a map with lore within it. However, the drink making is fun at first, but gets boring after the same character asks for the same drink for the 7th time in a row because there isn't that much variety, and honestly it's too simple. The most interesting part is deciding which drinks to make for quests, but that doesn't happen very often and. The characters are flat, and they don't make me interested about what they do at all, but a lot of times it feels like they've just come to a therapy session. All the characters and plot are very shallow and entirely predictable. The humor is just...not funny. I wish the 4th wall breaks and modern terminology were toned down. On top of that, it feels like I'm overhearing other people's conversations, which would be fine if they were interesting. Even on the rare occasion when the characters had conflict, it felt like a nothing burger. Forced because there has to be conflict, but there is little to no lead up, and honestly no pay off either. In fact, I made it to day nine and there was only one. and it was also by Fable, the elf character least likely to confront anyone. Never mind, for a game marketed for having choice and multiple endings, the Innkeeper seems to have no agency. You can't serve someone the wrong drink, you can't open the letter sent to you for days and days until the game lets you, and the dialogue choices themselves seem to change nothing. The only choice you can make is what drink to serve someone when it sways a quest one way or another, but they tell you which of the two drinks will do what and why...so you already know the outcome. Also, I have to double click every single dialogue speech bubble, even when I set it to max speed, and most of the time it's an extremely short sentence, maybe five words on average it feels, for what actually is a long wall of text. It honestly had be losing my engagement much faster than if the text bubble had a few sentences in it. I feel like I was waiting on the bubble to show up and clicking more often than I was reading. It honestly made the dialogue that much more stilted. I am, unfortunately, disappointed. I thought the first time I tried to play it, it was just my headspace. So, I tried again. And I didn't like it.

为什么这么多好评？ 本人特别喜欢dnd coc 和va-11类的 看美术很好看某个人又有不同的阵营 什么混沌中立的就更好奇了 打了没多久感觉好无聊。。。。 一种难以形容的无聊 我看有评论说可能偏视觉小说所以觉得无聊 不是的 别的视觉小说没有这么无聊 我突然感觉和这bgm有关系 太催眠了。。。。。。。 大家可以来体验一下这个催眠程度 比很多日乙的共通线和一些视觉小说的共通线还要催眠。。 我不行了 当然 我有强迫症所以我可能会尽量打完 或者真的成为我打一半不想打了的。。

3/10 its a visual novel pretending to be other things + art style - gameplay - story, walls of text but it only shows up in tiny one sentence bubbles that take like 0.8 seconds to show up. every with text show up at max speed you still end up waiting for a speech bubbles to appear a large % of the time. - trying to sell me stuff when i turn the game on - trying to sell me stuff when i turn the game off

Had this in my library for a while, with the second coming out I finally played it and... look, its a cute story. A visual novel if you will. Is it a game? No. There is a mix mechanic but it doesn't matter what you mix as long as you get the right 'stat' maxed out so its just busy work for your hands to feel involved as you read the story. Then at a few points you get a choice between one of two things (drink choice or dialog). One leads to a happy path (aside from one single instance) and yea, its exactly the choice you think is appropriate for a 'cozy' game. The other 'choice' leads to an unhappy path as you'd expect. Assuming you're not just out to see the bad-endings you really only ever have 1 valid choice. (aside from that one instance where you'll find yourself doing a fast-forward replay to change it - hard since you can't see the dialog before conversation options which, super-annoying). So basically this is basically one very long cozy story, with the disappointment that what you mix (the one thing you ever really contribute) is absolutely meaningless. And its cute. Get it on sale and read the story as you would any cozy comic. Don't get it if you want to play a game about bartending, or you know.. play a game.

断断续续的玩了好几次，每次打开之后都忘了之前的剧情，还好忘了也没关系，这些剧情基本上都是在水字数。这部游戏立绘有多精美剧情就有多注水，一群人东拉西扯一整天也不见得能说出几句真正有信息量的话，翻开历史对话记录有可能满满两页都在来回的寒暄或者“......”“......”（配合高质量立绘变化）（但依旧难掩这都是无意义对话的本质），高情商：非常现实的对话。低情商：建议退出文游界直接拍个那种魔饮客栈的动画——你怎么还有DLC？怎么还有续作？ 每次打开之后都劝自己说不定马上就打完了，但每次都还有！还有！！还有！！！现在最后一次存档在第十四章，依旧没有一丝结局的影子，主线进展缓慢，世界观也没讲明白，我能感觉到自己已经彻彻底底的撑不下去了，而目前看到的这些剧情换别人来写说不定四章就能写完，根本不用折磨我这么长时间。 以及我本人特别讨厌的那种描写“角色成长”的方式是让性格各自存在“缺陷”的、有明显差异的角色都变成一模一样的自信、善良、睿智......很明显这个游戏就是这么写的，感觉我最喜欢的菲薄完全被写毁了，菲薄这角色在我看来是有点谱系特质在的，结果主角给了几杯饮料就把菲薄这个特质在几天内就改没了，无语

[h1]美术很上乘，道德绑架的功力更是惊艳绝伦[/h1] 游戏很有趣，美术非常棒，立绘很萌而且有差分，前半部分故事也很不错，但是！ 首先剧情背景设计很薄弱，主角的背景设定前期根本没有任何线索提到，在感受里就是我做错了0件事情，我不知道为什么会有人突然蹦出来道德绑架然后骂我，即使是后半部分主角的身份慢慢浮出水面也没有赋予那些随时随地突然出现的超雄辱骂一点点正当性。而且动不动就骂主角逃避，主角也许逃避了但是我可没逃避啊，那我坐在电脑跟前聚精会神试图分析剧情和主角身份的这9个小时还不够认真还不够努力还不够负责吗？别整我了行不行？这说到底是游戏剧情和线索安排设计的问题，哪怕前期多给一些主角身份的线索呢。因为游戏的剧情设计或者线索设计有短板导致我不能获得足够的信息，但是确实想要做个好人于是本本分分的在酒馆调酒，结果有人蹦出来说我一直躲在酒馆里什么都不干，说我阻止他们做什么事情是自私自利只允许别人按照我的想法行事，然后给的对话选择竟然只有自省，一个中世纪西幻酒吧老板不能把在我酒馆里骂我的客人全部赶出去就罢了，连骂回去都不可以吗，急需一个血条mod^^ 其次一些玩法很莫名其妙自相矛盾，一个把主角的选择能够导致蝴蝶效应作为玩法之一的游戏，同时又让所有角色一失败就开始怒骂主角选错了或者什么都不在乎，用负反馈来逼迫玩家自省或者做个好人真挺没品的，不会让人觉得是我的选择害死了这个人我好遗憾好难过，只能显得有几个主要角色像是无能的超雄巨婴一样，有零点主观能动性。而且其实选什么最后的结果也都差别不大，就是走一个过场甚至很多时候给出的两个选择根本没有区别，只服务于那个玩家没有足够线索去了解的主角人设，完全背离玩家的意愿，比如主角在冲突里的选择虽然有两个但是只是道歉和真诚的道歉的区别。问题还有此类戏剧性的冲突剧情完完全全的模板化，所有人都是先悲伤无言然后冷嘲热讽最后突然暴怒拍桌而起怒骂主角来一场酣畅淋漓的甩锅，角色有本事撒泼骂人但是没本事为自己的选择负责，把选择权交给主角的唯一目的是出了问题好让主角背锅，倒是有少数角色会在之后道歉但是更多情况是主角道歉。主角的塑造也是超级软脚虾，大部分冲突剧情里面给予玩家的选择就如前所言只有道歉道歉和道歉，太懦了简直是一个Q弹的中村糯米糍，自尊和骨气堪比一根成年大香蕉，很多解开心结和处理嫌隙的方式是主角单方面的滑跪道歉并且获得角色宽容大度的原谅，真的可惜了美术和前期的人物设计。某个气得我意识模糊的瞬间我觉得这个游戏应该是少打了一个bdsm的tag对不起也许我不是受众群体别对我做服从性测试了我真不是抖m，角色设定挺有趣的但是塑造方面我只能说别无理取闹了行吗，别幻想全世界都是白骑士了这么想要鞭策玩家的话可以删掉选择这个玩法的，怎么不管什么选择都只能获得挨骂啊 千言万语汇成一句这个游戏对我好差我对这个游戏爱恨交加，依然好评但我的评价是除非降价五折及以下否则不值得尝试，或者如果你特别喜欢文字小说类和DND风格又心胸比较宽广的话

The first thing game asks you when you log in is ''your pronouns''. Also all the characters and their stories are boring af.

This is a railroady visual novel. Meaning most of your time is spent listening to the other characters talk, the story decides when it is time to have quests available to give out, and the story decides when you are allowed to make tavern drinks. Railroady visual novels are not bad; I have played several good ones. This restriction of in game actions is good to know for those who would prefer a different visual novel that is more open or interactive. In railroady visual novels, the story or characters have to win the player to keep playing. The story and characters didn't win me over. The story is a repeat of the same smaller story - a customer doesn't feel emotionally ready to tackle a quest that will usually require communication (with either a teammate or opponent), so you provide a drink that empowers the customer with skills to complete the quest in a way that nurtures character growth. You are also allowed the option to provide a drink that would stunt or reverse character growth. Each character has a defining flaw, like trouble with confidence, communication, or anger. That flaw is constantly brought up in every conversation or interaction which makes the characters feel one-sided. The game makes one feel more like a therapist and less like a tavern keeper. If you are uncertain about buying this game, watch an hour of gameplay and picture it on repeat for 10+ hours with less drink pouring and more listening as time goes on.

Lovely story with a wide range of queer characters. True, it's mostly reading for 15 hours with the occasional drink-mixing, decision-making and quest creation in between. Some may find that boring. I, however, loved.