Kickstarter D&D-Inspired Visual Novel Game, Tavern Talk

The gaming industry seems to be one that will never die down. Traced back to the 70s with arcade games placed in bars and amusement parks, gaming has successfully grown even further, refined in vast forms, whether in the shape of tabletop and board games or video games.

Evidently favored by the masses, a plethora of board games such as Exploding Kittens and Frosthaven and video games like Shenmue 3 and Wasteland 2 were developed courtesy of Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform for fans and those enthusiastic about a project to help fund them.

One of the more recent gaming projects that has reached a much greater amount than its target funds on Kickstarter is Tavern Talk, a talking simulator and visual novel game where players play as an innkeeper/bartender whose choices bring different journeys and endings for Dungeons & Dragons-inspired NPCs, developed by German-based indie game studio Gentle Troll Entertainment.

A Kickstarter Hit

Considered a standout project and designated as a “Project We Love” by Kickstarter, Tavern Talk started its campaign on October 17, 2023, and reached its target fund of €20K, or approximately $21K, in under 6 hours. When the funding ended last November, over €156K (about $169K) were collected by 3461 backers.

The crowdfunding allowed Tavern Talk’s creators to continue developing the game, which is planned to be released by the end of 2024’s second quarter on PC through Steam and on the Nintendo Switch console, and achieve plenty of their stretch goals.

The stretch goals include features that could enhance a player’s Tavern Talk experience, such as digital arcana tarot cards, a D&D 5E one-shot campaign, new NPCs to encounter, and new drinks for our innkeeper/bartender to serve the characters they meet. The drinks, named Quincy’s Hot Chocolate and Minthie’s Cursed Coffee, are based on real drinks made by TikTok creators who actually inspired the creation of Tavern Talk in the first place.

@quincylk

Excited to announce not one, BUT TWO unlocked drinks in the Tavern Talk cozy fantasy game, thanks to wonderful backers and support! . Quin... See more

When Tavern Talk producer and creative lead Selima Heister browsed through TikTok one day, they encountered Quincy’s Tavern, a TikTok profile run by Quincy and Mackenzie, where they read stories and share F&B recipes to their viewers at their Tavern-themed place, The Lucky Gyphon.

The content inspired Heister and Tavern Talk’s narrative designer, Jasmin Düsterloh, to create a game where an innkeeper encounters NPC adventurers and brews drinks for them. The game does not stop there, though.

Drinks, Stories, and More

Inspired by bartending visual novel games like Coffee Talk and Cyberpunk-esque bartending games like Red Strings Club and VA-11 HALL-A, the mechanics of brewing drinks for NPCs is a large aspect of Tavern Talk. What makes Tavern Talk’s bartending stand out is the weight and impact of the drinks the innkeeper brews on the story.

When in Coffee Talk, NPCs would often already know what they wish to drink, making the bartender’s job mainly following existing or creating new recipes, Tavern Talk has NPCs leave the decision to the innkeeper, only providing “vague” descriptions (like “a sweet but refreshing drink”) of what they want.

Designed with multiple endings, whatever drink the innkeeper chooses to make for each NPC impacts what the ending will be, along with which dialogue players, as the innkeeper, choose when dialogue choices come up. Similar to most, if not all, Telltale games, decisions that players make heavily affect the outcome of the game, making every choice matter.

While every character the innkeeper encounters will already have adventures they’ve gone through and exciting or sad stories to tell, the gameplay also lets the innkeeper send their patrons on quests. The quests can be made and assigned by compiling rumors the other previous NPCs visiting the tavern have told the innkeeper.

When adventurers return from their quests, they may potentially bring trinkets for the innkeeper to decorate their tavern with. Certain decisions made by the innkeeper can also be used to change the tavern’s interior.

Themes of Found Family

Adopting influences from TTRPG like Dungeons & Dragons where players would run dozens of campaigns and grow attached to their characters as well as other characters they may encounter, Tavern Talk was designed with the found family trope in mind, especially due to many of the NPCs also being inspired by real people (and pets).

Players are opened up to the many lives of diverse characters and given the opportunity to even change them, along with the endless possibilities in meaningful narrative and lore. When typical bartending visual novels focus on the NPCs’ stories alone, Tavern Talk gives the innkeeper plenty of characterization as well, making the exploration of their character just as equally exciting.

With an approximate runtime of about 10 hours, at least 16 characters to get to know, and vast outcomes in quests, dialogues, arcs, and endings, Tavern Talk is expected to be enjoyably replayable. The game’s demo, showcasing five interesting characters and many drinks to brew, is available on Steam and itch.io now.

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