Review | Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker - Service With a Snooze
Tending bars in games is not a new concept. The cyberpunk title VA-11 HALL-A popularised the visual novel presentation of such a decade ago. Since then, we’ve seen crude emulators as well as a number of titles in the Coffee Talk series. Gentle Troll Entertainment’s Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker [Editor’s note: listed as Tavern Talk 2 on Steam] — a standalone prequel to 2024’s Tavern Talk — attempts to distinguish itself by leaning into the tropes of what it means to be a bartender in a fantasy RPG: hearing rumours, dishing them back out as quests, and providing buffs and debuffs any adventurer desires. I’m admittedly unfamiliar with Tavern Talk, so Dreamwalker marks my entry point to the franchise.
Your role as tavern owner sees you engaging with but not directly interacting with the action of the more standard fantasy story events. For example, you won’t be the one going to investigate a vampire lair or venture out into the world and figure out what is causing the dreams at the heart of the loose plot, but you will influence events through dialogue and drink choices. It's a clever means of handling the idea of community and the reason why the protagonist is unable to go on an adventure of their own. You are the supporting character in a grander story, but at no point do you feel small or meaningless. There is an awkward balance of trying to “sideline” the player’s coauthorship, while removing agency from non-player characters that is awkward at times, but by no means ruinous.
Dreamwalker is firmly in the cozy work-simulator subgenre, and attempts to balance its visual novel presentation with a couple of rather repetitive minigames that leave quite a bit to be desired. While they certainly break up the sometimes awkward pacing of conversations, this game ultimately feels a bit uncomfortable in its attempt to stand out in a crowded field. There is little interest in interrogating any of the wider implications around labour and cozy games happening in Dreamwalker. Instead, developer Gentle Troll Entertainment opts for briskly moving past such worries in favour of a comforting tone, fantasy trappings, and character relationships.
What grinds the gears to a near halt is the act of drink-making. It's a bold choice to ask players of narrative-heavy games to perform arithmetic. As customers come in they’ll ask for drinks with key words highlighted. They might desire something cold, or spicy. Perhaps a concoction to raise their intelligence or charisma. All possible drinks are named in a recipe book and to craft them you have to combine ingredients in such a fashion that balances out the stat buffs and debuffs. One potion can raise strength by two while lowering agility by one. Another may simply decrease or increase a stat without knock-on effects. Combine these in the correct way and you’ll please your fantasy friends. Trouble is, at no point is it all that compelling.
Now, I admit I’m squarely in the anti-math camp. In high school when I really struggled on a problem I could physically feel my brain stall out and a low hum of anxiety take over. While the calculations here rarely get complex, early on they do trigger some familiar feelings that someone who seeks a career off writing would rather forget. Quickly though, I began to click with the magical mixology, but at a cost. There are a finite amount of drinks someone might order and nine out of ten times there is no reason to stray from whatever proven means of preparation you can remember. Descriptive words that the bargoers provide repeat. You make the same few drinks over and over in the exact same way. On the rare occasions that someone asks for a stronger version, the tedium gives way to fleeting feelings that maybe there could be something more compelling here, but sadly this is not so.
Dreamwalker keeps the stakes low like many in this broad, vibes-based category of games, but sometimes a cozy tone means a flat one. One where little of note happens from one day to the next. A common sin visual novels can commit, with their verbose scripts, is being boring. Unfortunately, I don’t feel engaged with the world around me, the tavern’s patrons, or my character’s interiority all that much. Though I do enjoy some of the quirky and lighthearted jabs the characters make from time to time, too often a humourous situation carries on for several sentences too long. There is certainly substantive material to some of the characters’ stories, from abundant parental issues to boredom with one’s profession. However, there is a tone issue at play, as comedic and serious discussions are often mixed into a single scene without smooth transitions between the two.
Worst of all, characters go on and on. I found my attention drifting at times; I would focus back on the conversation at hand, only to be surprised that the VTuber-esque characters, with their floaty animations that give an unnatural momentum to individual body parts, were still discussing the same inane subject. One set of characters was particularly grating: Inkeri is constantly stealing while goody two-shoes Quasa remains at their side in order to catch them in the act, a stagnant dynamic that runs on for too long. On multiple occasions folks engage in small talk about gift-giving or baking, which is fine in concept, but not for as long as any of these discussions go on for.
To be fair to the overall aesthetic, it isn’t offensively dull, and accompanied by better writing, I could see myself being quite engaged with this eclectic gathering of queer folks. If all you desire is an array of hot people, they certainly get the job done here.
Despite the tenor of much of this review, I don’t find any one aspect of Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker memorably terrible. Two months from now, I could very well forget about most aspects of its design. It ranges from middling to not good, with a few core concepts that could sing in a better overall package. That’s just not what is going on here though. I very much count myself among the folks who could be enraptured by a cozy visual novel that blends job simulation with a fantasy setting, but this is all just standard genre fare.
Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker was played on PC using a code provided by the publisher.
