Developer: Gentle Troll Entertainment
Publisher: Gentle Troll Entertainment
Platforms: PC, Switch, Switch 2
Tested on: Switch 2
Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker – Review
These days, visual novels where readers/players take on the role of a bartender or barista are commonplace, almost to the point that we’d consider them a subgenre in their own right. To name just a few of them: there’s Coffee Talk and its sequel, Sunny Café, Best Served Cold… and Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker. This spinoff of Tavern Talk stands out from the other titles because of its high fantasy setting. But is the inclusion of Fae and finfolk enough to add this tavern to your next pub crawl, or does it add up to a watered-down version of something we’ve had better elsewhere?
Story
Don’t worry if you haven’t played the original Tavern Talk; we hadn’t either. Although Dreamwalker is firmly set within the Tavern Talk universe, the game acts as a standalone prequel that takes place 36 years before that first game. Set within The Drowsy Dragon, a small quayside bar on the coast of Borkam, players step into the role of a tavernkeeper with a very special talent: Any drinks you mix up can alter the fate of the bar patrons. This ability becomes the foundation on which Dreamwalker’s story builds. You listen to weary travelers, gathering rumours and serving drinks that prevent their dreams from twisting into nightmares. Your core clientele consists of a small group of just eight patrons. That may not seem like a lot, but it’s a matter of quality over quantity. By focusing on a limited cast, Dreamwalker provides ample breathing room for their individual stories. Each character feels distinct, from Aegeus, a local chef who lacks courage but dreams of adventuring to Quasar, a stoic paladin who is on the hunt for a notorious Fae thief. That the cast also includes a chaotic Fae who frequently changes names while hiding from guards is a total coincidence, of course. Your choices and alignments feel like they actually matter: will you treat the closed-off witch Mariyam as an enemy or a friend? The story is Dreamwalker’s main driving force. It explores mature themes, such as friendship, loss, grief, healing and trauma with maturity and sincerity, and carefully avoids cheap emotional tricks or melodrama.
Graphics
Being a visual novel first and foremost, Dreamwalker doesn’t push any boundaries in terms of graphics. That said, its presentation is very charming. The Drowsy Dragon perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being in a fantasy seaside settlement, to the point where the backdrops almost make the tavern feel like a character in its own right. Each of the characters featured in the story is well designed as well, with details that tell you so much about their personalities and backgrounds. Subtle animations of eyes, tails and other body parts further elevate Dreamwalker above the static images of more traditional visual novels. Dreamwalker isn’t a very demanding title, and performance is smooth as butter, though we would have been more surprised if this hadn’t been the case for a game like this.
Sound
The music in Dreamwalker tries to match the vibe of the story rather than its setting. Instead of tunes that sound decidedly “medieval”, the soundtrack consists of soft, relaxing lo-fi melodies that match the cosy vibe. It subtly shifts as the narrative progresses, perfectly complementing the moods of specific scenes. As sound effects are limited and voice acting is absent, it’s a good thing that Dreamwalker’s music knocks it out of the park.
Gameplay
The fastest way to describe Dreamwalker’s gameplay is “Coffee Talk, but fantasy-themed”. A more elaborate description is that Dreamwalker’s gameplay blends visual novel-style dialogue with drink-making. Your patrons will request drinks through conversational clues rather than explicit orders. It’s up to you to mix up a potion that matches their cravings. Interestingly enough, the attributes of your concoctions aren’t expressed in terms of flavours but instead as D&D-style attributes. Your drinks can have an effect on their strength, dexterity, intelligence, charisma or defense. It seemed a little abstract at first, especially when trying to relate stats to a character’s story, but through some good old trial-and-error and with a healthy dose of lateral thinking, we figured out the in-game logic. Take charisma, for example: a character with a high charisma stat will stand out from a crowd, but deliberately lowering this will allow them to blend in more easily. There are 15 different potions to experiment with, and the game’s drink mixing interface is very user-friendly. You can hover over a potion to preview its stat impact. Completed drinks are flagged by Beebug, your adorable companion/pet. Failed mixes can simply be tossed in a discard bucket, so there is no real way to screw things up mechanically, although the consequences of your choices may not turn out to be the ones you were hoping for.
A secondary mechanic further cements Dreamwalker taking place in a D&D-like universe. As you listen to dialogue, you’ll collect tidbits of rumours and gossip. At the end of an in-game day, you’ll arrange the information you’ve gathered into structured quests and then place them on a board for adventurers to undertake. The outcomes of these quests have an effect on the branching narrative structure of the game, of course, but they do feel less important than the direct impact that your drinks do. At its core, you’re still manipulating the flow of stories by making choices. Dreamwalker remains a visual novel first and foremost, regardless of all the interactive elements that are layered on top. One such layer that we hadn’t mentioned up to this point is that you can decorate The Drowsy Dragon with unlockable cosmetics, which does make it so that the tavern really feels like it’s yours. This fits with an overarching design philosophy that keeps gameplay mechanics intentionally light, approachable and casual, as the game prioritises narrative immersion over puzzles. If you were hoping for this one to be more of a management sim or something in the vein of Lil’ Guardsman or Wyrmhall, then Dreamwalker won’t live up to your expectations. Reading is the dominant activity.
Our first playthrough of Dreamwalker took us around 9 hours. Of course, a game like this is meant to be revisited over and over, seeing how different choices play out, especially since there are three entirely unique endings. Dreamwalker does include a fast-forward/skip option for previously read dialogue, but there isn’t a chapter select feature, meaning you’ll have to rely on manual saves and bookkeeping for the most efficient way to see everything. That’s a small price to pay to immerse yourself in this world though, as is Dreamwalker’s RRP, which will set you back a mere €15.99. That’s a very reasonable price for what you’re getting here, although it’s worth mentioning that you can also get Dreamwalker bundled together with the original Tavern Talk, saving you a little money in the process compared to getting both titles separately. At the time of writing, there are also two paid DLCs available for Dreamwalker, but as far as we understand, they only add more decorative items for The Drowsy Dragon, and at €7.99, that does seem a little excessive compared to the price of the base game.
Conclusion
We’re happy to say that Dreamwalker met our expectations, even if it didn’t necessarily exceed them. This isn’t the kind of game that redefines its genre, nor is it one that will blow you away. However, it is a solid visual novel, with likeable characters and well-written storylines. The game borrows heavily from the template established by games like Coffee Talk, but its fantasy setting and quest-focused structure give it enough of an identity to stand comfortably alongside them. Sometimes, that’s all you need.
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