Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker review: a cosy, complex drink-making narrative sim

You are not the bright, shiny hero of Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker, but you play an essential role in the fabric of its heroic fantasy tale regardless. As the proprietor of a cosy tavern, The Drowsy Dragon, it’s your job in this game to serve the heroes of your realm, providing them with the exact mix of courage or inspiration to forge onwards, and put away the evils of the world.

This twist on the ever-growing ‘sip and chat’ genre of cosy narrative games is a lovely companion piece to the original Tavern Talk, introducing a new cast of characters to befriend and serve.

Stay patient with its narrative, and you’ll soon be privy to all manner of adventures, playing out in dialogue hints and snippets of clues, as well as minor events that impact your tavern.

A clever drink-making system spices up the story

As Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker opens, you share in a quiet rumination. Your tavern keeper character describes their role as an overseer, happy and satisfied with life running a quiet tavern, rather than being out there in the world, fighting monsters and tackling quests.

Not everything is for you, after all. In this game, you must accept that you belong behind a counter, and that you’re happy with this position – but as you’ll quickly understand, that doesn’t mean you’re any less a part of the action.

Day by day in this narrative adventure, you’ll meet and greet an array of heroes, and serve them drinks that may bolster them, or change their fate. At your disposal is a an array of special potions, all of which can be mixed together for one effect or another.

The tasks you encounter are complex, with deep thinking and understanding needed to deliver the correct potion to your latest visitor. It’s not a matter of your customers saying they want one particular potion or another – they’ll typically give you clues and hints as to what impact they want.

One hero might want to be inspired or encouraged to rally their armies. Another might want a hint of spice to dazzle them. You must listen carefully to their requests (or consult your handy log) and then figure out which of your potion recipes will most meet their needs.

Then, you get to take part in a lovely, challenging drink-making mini-game that sees you mixing and matching up to five ingredients to hit the right collation of ingredients.

An added twist is that there’s not always one single solution – there’s interpretation in many briefs, allowing you to get creative with the drinks you mix. In some circumstances, your choices can even directly guide the quests of your heroes, with resulting dialogue revealing how their adventures went.

Guide the fate of your heroes with cosy drinks and cosier chats

Seeing the journey from the outside – beyond key story segments that feature an invading fog and other mysteries – is wonderful for the player who just wants to sit back and relax with a cosy story. There’s no pressure here to level up or head into battles.

Your involvement in quests is limited to putting together clues on sticky notes and flagging them for the heroes that visit, as well as being an unwitting part of a minor mystery or two.

You do have input into these stories, as you can take part in witty banter and dialogue with your regulars, and it’s in these conversations that Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is most heartening. It’s all about getting to know the heroes that visit, and getting a better understanding of their world through clues in their stories, and what they’re willing to share.

Heroes might arrive with a more muted approach, keen to keep their secrets to themselves. But spending time with them and creating drinks for them across multiple visits will reveal more about their character, and their deepest hopes and dreams. You become a sounding board for their worries and strife, and get to know them as friends in warm, intimate fashion.

Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is slow-moving and heartfelt

It’s to the credit of the Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker writing team that this game feels so lovely and impactful. Characters are all very different, but have a similar path to letting their walls down, and letting you, as their loyal bartender, in.

As you get to know each visitor, you’ll become more part of their story, as an invisible sage to help them chart their course.

While occasionally your role means you’re an idle party, and there is a layer of missing out on grand adventures, that feeling is tempered by the responsibility of your drink-making, and the lush, cosy feeling of being insulated and protected within your tavern.

If you’re looking for a swashbuckling game of high fantasy adventuring, that’s not what Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is. But if you’re looking to live and breathe in a fantasy world without the responsibility of worlds on your shoulders, then this is a wholesome and delightful narrative sim with a slow pace and bright charm that is quick to sooth.

You can’t be the hero all the time. Dreamwalker is a balm to those who prefer to take a back seat.

A PC code for Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is out now for PC and Nintendo Switch.

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