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1 people found the following review helpful:
Fun, accessible hypertext adventure, April 27, 2022by ccpost (Greensboro, North Carolina) I used to play a lot of RPG's for console systems (e.g. Final Fantasy and the like), though I fell off of them because they tend to be self-serious and require enormous commitments of time and energy. Tavern Crawler delivers an imaginative fantasy world, some meaningful character customization, and an engaging (slightly offbeat) story without the humdrum.
I was immediately quite drawn into the fantasy world. From the first scene, set in a bar, the player gleans details about the society/culture and political structures of the game world, all cleverly integrated into narrative events that move the story forward. Just bumping into a soldier at the bar sets off a chain of detailed interactions that situate the player in a fully realized and lived-in fantasy world. This continues throughout the game, and even though the game world open to the player is itself rather small, you gain a rather sweeping sense of the world of the game through these interactions.
There are some limited, but meaningful, ways to customize the character through decisions made throughout the game. Principally, the player can take actions that build up the players mage, tank, or rogue stats. Interactions with the non-player companions, Ford and Aurora, can negatively or positively affect the player's relationships with these characters. These decisions can impact the course of the game, but (in my playthrough) it was not difficult to advance to a satisfying conclusion to the game without maxing out any of these stats.
The story itself -- in brief, a quest to slay a dragon that goes wrong -- is well told as the player advances through the various quests. This is, of course, not a typical dragon slaying mission. While I'll refrain from any details that might spoil the story, the narrative opens up questions about the ethics of adventuring that are quite thought provoking.
All of this is done with a knowing sense of humor; while I often found myself smiling, this is not just a send-up of RPG's. The game exhibits an impressive emotional range, which especially comes out in the conversations you can have with Ford and Aurora along the journey. As you complete main quest objectives and side quests, the player can chat with both companions about what they've been experiencing. These side conversations provided some of the most engrossing bits of story and offered insight into both the non-player characters and the broader fictive universe in which the game takes place.
My only qualm with the game is also perhaps a strength -- that the main story itself can be accomplished fairly quickly. You can get in and out pretty quickly and still have a meaningful gameplay experience, but it would be nice to stretch out more in this intriguing game world. This is a fantastic short story length work, and I'd gladly take a fat novel.
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- tekket (Česká Lípa, Czech Republic), December 20, 2020
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
Way more heartfelt than it looks, December 12, 2020I have a theory that the best genre stories are ones that take themselves seriously (I guess other stories too, but one generally doesn’t need to tell authors of literary fiction to be more self-important). Not, I hasten to add, in the sense that everything needs to be a grimdark reboot where every heroic pilot or mystic sorcerer needs a rapey backstory – gods no! But even the silliest premise is enlivened, and can actually become impressively affecting, with sufficient attention and craft for worldbuilding and characterization. I’m counting Tavern Crawler as a point in favor of this theory, because while it starts with a jokey setup - the bar-hopping aftermath of a fantasy quest as the heroes try to track down their patron and get paid - it accomplishes far more than I’d expected from the blurb, entirely because of the care the author took with every facet of the game.
It’s superficial to start with aesthetics, but they do make a first impression, and it’s quite a good one. I lack the vocabulary to really talk about issues of visual design, but some combination of the font, color scheme, and layout made the game look really attractive to me, while still being entirely functional. There are sidebar menus that ensure all the information you could possibly want about the game is available in a click, without needing to duck out of the main story or cluttering up the windows too much. The white borders around text you can click avoid the contrast issues that sometimes plague games that use hypertext, while the simple use of color to denote dialogue from different characters helps the player cleanly parse some of the more involved passages.
This ease of play extends to the plot and setting, which snuggle around one’s shoulders like a warm blanket from the off. You’re in a tavern, some bloke wants to hire you to see off a dragon, there’s a possible tavern brawl to avoid or lean into… and mechanically, the opening also provides an in-game character generation sequence where you can pick a backstory, as well as a mini-tutorial in the simple stat system used by the game. While this is all completely straight-ahead, the attention to detail is apparent from the get-go, especially when it comes to your two companions. They’re stereotypes, certainly – one’s a veteran warrior, the other an otherworldly magician – but they stand out as their own people. Ford, the warrior, has a flirty charm and some not-very-well-hidden softness of heart, while the sorceress Aurora is wise and responsible, but struggles with her sense of her own responsibilities. None of these characterizations are hugely novel when you type them out, and I doubt they’d hold up in a 50+ hour BioWare style game, but they’re perfect for this game, and sketched with a pleasing fleetness that makes sure you notice what’s up with your companions, but doesn’t wear out their welcome.
The positive early impressions bear out as the game goes on. There are lots of choices when confronting any challenge, and Tavern Crawler rewards exploration while still trying to be nonjudgmental about what you do. For example, while the game clearly communicates that dragons are not evil creatures, and simply deciding to kill one is morally dubious at best, TC doesn’t set this up just as a dilemma between the altruism of a nonviolent resolution vs. greedily wanting the huge reward: there are reasons given for why that money might make a difference for the characters’ families, and indications that letting the dragon live might let an independent town, weakened by its depredations, fall under the sway of an evil empire. Still, I felt like the game clearly wanted to be played a certain way – while you have the choice to be a dashing rogue or a bit of a prig, as the spirit takes you, the world is generally set up to reward kindness (this extends to the generous content warnings, which offer the opportunity to click for spoilers on how to avoid anything that might be upsetting).
This isn’t to say the game is uptight – you can get proper sloshed, hop on stage with burlesque dancers, creep through dank and horrible alleys, and romance one or both of your companions, with copious make-outs. It’s just that it’s got an overall gentleness to it that I really liked – especially so, coming after A Calling of Dogs! This gentleness extends to the game’s systems, too. There’s a single save slot that you can use as much as you like, and while there are a fair number of gated stat-checks, most problems can be solved as long as you’re sufficiently good at one of the three, and in most circumstances it’s pretty easy to come back later after having leveled up or gotten more gold from resolving side-quests. And while your companions typically pull you in different directions whenever there’s a significant choice, it’s pretty easy to max out your relationship with both of them. The ending can be bittersweet – at least the one I got was – but I think that’s a nice touch too, as it prevents TC from getting too cloying.
I feel like this review is unbalanced since I haven’t included any real criticism. OK, three things: on my screen at least I wanted a bit more of a margin on the left side of the menu sidebar, the way you sometimes get money out of thin air after completing a quest is weird, and the first joke would have been funnier if there’d been one more level after “very drunk.” There, you see, I’m an unbiased reviewer who can see both sides of things, so trust me when I say Tavern Crawler is excellent!
- nosferatu, December 11, 2020
- autumnc, December 9, 2020
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
D&D for IF, December 7, 2020Much enjoyment to be had with this low fantasy RPG-lite Twine adventure. Well written, campy, and while no characters had serious depth, the pleasure was in the pacing and the CYOA progression with easy consequences and easy save/load options. This is a perfect new-generation IF game for older kids, much as Wishbringer and Zork were our introduction. I look forward to playing it again and again. I do wish the STAT vs. DM random roll was a little bit more obviously fleshed out. Why a luck roll for those animals?
Loved the dragon puzzle.
- meadowmower, December 6, 2020
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