Tavern Keeper's early access is already a crunchy management sim, a cosy blanket, an interior decor game, and a furniture designer all at once

Tavern Keeper's a game with a bit of a history—taking Greenheart Games a whopping 11 years to make, it finally released into Early Access earlier this month after a series of solid, but limited demos, expanding the scope of what we could mess around with from one tavern to three. And despite not being in a fully-finished state yet, even after a decade? I can tell those 11 years of labour were done out of love.

I hesitate to use the word "cosy" to describe a game, given how that only really describes a vague aesthetic, but I struggle to find another word that fits Tavern Keeper, here. It has a goofy, polygonal artstyle, its UI is overflowing with kitschy little details, and its story books—more on those in a moment—are narrated by Steven Pacey, a seasoned audiobook narrator with a library under his belt.

Playing Tavern Keeper is like stepping into a warm bath or wrapping yourself up in a heated blanket. It is, perhaps fittingly, what I imagine a Hobbit feels like while tucked into their favourite hidey-hole with a good book. It is an unrelentingly lovely experience, despite the barely-contained managerial chaos you'll be trying to channel during your playthroughs.

Despite its comfortable outer shell, Tavern Keeper is actually a pretty damn crunchy management sim. Making a tavern thrive sees you managing loans, foot traffic, staff shifts, inventory, food spoilage, furniture placement, entertainment schedules, and your tavern's menu (both food and drinks). Don't let its lovely veneer fool you, if you want to crank up the difficulty, then Tavern Keeper will happily demand managerial expertise by the flagonfull.

Bar a few minor UI complaints (a better way to view and plan out my food deliveries would be nice), Tavern Keeper gives you plenty of tools to get the job done. You can specify your staff's work rotations and roles, assigning them to operate in specific rooms. You can open temperature, filth, and light maps to help you place your storerooms, welcome mats, and… well, lights. This game wants you to tinker, and tinker obsessively, all in the name of satisfaction ratings.

It's to the point where my head began to spin because, I'll be perfectly honest, I don't have the head for micromanagement. Fortunately, like any good management sim, Tavern Keeper is happy to let you toy with the difficulty all you'd like: I comfortably blundered along without ever feeling like my lack of fine-tuning finesse was hurting me. Which is great, because I'm all about the decor and the vibes, baby.

Delightful decor

Tavern Keeper offers you lovely pit stops from all the number-crunching chaos via a "story book" system. Every so often, a patron will come in with a problem to solve, a little multiple-choice vignette (narrated by Pacey) that adds a new dynamic to your playthrough. These throw a mechanical spanner into the works, but they're also often funny—winning debates with philosophers, entertaining mad orc scientists, or fulfilling a server's dream of inventing stand-up comedy.

But the real gem for us tycoon casuals is the furniture. Tavern Keeper's decor design system takes full advantage of its voxel aesthetic to let you make just about anything. You can scale, rotate, clip, and resize dozens of items, and if that weren't enough, there are colourable, basic shapes to help you make basically whatever you want with a little kitbashing.

During my last session, I spent around 30 minutes cobbling together a scarecrow by clipping a bunch of rags, pillows, flour sacks, and wooden posts into each other. Someone far more talented than me made D&D character sheets on a table so detailed you could zoom in and look at their character's stats. The customisability is absolutely absurd.

You can link multiple items together into batches for easy copy-pasting once you've built out a bit of decor—or save it as a template, which can be shared online too. I kid you not when I say you could literally spend dozens of hours in Tavern Keeper just fleshing out your repertoire of custom furniture—and while the game draws a distinction between functional bits of furnishings and your decorations, you can attach decor to those game-relevant furnishings, too. Want to create your own dart board with a picture of your TTRPG character on it? Go ahead.

Tavern Keeper isn't anywhere near done, but it's already nearly perfect—a lovely trifecta of soothing atmospheres, crunchy (optional) management, and customisable decor that'd make your average Sims player froth at the mouth. I cannot recommend it enough.

If you want to open, micromanage, and/or decorate your own bar—try Tavern Keeper for yourself on Steam.