It's a really, really weird game. Not in the concept itself, that's pretty straightforward, but the mechanical side of it. When it started out, it was a very primitive inn management game, itself riding a wave of similar games from few years ago. But the more the development goes, the more it starts to morph into a crafting-heavy clone of Stardew Valley. Including the "upgrades" (it is still in pixel art) of graphics and character models.
For an inn management game, it's incredibly chaotic and disjoined. For SV rip-off, it has no characters or interesting things to do. It's fun to play and pretty engaging in a single shot, but I feel the devs themselves no longer even know what game they are making. Oh, and community for it is almost completely dead for past year, which is never a good sign for a game that started with pretty active playerbase and community.
I tried this game out for three hours and, sorry, but its not for me. There is way to much chaotic running around serving clients to only get negative reviews and far too little discovering out how to improve. I am more of a Graveyard Keeper/Stardew Valley fan where you can explore the world and figure out what you need to do. This game strikes me more as a Diner Dash in Medieval times so, I'll take a pass.
I bought Travellers Rest because it seemingly looked like a Stardew Valley clone, and I loved Stardew Valley. However, I was met with a tech demo that sorely lacks several important features. I will attempt to elaborate, hopefully without too much comparison to Stardew Valley (despite my initial motivations):
- There are no distinct NPC's or dialogue in the game. The charm in Stardew Valley was in the story and dialogue. This game has none. No introduction aside from appearing in your tavern and reading dialogue boxes as your character apparently communicates only with the creator of the universe.
- Every other NPC you see in the game are seemingly randomly generated. They will either enter when you open your tavern and leave when you close it, or walk by it on the street outside with no particular purpose (at all hours of the day!)
- There is nothing to work towards aside from higher payouts for newer foods/drinks. The only things you can use that money for are decorations and things you don't feel like crafting.
- Crafting is a pain! You may only craft one item at one crafting station at a time. For example, a blacksmith's table requires planks, poles and iron plates. You need to craft planks at the sawmill, wait, craft poles at the sawmill, craft iron bars at your forge, wait, craft more iron bars at your forge, go back to the sawmill, craft planks. How many poles did I need? You can't check while you're crafting. Wait. Open the menu, check, craft either poles or planks, go back to the forge, craft another iron bar, fetch your poles, craft planks ..... So tedious! To emphasize, you can NOT queue several crafting orders at a time. Meaning, you have 30 logs of wood, you may only use a minute amout to craft one bundle of planks.
- There is no reason to keep your tavern open. To get money, the fastest way is to open, serve your customers, close, have them leave, open, get new customers, serve, close.
The list goes on for about 9 more points, but character limit...
At the beginning, the game feels and plays okay. However, the one big issue I have is the game loop and the lack of explanations as to what you can do in the game or not.
Controls need a bit of time to get used to, specifically the inventory system. The overall idea of running a pub and offering different basic meals with a variety of ingredients and changing their attributes depending on the combination is a very interesting mechanic. However, that mechanic is hidden for the most part behind an unbalanced crafting experience system based on three types of crystals. This system allows you to gather new ingredients and tools. If you don't craft the right items to get the crystals, your progress gets slowed down. I guess the crystals relate to the elements you're using for crafting items. I would appreciate it if not everything had to deal with fire, therefore leading to massive amounts of red crystals, whereas green and blue simply fall behind.
At a certain point, the game becomes a real grind for those two types of crystals, and the progress massively slows down as I need to run the pub for some time until I can hire people to perform the mundane jobs. Those people cost plenty of coins per hour, which is another balancing problem.
Content is not much existing otherwise. The quests simply stop out of nowhere. Based on the original release date in EA and the current implementation, it looks like a very long road ahead.
I thought it was a management sim / village harvest life clone. But it is more like Overcooked or other kitchen game. If you like the running around fun then its cool, and you do get to lay out your tavern.
Updates seem to be regular, game runs well. Just happens to not be what other reviews get at. Also 20$ is a bit rich for the content.
