'it Wasn't Fun For The First 7 Years' Says Maker Of Fantasy Sim...

It's obvious a ton of work has gone into fantasy sim Tavern Keeper, from the intricate and often hilarious animations of the patrons and staff to the flexible and easy-to-learn item design tools to the fully-narrated interludes that make your pub feel like it's part of a storybook adventure.

Tavern Keeper arrived on Steam in November, but it's been in development for over a decade—and as impressive as the game is, that's a heck of a long development cycle, especially since it's expected to be in early access for at least another 12 months.

I spoke last week with Patrick Klug, director and co-founder of Greenheart Games, and asked why the tavern sim took so long to belly up to the bar.

"We have made, like, six versions of this over the last 11 and a half years," Klug said, explaining that just the storybook system alone went through "dozens of versions" to become what is essentially an "interactive audiobook" where players get to make RPG-like dialogue choices while managing their pub.

"When we started, there were no tavern [management] games. When we started, there wasn't even a Two Point game out yet. We were before the management system revival, I think. And so we had to invent a lot of the systems that other folks invented as well."

That was years of writing and experimentation that didn't make it in the game at all.

Greenheart Games also spent a lot of time working on systems that were eventually dropped from Tavern Keeper—including one partially inspired by Shadow of Mordor's dynamic Nemesis system.

"For the longest time, initially, the story idea was that you would attract heroes. And then you would kind of be able to send them on quests and give them quests," Klug said. "We did a lot of experimentation about how we could make the world feel like your actions with the heroes made sense.

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"But it always felt like a second game. It never felt like it belonged in the tavern," Klug said. "That was years of writing and experimentation that didn't make it in the game at all."

Source: PC Gamer