The Journey Begins
Date: 2025-11-18 04:26:09
I'm happy to say that, thanks to all of you who have bought the game and left positive reviews, the Early Access launch has been a success!
Right now, we are sitting at over 2,200 reviews, just around the 95% "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating - a great vote of confidence for an Early Access release.
Nothing motivates us more than seeing that you enjoy the game! So thanks to everyone who left us a positive review: it really means the world to us.
Over the last two weeks, we've received over 8,000 in-game reports, replied to thousands of them and, with the help of those reports, delivered 40 patches (often multiple a day).
It's been intense and exhausting but we are also incredibly happy with the launch.
It's delightful (and motivating) that we begin Early Access not with an uphill battle, but with players that clearly see the potential of the game and enjoy what we are trying to create here.
We are so excited for the journey ahead and we are convinced that, together with you, we can improve Tavern Keeper throughout Early Access even more.
We love seeing all the excitement and suggestions and are really looking forward to getting stuck into implementing many of them. As a tiny team, prioritizing, compromising and focusing on the right tasks is crucial for us to go through Early Access.
For the rest of this short year, we will focus on a larger patch (version 0.69) which will include more bug fixes, clearer guidance for tricky mechanics, some requested quality-of-life improvements (such as faster patron-attraction-board UI animation, more control over interrupting messages, improving cleaning behaviour etc.), as well as a round of translation polish.
This patch should smooth out the rough edges and solve common frustrations.
After the first patch, we'll focus on our roadmap (you can see the full roadmap on the main Steam page). We will keep listening and adjusting to feedback and improving overall performance and stability too.
Major Update 1 (Q1 2026) sees more stories, a colour picker (and also leaves space for community-requested features).We’ll try to improve multiple aspects of the game in each major update so this is likely where we’ll add some management-related quality-of-life improvements.
After this, Major Update 2 (Q2 2026) will take you under the Mountain to the East, unlocking the 4th scenario and introducing the shop, adding desserts and, yes, raising the star level cap further.
Beyond the existing roadmap, the benefit of Early Access is that we get feedback from you and we are absolutely looking at all of it.
Yes, we even started discussing allowing you to extend the tavern (no promises yet but it's not off the table).
Once the first bigger patch is out, we'll take a close look and see where suggestions can fit into the roadmap. Naturally, we won't be able to implement everything but we are confident that we can make meaningful improvements throughout Early Access in many areas of the game.
One of the most joyous moments of these past weeks was seeing the absolutely phenomenal taverns you have built.
We'd get a bug report, open the save file attached to see what the issue was and, more often than not, would be absolutely blown away by how amazing the tavern was.
(This incredible Halflington tavern shared via in-game report had the whole team stunned with the amount of custom decorations and lovingly crafted detail - both inside and outside the tavern - shared here with permission.)
We want to see more custom taverns and do a video where we show them off to the world. If you'd like your tavern featured, please load your best tavern, then press F3 and enter the subject: "TAVERN SHOWCASE" (feel free to share your tavern screenshots elsewhere too).
We are amazed (and honoured) by the custom creations folks are sharing and will be working on features that highlight (and integrate) creations in the game more. This will likely happen in stages as we go through Early Access so hopefully, we can share news about the first steps soon.
For now, here's just a few highlights from the many items we have seen:
This filigree hearth (TK9cc31429, by Zephyr) adds a wonderfully rustic look to the normal stone hearth with its ornate cast iron appearance.
This Spa Barrel Basin (TK65c573d8, by keyboardkween) feels like the perfect cozy upgrade to the wash basin.
Here is another custom wash basin (TK70d116c0, by Shyraine) but this time with a modern furniture theme (and part of a whole set). We love that players use the freedom to create unexpected themes and items and we are definitely thinking about how we can support sets of items better in the future.
This custom bed (TKc9ceb99d, by jijiang), is not just wonderful but, by adding a rail, finally explains why staff and patrons can only use the bed from one side (the real reason is that supporting the other side would require 95(!) additional animations 🤯).
On our Discord, Meido—E猫猫大加農 has been sharing amazing creations for a while and posted this screenshot showing the cohesive style of their custom designs 😍
There are many more amazing creations, check out our Discord, Reddit or the Steam Screenshot gallery and feel free to share your own Designs with the community!
Until next time and welcome on this journey - we are so glad you have joined us!
Patrick
And the Tavern Keeper 🍻 Team
Right now, we are sitting at over 2,200 reviews, just around the 95% "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating - a great vote of confidence for an Early Access release.
Nothing motivates us more than seeing that you enjoy the game! So thanks to everyone who left us a positive review: it really means the world to us.
Over the last two weeks, we've received over 8,000 in-game reports, replied to thousands of them and, with the help of those reports, delivered 40 patches (often multiple a day).
It's been intense and exhausting but we are also incredibly happy with the launch.
It's delightful (and motivating) that we begin Early Access not with an uphill battle, but with players that clearly see the potential of the game and enjoy what we are trying to create here.
We are so excited for the journey ahead and we are convinced that, together with you, we can improve Tavern Keeper throughout Early Access even more.
Welcome! Let's begin this journey 💚
We love seeing all the excitement and suggestions and are really looking forward to getting stuck into implementing many of them. As a tiny team, prioritizing, compromising and focusing on the right tasks is crucial for us to go through Early Access.
For the rest of this short year, we will focus on a larger patch (version 0.69) which will include more bug fixes, clearer guidance for tricky mechanics, some requested quality-of-life improvements (such as faster patron-attraction-board UI animation, more control over interrupting messages, improving cleaning behaviour etc.), as well as a round of translation polish.
This patch should smooth out the rough edges and solve common frustrations.
The road ahead
After the first patch, we'll focus on our roadmap (you can see the full roadmap on the main Steam page). We will keep listening and adjusting to feedback and improving overall performance and stability too.
Major Update 1 (Q1 2026) sees more stories, a colour picker (and also leaves space for community-requested features).We’ll try to improve multiple aspects of the game in each major update so this is likely where we’ll add some management-related quality-of-life improvements.
After this, Major Update 2 (Q2 2026) will take you under the Mountain to the East, unlocking the 4th scenario and introducing the shop, adding desserts and, yes, raising the star level cap further.
Listening to feedback
Beyond the existing roadmap, the benefit of Early Access is that we get feedback from you and we are absolutely looking at all of it.
Yes, we even started discussing allowing you to extend the tavern (no promises yet but it's not off the table).
Once the first bigger patch is out, we'll take a close look and see where suggestions can fit into the roadmap. Naturally, we won't be able to implement everything but we are confident that we can make meaningful improvements throughout Early Access in many areas of the game.
Show us your tavern!
One of the most joyous moments of these past weeks was seeing the absolutely phenomenal taverns you have built.
We'd get a bug report, open the save file attached to see what the issue was and, more often than not, would be absolutely blown away by how amazing the tavern was.
(This incredible Halflington tavern shared via in-game report had the whole team stunned with the amount of custom decorations and lovingly crafted detail - both inside and outside the tavern - shared here with permission.)We want to see more custom taverns and do a video where we show them off to the world. If you'd like your tavern featured, please load your best tavern, then press F3 and enter the subject: "TAVERN SHOWCASE" (feel free to share your tavern screenshots elsewhere too).
Creators, we bow to you
We are amazed (and honoured) by the custom creations folks are sharing and will be working on features that highlight (and integrate) creations in the game more. This will likely happen in stages as we go through Early Access so hopefully, we can share news about the first steps soon.
For now, here's just a few highlights from the many items we have seen:
This filigree hearth (TK9cc31429, by Zephyr) adds a wonderfully rustic look to the normal stone hearth with its ornate cast iron appearance.This Spa Barrel Basin (TK65c573d8, by keyboardkween) feels like the perfect cozy upgrade to the wash basin.Here is another custom wash basin (TK70d116c0, by Shyraine) but this time with a modern furniture theme (and part of a whole set). We love that players use the freedom to create unexpected themes and items and we are definitely thinking about how we can support sets of items better in the future.This custom bed (TKc9ceb99d, by jijiang), is not just wonderful but, by adding a rail, finally explains why staff and patrons can only use the bed from one side (the real reason is that supporting the other side would require 95(!) additional animations 🤯).On our Discord, Meido—E猫猫大加農 has been sharing amazing creations for a while and posted this screenshot showing the cohesive style of their custom designs 😍There are many more amazing creations, check out our Discord, Reddit or the Steam Screenshot gallery and feel free to share your own Designs with the community!
Until next time and welcome on this journey - we are so glad you have joined us!
Patrick
And the Tavern Keeper 🍻 Team