Unofficial Gameplay Manual for Tavern Tycoon

What started out as simple tips and tricks right in the beginning has now become more like a manual. It might answer a question or two if you're stuck. This is written with Peter's knowledge of its existence, but in large part, is merely my understanding of the game's mechanics. I don't profess to be an expert. Ultimately, how you play further on after getting these tips is up to you. There is also a possibility that I might be wrong about some things, so please, gently point out any glaring mistakes, and we can help each other create something informative here. :}

The intention of this guide...

This is always UNDER CONSTRUCTION, please bear with me. I'll try to update along with the Dev's updates and fixes.

Updated for Manual Build version 10, 29 November 2018
CURRENT PLAYTHROUGH UNDERWAY on 20th of March 2019. Wow! So much has changed, so bear with me, the update is coming.

Greetings, Tavern Tycoons!

I created this guide as a stopping point for after you've had a first go on the game, and might have found yourself 'going under' numerous times, or if you're not sure how something is supposed to work.

AUTHOR'S NOTE on most recent play-through 1st August 2018:

There are now two different build versions to play: 1) the Main build, comprising now of Levels 1 to 9, and 2) The Dev Build, comprising all levels, but the only one that runs the later levels 10 (check if this is implemented yet.)

To switch between the two, make sure you are starting your game from the Steam Game screen, and not from a shortcut on your desktop. If you click the 'play' button on the game's official screen, you will be given a pop-up window choice of which build version you want to play.

Gameplay on all of the first 8 levels on the Main Build is suffering from a few visual bugs, but nothing that is game-game breaking...more like minor annoyances.

Levels 10 is still under Dev Build version, and thus are currently undergoing testing and tweaking.

Gameplay Basics

The objective is to build and run a tavern to provide services to the patrons. With time, your tavern will get busier, and sometimes, space will become short. Also read the introduction email in the inbox about what to expect from each new level's particular location. Lord Peter and later General Dion, your benefactors, give you extra info here, so you know what you need to be mindful of in order to be successful. Every tavern on each level will recieve a new and different type of customer with different needs, and usually, the use of a new room.

As the game progresses, it becomes more vital to balance your outgoings with your incomings, ie. having too many high paid staff but not having raised your prices to accommodate that, or, having too few patrons coming to the tavern, but having far more staff in one area than you really need.

Lastly, you also need to keep an eye on your reputation level, as this becomes more crucial in later levels. If your patrons are leaving your tavern unhappy with their overall experience, then you take a reputation hit, but if you are managing to keep them happy as they progress through your services, they should give you a little reputation boost.

On each level. there are certain winning conditions attached to getting through it, to gain access to the next level. You cannot play Level 2 if you have not successfully completed Level 1, and recieved the letter from your benefactor about the 'New Job offer'. The winning conditions are stipulated in the first introductory window as you start each new level, and can also be accessed later by pressing 'ESC', and looking on the menu window for 'Level Objectives'. These will be comprised of three things: Money, Taven Value (ie. how much you have built/placed within your tavern) and Reputation, the amount of orange bar you have managed to get filled up on your UI. Hovering over the money field will also pop up a small tool-tip to tell you how much Tavern Value you have (which is different to how much actual cash you have), and likewise with your orange reputation bar. You can easily see at any time how well, or how badly you are doing in reaching your objectives.

All the specialised rooms like the gymnasium, the arcane study, the spa, etc are only available to build as the relevant level requires it. All customer types will want the basics of a drink at the bar, a meal at a table, use of the rest room, and the use of the guest rooms.

ROOM SIZE/FURNISHINGS:
Try to keep to the minimum size room required at first, rather than building big beautiful ones filled with plenty of furniture. It all costs money, every extra square of building and every stick of furniture you put inside it. You will notice that the space you have will fill up fast. It is a good idea to maximise your currently owned space as much as you can, until you become familiar with what size each room is likely to require later, and you can plan things a bit better.

The staff room works better with two or more couches, a carpet and one cupboard, the last two being purely decorative and not functional. The more couches in the room, the more staff can rest there simultaneously. One staff member uses one couch, rather than sharing it with someone else, as you'd expect in RL.

CASH DISPLAY/GOING UNDER:
Once you have played through the first level, you will have a better idea of how things work...how many guests you are likely to recieve, what they want and how your staff work. The odds are that you may go under at least once when you experience the dreaded 'minus figure cash bar', which means your game is over. Your game ends the moment you go into negative cash balance, so, if you are at your last 2000 gold, get a loan, and fast, just to keep your numbers from going into the negative. If you do, you're automatically fired and Lord Peter throws a chicken at your dwarf.

If you are finding cashflow to be a problem (before you go into negative), start raising your prices. I don't recommend maxing them out just yet, at least until your reputation bar is halfway full. Higher prices can affect your customers' happiness levels, and if they think the price is too expensive, you will see an icon above their heads that looks a little like a black cloud, and they will refuse to pay it.

REPUTATION:
Your reputation is affected by how high your prices are, how lovely your tavern is ie. how clean it is, if you have a couple of plants and fireplaces, and if you are providing all the services currently required. Also, customer wait time affects rep too...if the place is overcrowded and they are waiting too long in a queue, they become dissatisfied. They utilise an invisibile points system which gives your tavern a final score when they depart. The more points in credit, the better their overall experience was.

GUEST RESERVATIONS/PASSING FOOT TRAFFIC:
Don't be tempted to accept every guest reservation straight away, unless your bar (the first stopping point for most patrons) is more or less empty. Look at the reservation by all means, but don't delete it, and don't use 'maybe another time'. Keep it in your mailbox, because you will need these extra guests later. This is because the passing foot traffic (those patrons who turn up on their own) are not usually of such high volume that it will keep your tavern awash with customers all the time.

When passing foot traffic becomes less, you will need to take your own action to get the patrons in. Accept one or two guest reservations at a time, depending on how many to expect, and what their class is. Mix things up so you are getting a fairly even spread of different customer types at any one time, and all your specialised rooms are being used rather than one standing empty for long periods of time.

HIRING STAFF/GRADES/WAGES
Has been moved to 'Staff and their jobs.'

LEAVE/WAIT on the Policy Screen
This is a really good way to move patrons on to the next service if one is getting overcrowded. Either build more of that service, or just choose 'leave' at the appropriate venue, go back in game, and wait for them to walk away, and then, open policy screen and choose 'wait' once more, or that service will then suffer for later custom. It can have a knock-on effect, leaving the place without further immediate custom, so don't have 'leave' permanently enabled on a service unless you intend not to build it.

How does this work, or What is that thing?

There are a few things that are being misunderstood by the first time player, and here is where I help you to find the correct answers.

RESEARCH:
Has been moved to 'Staff and their jobs'.

PICKING A CHARACTER UP:
You can pick your staff up, by right-clicking on them. It takes a moment or two to engage, but it then looks like they do a little jump, and then you've got hold of them. Put them wherever you want them, and let them go by left-clicking. Left clicking on the staff member first will open up an individual information window about that staff member.

RATS
If you spot the odd rat wandering around in your tavern, clicking on it makes it explode, and you will earn 10 gold in the process. It makes a bloody mess that your Handymen have to clean up, but perhaps the 10 gold is worth it...or the absence of rats, which I expect affects your cleanliness rating.

THE TOILET STINK CLOUD:
From watching how the toilets work, and wondering what the green cloud is after a customer uses the toilet, I have come to the conclusion that it means the toilet stall is unusable for a little while by other patrons until the cloud clears away on its own. It is likely to be a timer that means that waiting patrons won't flood the rest room while the ones who have used it are still washing their hands and departing.

PRICING:
You can fine-tune your pricing for every service in the 'Policy' screen, accessible from your bottom UI menu. Do note that each time you build a service, some default pricing has already been set, and in some cases, like the gym, the Arcane Study, and the Gambling Den, no Entry prices are set and these rooms will not charge patrons unless you make these changes yourself. You can now also micro-set prices for individual things inside your specialied rooms.

High prices too early on in the game affects your rep, particularly if your tavern does not yet have many facilities or decorations. Allow your Reputation to fill up a bit first, because bottoming out on that can also end the game for you. Once I build a specialised room, I put on a 20 gold entry fee at least, and no other individual charges. Also, if the rooms are too big, and packed with too much decorative furniture rather than the funtional items, it can get really expensive. You can now also charge for the restroom service, but, as the Dev points out on the Policy screen info, some things might need to be free to use as standard...I am taking this as a clue that charging for the restroom might damage your rep a little in the long run.

Once your reputation bar is full, it's safer to hike prices up, but watch the reactions of the customers to the new prices, because they will start refusing to use the service. Soon that service generates NO money, instead of SOME money, and you may only realise this when you find your cash bar is getting worryingly low.

LOANS:
Try very, very hard to not take out loans, because the interest on repayment is high, and it can kill your game. Have a little patience while your tavern is filling up, and don't build too many things too fast. Wait to see what your patrons are after first and you don't yet know what size your guest reservations will end up being. If you find you are getting low on cash, hike your prices up a little, and stop building for the moment. The better you are able to stay in positive figures, the better for your tavern. I only use the loan if I will soon dip into negative cash, just to save myself going under, and I try to repay it back almost as soon as I can. The 2000 gold increments of loaning out and paying back are a little hard to handle, so try not to loan money in the first place. To date, after numerous attempts at using loans, I am still finding impossible to save myself this way. The repayments are too high.

THAT STRANGE WHITE PERSON WHO WANDERS AROUND IN LEVEL 2:
(SPOILER)
I'm not sure if I should spoil this by saying what it is and why it keeps wandering around the tavern, because one would hope that it is clear enough when Lord Peter mentions, in his first email to you, that there are some underage kids who will try to 'get at the mead'.

Just click on it and see what happens. :}

YOUR BENEFACTOR WANTS TO VISIT/INSPECT:
It is a good idea to accept Lord Peter or General Dion's requests to visit, because if he is pleased with your establishment, he usually rewards you with 1500 gold and a fair amount of XP, which is all very useful in keeping yourself afloat. However, be aware that he takes a rather dim view of your tavern being dirty or too many patrons waiting around for things. He usually gives you a warning and a reputation penalty if he is dissatisfied, and you have the chance to correct things before his next visit. If he finds that things have not improved, he will fire you straight away...trust me, that comes as a bit of a nasty surprise, after all your efforts to get where you are, and regardless of whether you are still in credit financially.

His requests come fairly early on in any level, and they expire quite quickly, so keep a firm eye on your mailbox to catch them in time. You can also choose to decline his requests, if you are worried he won't like what he sees. His rewards are worthwhile, but his power to end your tavern is also pretty devastating, so you make the choice.

LEVEL PROGRESSION TIP:
Once you move onto a new level, make sure you save early on into it, or the level won't count as 'unlocked' on your 'Select level stage' menu if you go under suddenly, or something bugs out and breaks the game, requiring a whole new restart. If this happens you will find that you will have to replay the previous level to the point of getting the new job offer again to unlock the level you have just left. Un-ladylike words were used when it happened to me the first time. :}

BUYING A CLOCK
This allows you the function of speeding up or slowing down game time.

THE OFFICE
This allows you to see an overall view of room usage vs. how many of any type of character are waiting for services.

Adding more items, Relocation, Demolitions

ADDING MORE ITEMS TO A ROOM:
Click on the plus sign + at the very top of your screen when you have the room build menu open (ie. after you have built the walls and first set of furniture that belongs in the room). Next to each piece of furniture, there is the option to click a plus sign for one more of that type. Then hover over the room, and a new item should be blueprinted onto your placement cursor.

One guest room takes one bed, and you cannot fill them with any more furniture than is required as the minumum, ie. one of everything. But you can add more items to specialised rooms, staff rooms and toilet facilities.

If you have already finished building a room, and you decide you need to put more furniture into it, click the Reposition button on your bottom menu bar. It has a question mark on it, ?. Then click on the room you want to change. The building menu will appear on the top of your screen, and you can select from the top of the build menu what you'd like to do to the room. Hover slowly and read the tooltips first to avoid making a costly mistake like deleting the room entirely. If you do, you'll get a partial refund, but will waste money having to build it all again at full price, that is, unless you wanted to move the room itself to another location.

RELOCATION (OF EXTERNAL FURNITURE ONLY):
Simply click on the question mark (?) button on your bottom menu to initialise the function, then click on the item you want to move, for example, a flowerpot. It should turn into a blueprint of itself. Then look at the top of your screen where the relocation menu is, choose the reposition button, which looks like a target sign, and you should now be able to drag and place your flowerpot to where you want it to sit. Once you hear/see the 'thud', it has gone down successfully. If it hasn't, there might be something else in the way that is blocking it. Sometimes the circular radius of the fireplace will stop anything else being put down within its sphere.

DEMOLITIONS/REFUNDS:
We can demolish items and whole rooms for a partial refund. My mathematics is not as sharp as brass tacks, but a quick glance at the prices originally paid out and those refunded on demolition look to be around 65% of your money back. This appears to be for all furniture items as well as walls/rooms, if you demolish the entire room, furnished as it is. It also applies to deciding that you no longer want that extra flowerpot in a space you need for something else.

Start your demolition the same way as the Relocation guide explains, only this time use the far left button that looks like a 'Cancel' sign. It should then destroy that item/room and return your partial refund.

Waiting, Benches and Guest Occupiers

This appears to be an issue that a lot of players are having difficulty with, so I have made it a separate section so that it can be quickly found.

Benches don't allow a patron to actually rest, and are used for waiting for all services, if there is a queue. Fireplaces will help your Patrons with tiredness, if they walk into its area of effect radius.

Further on from that, if the customers are not kept occupied by a service, or have a bench to sit on while they wait, they will wander around. It's not too detrimental in the earlier four levels, but this wandering around does become problematic in level 5, Dungeon is no exception, because the tavern space is huge, and the time it takes for everyone to walk from one place to another is quite long because they have to walk much further. It tends to cause backlogs on all your service queues, for example, if the next customer in the queue for a guest room is on the far end of the dungeon, and his turn comes up, he still has to walk miles to get to the reception desk to request use of a room...lots of wasted time, and, in level 5, time costs money and rep, both of which you don't have a lot of.

A suggestion is that you always build at least six benches (to start with) near to the reception desk so that you can always see how many people are waiting for all services. Don't build benches anywhere else, because if they are waiting for guest bedrooms specifically, they'll go to the ones you have placed. They don't seem fussed about having to walk all the way across the tavern one more time if they are now tired and wanting to sleep. Being close to the reception desk also means they don't have to walk miles to get to the receptionist when it is their turn to take a room, and effectively will speed up the receptionist's job a lot, and you won't need to place another reception desk or hire another receptionist either.

Some features to keep waiting guests occupied are the Sword in Stone, the Bookshelf (for reading) and the Chess Table. None of these charge money, but improve guest rep for them having something to do while they wait for services. Build up a collection of a fair few of these 'guest occupiers' if you can afford them over time. Once you start accepting large guest reservations, and you don't have enough bar space to accommodate the whole group immediately, some of the group will automatically head to the 'occupiers' instead of waiting on the benches. The only real point of having benches now is that it stops the guests from wandering around aimlessly, or in the case of level 5, wandering off too far, so you may need a lot of them to keep your patrons in easy range of services.

Hover over the patrons' status bars to determine what they are waiting for, or wait to see the need icon appear over their heads, and build more appropriate facilities if you feel you are seeing too many waiting for a certain type. You can also now build the Study/Office, which gives you access to a small panel on the top left hand of your screen, which will show the usage and waiting guests for any particular service in an overview. It is a handy thing, which means you don't have to hover over each guest individually to determine what they're waiting for, but, as ever, it does cost money to build, and no-one actually uses it. So it may not be prudent to build it as a priority.
However, take into account that you may simply have a lot of Wizards, for example, milling about because you've just accepted a guest reservation for fourteen of them, and they first need to get to bar or the Arcane Study before they'll go anywhere else, so on and so forth with the other classes. And those who come into the Tavern after the guest group turns up, will have to wait for those to be attended to first, in an invisible queuing system. It is likely to just be a temporary hold up, be patient and see if it clears in good time.

Most notably, if your one bar is always full, a good idea is to place a second bar when the tavern starts filling up. Usually, the first stopping point for all patrons is the bar, so make sure you are not delaying their progress through your tavern right at the start of it, because this will cause a backlog further along the line as well. They can stand to wait a little for things, but they won't like to wait too long. Look at the little face icons on their personal info bar to see how happy or angry they are, and make your decision based on that. If they're mostly looking angry, they are waiting too long for things and you need to build more service units for them, but be wary of just placing more staffed units because your overheads go higher. Balance this out by raising prices a little more.

In case it needs to be said again, don't accept too many guest reservations all at once, because it will just mean too many patrons standing around waiting for things and getting angry. Use the fullness of your bar counters to determine how quickly you can turn around a guest reservation of 7 to 17 patrons of any class. It requires a little balancing strategy at this point and hopefully, you will have been saving the reservation emails up to use sparingly. That said, do know that if you have been saving up your guest reservation emails, they will all be wiped out and cleared if you exit the game for any reason. You may get a couple more once you reload, but, in my experience, never as many as before.

On level 8, Graveyard Happy Hour, using guest reservations is crucial, because there is hardly any passing foot traffic, and you need to get the patrons in yourself. The three guest reservations will repeat on a monthly basis if you have used the ones sitting in your mailbox.

E-mails, e-mails and more e-mails!

I am putting this under a separate section now because it is becoming very clear as the development of this game progresses that your 'inbox' plays a huge part in your overall progress (and success).

And the e-mails seem to never stop coming...personally, I find that opening the inbox every time an e-mail comes in (or should that be a 'missive'? :} ) seems to waste a lot of my building time. But, it does seem to be geared as the place to earn a bit of extra cash, or, these days, to be duped out of extra cash. (I've spent the night with some wench who now has given birth to my baby and wants £1500 gold...seriously?! Sorry, DNA testing first, thank you very much, since we're sending e-mails in this day and age, and besides, if my tavern goes under in the meantime, some guy is going to throw a chicken at me. You do the math! lol!)

The game pauses in the background when your Inbox is open, and you may find this function useful to use when you need to stop playing for a few minutes to attend to Real Life. :}

LEVEL START EMAIL
The emails you do need to pay attention to are the starting ones from your particular benefactor at the start of every level, because here they will give you the introduction to this new tavern, as well as tips on how to go about fulfilling the winning conditions.

BENEFACTOR/HEALTH DEPARTMENT VISIT REQUEST
Lord Peter or General Dion will make a monthly request to visit/inspect your tavern. It is a sometimes a good idea to take advantage of this because it could earn you extra money and rep.

STAFF RAISE REQUESTS
Get to these quickly and give the raise or the staff member will storm off in a huff at the end of the month.

GUEST RESERVATIONS
Of course, guest reservations are important to read, but not accept or delete, because you'll need to take advantage of the extra clientele they'll afford you later. Sometimes the passing foot traffic does not come in fast enough.

MONEY REQUESTS/THREATS
I have not yet seen that those 'pay us some money' emails affect my rep if I decline them, and seem to only be there to empty out my pocket faster. I also don't get the cash I am promised on taking out an investment deal either. I'm sure there will be a functioning point to them all somewhere down the line, but right now all they seem to do it fill my inbox with spam. They do feel scary, for some of them are threatening, like from the 'Unpaid Taxes' office, which tells you that your tavern will close if the taxes are unpaid. But, I was brave, left the taxes unpaid and deleted the email, and nothing untoward happened. The detrimental function of these may not be fully implemented into the game as yet.

FREE MONEY EMAILS
I have not yet seen that accepting money from someone offring to give it to me actually makes it to my bank balance (which is disappointing, particularly when you are very low on cash.) Again, may not be fully implemented into the game yet.

THE TAVERN DIGEST
A series of general tips and info on how to play the game. You can 'unsubscribe' from them, and you have to do this at the start of every new level.

MONTHLY ACCOUNT
Does what it says on the tin. It is a chance to mull over your incomings and outgoings, and helps you to determine if prices need hiking up. Worth looking at if you feel your Tavern is bleeding cash and not making enough, but, you needn't feel obliged to read every single one because if you make no changes to anything for a month, the information is not going to be all that different from one month to the next. So far, this is the only time and place that you can view your accounts if you want to see the figures.

I will be taking a deeper look into Quest Digest emails, but the subsciption for this is 100 gold per month. Not yet sure what these contain, or even if they have been implemented yet, but the gold payment is not something generally something I want regularly leaving my account. If anyone has info on these, I'd like to hear it.

Staff and their jobs.

HANDYMEN
Will sweep up puke, dirt and blood from exploded rats, and also water plants and repair external furniture (that which is not housed in a room), so these guys tend to never stay still, and sometimes, you might feel that you need ten thousand of them to keep your tavern clean. Here are a few suggestions on keeping costs low and your tavern clean:

Drunk guests will no longer use the restroom to sober up, hence placing a restroom right near the bar no longer works (changed in 0.3).

Here are few ways to deal with puke that the Dev recommends:

1. Have a handyman (I like to hire highly skilled handyman around 100+) and set area around the bar (so that he doesn't go to dirt far away).

2. Research mead via research workshop and improve mead quality (higher the mead quality, the quicker the drunk guests will sober up).

3. Hire skilled bartenders - less chance of getting drunk in the first place.

4. Build a stage/piano and contract a bard. When drunk guests get near any music source they sober up almost immediately. This is actually the most effective but costly option.

Other things that can be helpful:

Make sure you are using up all your free build space, so that there aren't large patches of unused areas collecting dirt in far off locations. Build your rooms bigger, but only furnish them with as many internal furnishings as you can afford/need, thereby not overspending on things that aren't getting used.

BARTENDERS
Will serve drinks at the bar, research mead quality in the workshop, and act as dealers at the card tables in the gambling den. Sometimes, after resting, or, if their bar breaks down, they will automatically head to the next available workstation instead of just wandering around. Do keep an eye on them and make sure they are where you want them to be, or, hire extra bartenders to be card dealers or researchers so that your bar staff don't wander off.

MAIDENS
Serve tables, cook food and do recipe research in the Workshop.

CLERKS
Hire out guest rooms at reception desks and run the Express Shop.

RESEARCH:
If you want a maiden to use the research oven, you have to drop her as close as possible to it in order for it to engage. If she walks straight out of the door, pick her up and try again until it kicks in. The Maidens hired for the Workshop will not serve tables for a time, unless they leave the Workshop to go to the Staff Room. They may be inclined to go and serve tables first on their way back if it is busy, but when it slows down again, they will always go into the Workshop to do research instead of just wandering around. So, do check occaisionally where your Maidens are, in case the tables get too busy and you need them out there instead. The rest is simple: adjust the slider bar on the research screen to decide how much of her time is spent improving existing recipes, and how much is spent developing new ones. Also, it appears to be required that you drag the plates of food in the research screen to the top left corner so that she knows what to work on. I'm not entirely sure yet if it works from left to right, or from top to bottom, but we'll get there soon.
One thing you can't do is switch Research off. Once you have the Workshop and the Ovens, Maidens will continually go in there to work to level up recipes, so the only way I have found to curb this is to research the new recipes as I want them, and then delete the Workshop entirely, because the extra maidens take up valuable wages that we are not making turnover on.

Bartenders will now also use the Brewing Barrel in the Workshop, when they have nothing else to do, specifically when their bar breaks down, and is waiting on a Handyman to repair it. If your Bartender disappears from his usual route of Bar/Staff Room, it is likely you will find him in the Workshop, working on Mead Improvements, ie. the quality of your beer.

All improvements and new recipes are geared to give your customers better satisfaction with drinking and eating, meaning extra reputation points when their final score is tallied up.

PICKING A CHARACTER UP:
You can pick your staff up, by right-clicking on them. It takes a moment or two to engage, but it then looks like they do a little jump, and then you've got hold of them. Put them wherever you want them, and let them go by left-clicking. Left clicking on the staff member first will open up an individual information window about that staff member.

HIRING STAFF/GRADES/WAGES
Staff potential is related to how fast they improve and also the maximum level of abilities that specific staff member will grow up to be (they level up as they work). You will see a little spiralling light tornado above their heads as they level up, and generally, this also becomes reason for them to ask for a raise.

Your staff will sometimes ask you for a raise at least a month into their tenure in your tavern, so keep an eye out for these requests and fulfil them quickly, or the worker will leave your tavern.

Remember, the cheaper the staff, the less efficient they are, and will go to the staff room more frequently, abandoning their stations more often. In the beginning, try to hire staff who are about middle range, ie. not too cheap, but not too expensive either. You can replace them later if you want to, but, if you cave in to their raise request, they generally won't ask for another unless they are rising in experience. Of course, you need to pay a more experienced staff member a higher wage to keep them happy.

Lastly, the ABC grading on their hire screens are an indicator of how fast they will gain experience. Therefore, 'A' grade staff will ask you for a larger raise.

LEVEL 1: In Wine is Wisdom

Here you will deal with Locals (who look simply like peasants, and musicians with lutes strapped to their backs), and Knights (who wear armour or are half-naked, bald and wear big battleaxes on their backs). This first level you will build a bar, dining facilities, a gymnasium, a rest room and guest rooms for the patrons to use.

A stage will be used by Musicians, as they feel like it, to entertain your guests, and, to sober them up. It is a good idea to build it right next to the bar, because drunken patrons will throw-up and cause a mess that your handymen have to clean up. A stage can help to reduce the mess, rather than employing extra handymen, who also have other jobs to do, ie. to water your plants, and to repair your furniture when it breaks.

LEVEL 2: Everything is on Special

Here, you are told to expect Locals, Knights and Wizards. Build the Arcane Study room and the Knights will want the gymnasium.

It is not yet required to build the Workshop to research new meals, unless you can spare the cash to hire the extra maidens. You can work on improving mead quality by employing a bartender to work the brewing barrel, and producing more expensive meals if you want to. One maiden will work at one oven to do research, and you must set the slider on the Research screen to the far right so they work on new recipes, rather than upgrading existing ones.

LEVEL 3: My Tavern, My Rules

As before, you can expect the Locals, Knights, and Wizards, but this time the Locals will want a Spa, and of course, also build a fairly well kitted out Arcane Study because the guest reservations for Wizards are pretty huge, between 11 and 14 at a time. They tend to flood the place and services get held up. At this point I'd recommend building a second bar the moment you start accepting guest reservations. Hopefully you understand by now that since the bar is usually the first stopping point for a new patron of any type, you need to serve them a drink first before they move on to anything else. This is also the first time you need to build the Workshop, for the Maidens to research new food recipes. I'd also build a bigger rest room, with six toilet stalls, to avoid having to build a second one altogether ie. maximise your current space allowance to field more custom.

TIP:
You will notice that the patrons start asking for a new kind of meal at the dining tables, that the maidens indicate is not available, which means they keep turning some diners away. This disappointment to some diners automatically gives you a reputation hit, so you will find that it is hard to get your rep going up at first. I find that in order to keep staff wages down and save money on furniture costs, one kitchen, two maidens and around six tables is enough to deal with the flow of traffic, until your maidens in the workshop have researched 'Rabbit Stew' successfully. Once Rabbit Stew is on the menu, you can extend your dining room with a couple more tables as you will be able to fulfill more orders and thus, make more money without the staff overheads for Maidens crippling you financially from the very start of the level.

LEVEL 4: Winter is Coming

Here you can expect all three classes of patron, all wanting their specific specialised rooms, and, you have far less space than in the previous levels. This seems to be a test of your ability to make the most of the limited space that you have. Guest reservations are big once more, so use them wisely or you'll overcrowd your facilities.

TIP:
Also build a good size rest room with at least six toilet stalls and staff room with at least four couches this time, from the start, because you will not have the extra space to build a second rest room or staff room.
Provide all the specialised rooms as normal, but keep them fairly evenly sized compared to each other. I've noticed if you replay this level, a different set of group reservations tend to crop up from your first playthrough, but it seems that Locals wanting the spa and Wizards wanting the Arcane Study are far more prevalent than Knights wanting the gymnasium.

With reputation being your biggest problem here, it can bottom out very fast if you accept the large guest reservations too early, ie. before you have the facilities to handle them. Your patrons get angry pretty fast and you can go under in the blink of an eye.

Build only a few dining tables and guest rooms in the beginning, because you can easily extend these facilities later as your tavern gets busier, rather than building 10 guest rooms first and not having any specialised rooms for the Knights, Wizards and Locals to use for a time. All waiting time adds to the disatisfaction, which hits your rep. Keep the place clean in the meantime, and get your maidens to research rabbit stew as a priority right from the start (make sure you change the research slider all the way across to full blue, to research only 'new recipe' or they will waste valuable time on researching levelling up current recipes. Once rabbit stew is being served, your reputation will really start to fly up.

LEVEL 5: Dungeon is no Exception

When you first start to play this level, you will realise very quickly that your chances of failing at it are huge, as is the layout of the map. This time, you don't buy extra space as you need it (and can afford it), because the entire space that is available for play is all already open.

There are also a couple of new rooms to build: the Express Shop, and the Gambling Den. Both are used extensively by a fair range of characters, although I will say that building a small shop is more important than the gambling den at the very start.

The Express shop will be required by all patrons except for Locals.

The Gambling Den is used by all characters, but, the trouble with building this too early is that the Slot Machines and the Card Table are now set to make cash payouts of winnings, which can be very problematic for your cash bar. Only build this once you have in excess of 20,000 gold to be able to handle payouts without going under.
I usually build the Gambling Den with the charge for the slot machine at 30g, so that no-one uses it, but instead, I provide more smoking chairs, and charge an entry fee to the facility as well.

As in level 3, it is crucial to get your maidens researching new meals right away. You get a large reputation hit of -16 every time a patron asks for a recipe that your maidens cannot cook yet. Start with one bar, four tables, the smallest kitchen you can manage, and a research facility that takes two maidens. Build a staffroom with four couches, a rest room with at least six toilets, and for every other room, only build enough to facilitate at least four patrons of the particular class at a time. You can extend them later when your tavern starts making a profit, and because the guest reservations are so large (rarely under 10 customers at a time, and up to 15 in some cases), you will need to make them larger so people don't wait around too long. The Spa is a special case: only build one bath, one changing booth and one towel rack, because Locals are rare, and the guest reservations for these are rare too.

Hire always the cheapest staff in the beginning. And then let things tick over until you get the first email that tells you the maidens have researched a new menu. Once you have this in the bag, the rest is fairly straightforward.

I have had a lot of difficulty getting through this level, and the way it seems to work best is to build the basics of everything, and then to expand them as money allows. Now that the WAIT/LEAVE function on the policy screen has been implemented, it means your guests can't storm out of your tavern in a huff when they have been waiting too long for a service...keep moving extra customers along if one area gets too crowded, so that at least you have some money coming in.

At the start only accept one or two guest reservations to keep the customers arriving at a fair rate. Your reputation is already very low when you begin, so having General Dion around to do inspections is pretty crucial, because he helps to top up valuable reputation and cash if you manage to please him. You will need both to stay afloat.

Also, the kids posing as an adult can be very helpful, because exposing them by clicking on them gives you +15 reputation as well as 15 gold, which can help to boost rep which is already so low.

LEVEL 6: Garden of Zen

Objective: Do what you have to do to keep the tavern profitable and quickly make 150,000 gold. Easier said than done, because there is nothing quick about this level. In fact, it can drag on very, very long, because money does not come easily, even though the customers are literally swamping your establishment.

On this level, reputation and tavern value don't matter. It doesn't matter how long you keep people waiting for anything. It is all about racking up the cash bar. So, find ways to get them to part with their gold...hike up prices until they almost can't stand it, and provide a lot of accommodation, because all patrons will want to spend the night. If you want to maximise money-making, having one whole wing of accommodation of both types will bring the cash in.

You will also experience earthquakes for the first time, and they damage your furniture to the point of complete break down, so, you will need a couple of extra handymen on standby just in the first half hour of play to fix things quickly. The earthquakes stop after two events and then they don't come again.

LEVEL 7: Pirates Bay of Blue Seas

Featuring a harbour type theme, this will be the first time you are introduced to the 'Storage Room', because some patrons will arrive with loads strapped to their backs. They will appreciate being able to leave their baggage in a storage room near the front entrance, because their loads make them walk very, very slowly, and it will take them all day to get across the tavern for anything.
This is a free service that you provide in order to get them to move through the service process of your tavern faster.

LEVEL 8: Graveyard Happy Hour

This tavern is situated in a graveyard, and spans across seven parts. This means that your patrons have to do a lot of walking to get to any one place or service, so plan wisely. A storage room needs to go near the front door, the staffroom in the very centre of the map to start off with. Later, as you move some services to the outlying build spaces, if they have staff, it is suggested that you build a small staff room in each one, or your staff will waste a lot of time walking to and from the central staff room.

So far, this level gives you three guest reservations for knights, locals and mages once a month, but, they only repeat if you use the three that are currently in your inbox. You will notice that passing foot traffic is very slim, so you need to get the patrons in with your own effort on a monthly basis. The reservations are quite small, between 2 and 6 patrons at a time, so it is a good idea to keep accepting them until you build up a fair amount of people going through your service process.

LEVEL 9: Nothing is on special

Here we revisit the map from Level 2, the one that has very little space. Only this time, you have to try and cram more buildings into it than before. Keep room sizes to the minimum and choose wisely what rooms will be built. You won't have space to build the Portal, and you'll need to be content with your customers coming in through the front doors instead.

However, you will need a storage room in this level, so fit it into the first main build space. I also find that the Express Shop will only fit into the main build space once you've built everything else you need to function. I also cannot get a gambling den in, so I choose to have customers 'leave' instead of waiting for it. I opted for big earning rooms like private guest rooms.

LEVEL 10: Dragon's Hangover

Not implemented yet. Still under construction.

[tikikala]

idk if this guide is a little outdated but i am up to level 6 right now. starting from level 4 you'll want to research food all the way to the skewers to lower happiness, then build casino whenever you can afford it.
on Level 6 Garden of Zen, nobody really uses the card table, but you can build more smoking lounges. also in this level, having more display tables (not the small posters) help bring in more customers to express shop

[goblin.queen]

Dear Tavern Friends: I'm stepping down from this project, and Peter the Dev has taken over as a Contributor. I will no longer be updating this manual due to RL commitments, but, be assured that I still continue to support the game wholeheartedly. It's been great. Cheers. :}

[Umaroo]

You should put in what new food you need to research for each level.

[goblin.queen]

You're right, Ithacus, I have forgotten to mention the clock mechanic. I am planning to give the whole guide an overhaul, now that the next few game levels have been released. I've just not had the time to do whole playthrough as yet. RL does have to take precedence sometimes. I will get to it soon. In the meantime, I have added the clock and the office mechanics under 'How does this work, or What is that thing?'

[ithacus]

I don't think you mentioned about buying a clock where you buy furniture, for controlling time.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

I found with level 4 it was all about waiting and allowing the locals to come and go. I only accepted one reservation from the wizards as the locals had knights and muscle men. Build up everything in the beginning, Big spar works for locals, Placement is important, have just one bench one plant etc Then the game went through right to the end. I reached the high ratings no worries even though my money was low I then accepted Lord Peter and he praised it and gave me the last grand.

[goblin.queen]

Folks, I've updated the guide now after another four level play-through this morning, and quite a few things have changed, particularly the qeueing system. It seems to be something that was causing a lot of confusion before but now has left everyone even more confused than ever. I have now put the 'Waiting and Benches' part under its own section so you can find it more quickly. As I have come to understand it in it's new form, I have written it down for you. Hopefully it is clearer now. :}

[GamerTeah]

Amen thanks GQ :)

[goblin.queen]

I'm due to do a replay soon, just been busy in RL, and waiting for Peter to finish patching the first four levels. There are only so many times you can go through it only to...end abruptly. lol! I imagine a lot of balancing is not finely tuned yet, so for the moment, just go with what works for you as far as wages are concerned...bear in mind that low wages equals inefficient staff, and the abc rating gives you their potential for gaining experience as they work. This will become more effective in later levels, but for the first few don't worry too much about it.

[GamerTeah]

Any new information? Any tips on wages and what is too high?