Hi, I'm Patrick, the Director of Tavern Keeper and I wanted to write you a little letter, shortly before release (and sprinkle a few screenshots from the development throughout).
Soon, you can finally get your hands on Tavern Keeper 🍻
(No, NOT this Tavern Keeper - the modern version - This is the earliest screenshot of Tavern Keeper (June 2014), written as a webpage, using placeholder graphics. It looked very, very different.)
For more than 11 years* our small team has laboured over every detail of this game. Every polygon, every sound, every animation, every word and every piece of code was handcrafted with purpose by a human. It is our love letter to simulation management games 💚 and our bid to add a genre-busting entry, combining deep sim systems, a witty magical-audiobook-RPG and a decoration sandbox to the world of sim games.
We hope it will be a delightful experience for you!
*Before I say anything more, I want to clarify that we are not necessarily proud that it has taken us that long (we really wish it hadn’t) but we do feel a sense of fulfilment to have made it this far - I think anyone who has worked on a long project can relate. It’s tempting to say that we could now do this in half the time but this would gloss over the countless prototypes and iterations. For the past 11 years we didn’t just develop the game you get to play, but six different versions of it.
When my brother (and co-founder) Daniel and I released our first game “Game Dev Tycoon” 13 years ago, we celebrated with our family for about 20 minutes before a game-breaking bug was reported 😅. I still recall huddling over a laptop frantically coding and delivering a hot-fix while our parents and girlfriends (now wives) celebrated in the room nearby. Now, 13 years later, we are releasing our second game. Hopefully it will not require a hot-fix within 20 minutes 🤞. We did our darndest to avoid this, but whatever happens, we’ll be ready.
(Early version of Tavern Keeper (April 2015), running in Unity)
This time, we share this moment remotely with our small international team across the globe. And of course, at home with our families and our kids, some of whom are nearly as old as Tavern Keeper! Before the inevitable craze of release day, I want to say a few things.
First and foremost, thanks to the entire team and their support groups (partners, family and friends) that made this game what it is. For all of us, this is the longest professional project we have ever (and are likely ever to have) been part of. I'm truly grateful that we all somehow, miraculously, stuck with it for so long.
Thanks to every one of you for your countless contributions, patience, talent and determination to make this game a reality.
Thanks also to all the external partners, the sound wizards at Cedar Studios UK, the amazing voice actors, the translators at Lionbridge Games and everyone else contributing to a game like this. You should check out the Credits in-game: we are a very small team but had a lot of help along the way.
It's been an immense privilege to work with everyone on this game.
A special thanks to the private testers, the translation testers, our small but dedicated (and very patient) Patreon members and everyone who is looking forward to Tavern Keeper. Your enthusiasm, your feedback (in particular those amazing Demo reviews 🥹🤗 and all the incredible in-game reports) have given us strength and motivation in this last stretch to Early Access.
Lastly, thanks to every single person who bought our first game “Game Dev Tycoon”, whether that's all the way back at the initial launch or more recently. I'm convinced that any (sane) publisher would have cancelled this project long ago or forced a release early when it definitely wasn't ready. Without you, Tavern Keeper would simply not exist and we could not have developed and self-published it as truly independent developers. We hope to have your support again this time around - we'll definitely need it!
Art Direction test of Tavern Keeper (a very long time ago)
It's a supremely odd feeling to be this close to release. We try to keep our expectations neutral, a lot of things could happen and it's never been a more competitive market for games. When Game Dev Tycoon released in 2013 on Steam, we were one of 507 games released that year. This year, 593 games released on Steam just last week(!) with over 10K so far in 10 months. It is a scary time for devs but I feel it’s also never been a better time for PC gamers.
We did our best to make a game that can hopefully compete and, with your help, find its audience. We hope it's a remarkable one-of-a-kind bespoke experience. Fingers crossed indeed💚
(one of the many fun bugs encountered along the way, this patron (incorrectly) used the bar as a bed)
I thought it might be fun to share a few stats from the development of Tavern Keeper! Here we go:
11.5 years of development
3 engine changes (2D HTML -> 3D HTML -> 3D Unity (and several unity versions)).
~50K commits (individual work packages contributed to the project).
220K lines of handwritten code (~6M characters).
~6K models
2K sprites
11K prefabs
~7K animations
120K words of English text (similar to a large fantasy novel!)
~1.6 million words total given we have translations into 14 more languages.
~900 tooltips
~6K nodes in our campaign / story graphs.
~7K sound files
~4.5K character emotes (sound-bites of the fictional language you hear when you zoom in and observe characters).
~50 music files (over 2 hours of music)
~3K voice-over files (over 10 hours of audio, that's only the Early Access content, lots more to come!)
67 major versions (builds)
6.8 years of combined play-time testing (together with our private testers) saw us serve 1.1M patrons and gain 23K tavern stars and fire 5K staff
100% human made - no generated code, art, sound, voice or anything else.
Some of these stats are more meaningful than others but I'm just listing them to give you a sense as to how big this game is under the hood. It's also worth mentioning that this only counts the things that made it to the end and doesn’t count the many discarded prototypes along the way.
(one of the earliest uses of the Design Mode - we knew immediately this feature was worth investing more time - you can have so much fun with it!)
This is a pivotal moment for the game. Finally, we open the doors for you to experience what Tavern Keeper has to offer and invite you to be part of the journey towards the full release (for details please check out our roadmap on the main page). 
(a more recent screenshot of Tavern Keeper)
We believe Early Access will ultimately lead to an even better experience for everyone and we are so ready to see how you engage with the game. Please let us know on the Steam forums, through the in-game tool (press F3) or on our Discord.
Here's to a great journey together. Welcome Inn!
Patrick Klug
Director
Greenheart Games 💚
Change the amount of gold obtained from MoneyBag from 1000 to 500
Have you cleared Difficulty 6 and still crave more?
Did you one-shot the final boss and think, “That’s it?”
Today, the Endless Challenge arrives!
After defeating the Difficulty 6 boss, you’ll see two doors appear —
the right door is your gateway to the Endless Challenge!
Enter it, and you’ll be transported to a new map where only one thing matters: battle.
No more looting, no more distractions — just fight!
In limited time, test your damage output and see how high you can climb!
In this mode:
You gain 2 additional Insectoid Core slots, for a total of 12 slots!
Each floor cleared grants +10 seconds of time.
Each floor cleared also rewards Dark Crystals — higher floors mean better rewards.
⚠️ But beware — this mode is extremely difficult!
Reaching Floor 10 means you’re skilled.
Hitting Floor 20? You’re a rare master.
Clearing Floor 30? You’re a living legend.
Come prove your power!
\[New] Added new Dual-Element Synergies: Earth+Ice and Metal+Earth.
\[Optimization] Weapon Earthshaker Hammer: Base attack range increased by 20%, knockback slightly improved.
\[Optimization] Reduced the number of bosses in the final stage of Difficulty 4 by 1.
\[Optimization] Improved the tooltip for Fixed Damage — you can now hold Alt for detailed explanations.
\[Optimization] Demon Element 5-star synergy changed: now fully restores Rage at the start of each new battle. (Transform endlessly! 🔥)
\[Optimization] At stage clear, all dropped items are now auto-collected — including Seeds of Life and Bloodstones. (No more missing loot!)
\[Optimization] Time Element Core Chrono Gauntlet buffed:
During Perfect Dodge, Move Speed increased from +10% → +30%,
Weapon Damage increased from +300% → +600%.
(Several smaller tweaks were made but weren’t logged — you’ll discover them in-game!)
\[Optimization] Slightly shortened the light attack dash distance of Shadow Blade.
\[Optimization] Added a new option in the Settings → Other menu to enable 8-directional movement. (Only affects movement animation; gameplay remains the same.)
\[Optimization] Perfect Dodge state now immediately ends after clearing a stage — saving time between levels.
\[New] Battle Record Log — view your past performance and detailed stats on the main menu.
\[New] Batch Dismantle Function — you can now dismantle multiple Insectoid Cores at once in the Reforge menu.
\[Optimization] Added new icons for all Elemental Affinity Synergies.
\[Optimization] Critical damage numbers are now smaller and feature an exclamation mark for impact.
\[Optimization] Adjusted layout for Insectoid Core sockets to better fit 12-slot setups.
\[Optimization] Added damage number abbreviations and improved readability.
\[Fix] Resolved an issue where certain Earthshaker Hammer cards caused heavy attack cooldowns to display incorrectly.
\[Fix] Fixed incorrect descriptions for the Demon + Time dual-element synergy.
\[Fix] Fixed an issue where enemies could visually remain on-screen after being killed during a Perfect Dodge state.
Hi Farmers,
We’ve released a hotfix to address the missing fishing sounds, other missing SFX, and several crashes that required urgent fixes.
If you encounter any other issues, feel free to let us know via the Steam Discussions, on our Discord, or by reaching out to us at https://support@stairwaygames.com.
Bugfixes:
Fixed missing SFX during fishing.
Fixed missing SFX when player gets new fish or insect.
Fixed missing SFX when player processing coffer and geode at the blacksmith.
Fixed crash when doing certain activities during evening time.
Fixed crash when loading multiplayer save file on consoles.
Fixed crash when Guest players decorated their room using Decor Mode.
Known issues:
Fixing unable to interact with Lele's Black Market.
Fixing the Aquarium hangout at the Museum is missing.
Fixing baby's dialogue portrait is wrong.
Fixing some decorative lights are not working.
Fixing broken assets for some of the decor tiles.
Fixing tree texture glitching on the farm during Winter.
Fixing can't till the corner area on Underwater farm.
Thank you again for your continued support.
Best regards,
The Stairway Team
This update completes another major phase of evolution: Bed Intelligence, Genetic Depth, and the first Superfood Infusions all come online.
Neeblies now carry unique behavioral traits, Florin Beds think in aggregates, and the first Area-of-Effect superfoods let you nurture whole colonies at once. 💚
The Neeblarium’s Florin Beds now understand their residents as communities, not just coordinates.
Each bed now aggregates population, mood, and family lineages.
Mood and personality logic are fully documented and stabilized.
Feature flags allow Bed Intelligence systems to be toggled for testing and balance.
Florin Beds have matured — they remember, respond, and reveal.
Every Neeblie now carries a deeper genome that shapes its personality and behavior:
Home Affinity — how strongly a Neeblie stays near its home.
Wanderlust — determines how far it explores.
Bonding Drive — affects how comforted it feels near kin.
Mood Bias — tweaks its emotional baseline.
Lifespan Factor — slightly lengthens or shortens life expectancy.
These heritable traits add subtle diversity — some Neeblies roam, others nest, all responding a bit differently to the same world.
Superfoods now release gentle area-of-effect auras, transforming how you nurture life.
Drop a superfood, and shimmering concentric rings spread across nearby beds.
Neeblies within range receive brief boosts — vitality, growth, or fertility, depending on the infusion type.
Rings fade softly as the effect ends, leaving a lingering glow of life.
It’s the first step toward environmental caretaking — nourishing the world itself, not just its inhabitants.
Documentation and tuning have been unified across systems.
Visual polish added to infusion effects for clarity and beauty.
New HUD documentation ensures every readout stays clear as systems grow.
Florin Beds now think, Neeblies inherit, and your care radiates.
The Neeblarium is beginning to feel truly alive — not just simulated, but soulful. 🌿💚
Greetings, bluffers! Update v1.1.0 has come to Bonaparte's Bluff! The changes are as follows:
New Feature - Marking Pieces: You may now right-click on opposing pieces to mark them!
Right-clicking on an unmarked piece will mark it with a "!" symbol. Further right-clicks will change the mark to a "?", then an "X", and finally remove the mark entirely, in that order. Your piece markings are visible only to you, not your opponent.
This is intended to help reduce the need to track pieces mentally.
Bug Fixes: Some bug fixes that were released in previous patches have also been persisted to v1.1.0:
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a player to lose by timeout even in an untimed game. (Fixed since v1.0.1)
Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the game to freeze during the transition between music tracks. (Fixed since v1.0.1.1)
Fixed a bug that caused ranked results to fail to verify if the game lasted too long. (Fixed since v1.0.2)
Fixed a bug that prevented players from deselecting pieces. (Fixed since v1.0.3)
IMPORTANT: You MUST be running the most recent version of the game (v1.1.0) in order for ranked results to verify. If you are running a previous version of the game (the main menu displays what version you are running), you can force the game to update by selecting Bonaparte's Bluff in your Steam library, selecting "Properties", then selecting "Installed Files" and clicking the "Verify integrity of game files" button.
Until next time!
-BoltFromTheGreen
