Has your mini collection ever been too disparate to flesh out a fully-blooded army, and just thought: “What if all of these guys could get along?” That’s the vibe that Tabletop Tavern, a roguelike RTS that has a demo out ahead of its release next week, aims to do.
Tabletop Tavern is a pretty straightforward game on the surface of it. Instead of defending cities on a worldmap, you advance through a linear branching path of battles towards a final boss—along the way, you flesh out your army into an appropriate deathball to take on the final skirmish of the act.
What really sets this thing apart is the roguelike goofiness that would misbalance a regular RTS substantially. While the hero you choose at the start is important, giving you specific bonuses (for example, Ser Edric Valeward likes having rare units and charge units) you can also recruit foes from the enemies you defeat.
This meant that my first playthrough wound up with my ghostly cavalry units rubbing shoulders with treants that I’d grabbed from the final town—and a good thing, too, I barely scraped past that battle, with my treants being the last green men standing.
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You can also add items to your roster—giving powerful bonus effects to augment your armies. Despite Ser Valeward being into Charge units, I mostly ran ranged units thanks to some strong items I picked up during my marauding.
Speaking of, Tabletop Tavern’s equivalent of rest sites are interesting. When you come across a settlement, you can either simply rest there, allowing you to regain some of your unit’s health—or you can sack it, forcing you into a tough battle that might reap some better rewards.
The only critique I have for Tabletop Tavern is that it’s a little informationally-dense, and it doesn’t do too great a job of explaining how the game works—simply throwing several walls of tutorial text at you off the bat.
That might not matter, though, given the type of game this is clearly marketed towards—RTS battle fans who would rather muck around than deal with the stresses of a whole campaign. The lower stakes of a roguelike also had me messing around quite a bit more than I would otherwise—if I optimised poorly? I’d just go for the next run.
The theming is also deeply charming—you’re essentially just wargaming in a mediaeval tavern, and at any time you can pan the camera up and see your low-poly opponent grumbling at your dastardly tactics (little did they know, I didn’t have any). Tabletop Tavern charges into Steam come June 11.
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