Deadwater Saloon

The game started out good, but it quickly became boring. As soon as you get people in town to like you and level up your skills (which doesnt take long) you just sit and wait for new citizens to show up and start a business, then you chat with them to make them like you and research some new drinks (about 2-3 in game days) and then repeat.
Not worth the full price, get it on sale for maybe £5-7 if you want a game to play for a few (5-6) hours.

It could be fun but gets old very quickly, not really challenging in any meaningful way. The performance is also awful, so much so that it started freezing constantly on an RTX 3050 at I would guess about 50% of the playthrough.

Unfinished, pointless garbage. Your stats dont do diddly, 97% success chance and you still fail every time. You buy everything, have all the towns people at 100 opinion of you, dont do anything wrong and then just all of a sudden out of the blue for no reason, the sheriff, who is also at 100 opinion of you decides to haul you out into the street and hang you just for the hell of it? I wish I could get a refund, this game wasnt worth the money.

I started off really enjoying this game. Typical design your saloon, increase your inventory, make money, maintain friendships with allies, buying other businesses, deal with enemies - perhaps a little bit of murdering when needed. The odd event to challenge you with an over arching nemesis and his gang that you eventually take out. After that its pretty much nothing but an endless loop with no further goals and the events are few and far between. I got really bored basically and quite quickly. I loved the background music though. If they can add other events/storylines/challenges would be great and I would revisit the game. As it is now I have no intention in playing this game again.

Pretty decent game, the only problem is it gets boring pretty quickly

I only played for about 9 hours but I kinda completed the game now, I make hundreds per day, i bought 3 other businesses and I am on 100 liked rating.There is no other challenge incoming and it is quite boring.

Overall the game has potential but needs more diversity, maybe more missions or challenges

If you love building and managing, then you might like this game. The learning curve is definitely there, I found no guides-except for the one in Steam- or good tips. So, it does take a bit of noodling around to really figure it out. There is no modding for the game, which I feel is really a missed opportunity. But, it is fun. The best piece of advice is SAVE OFTEN!!

This game was a lot of fun.

Plus, tech support was the best I've ever seen. I complained that the game lacked a feature and because of that I couldn't really play the game. The developer got back to me almost immediately and said they were going to add the feature in the next patch. And they did. It was less than a week before they implemented it from the time I submitted my complaint.

I would recommend this game to anyone wanting to try their hand at running an old west saloon.

If you like City of Gangsters you may like this game. Its very simple with most game play being tied to selecting a story element. You own a saloon but that doesn't stop you buying out other businesses in the town that springs up around you. You can choose to be everyone's friend and the Hero of the Town or you can be a snake in the grass backstabbing and murdering your opposition. You can level up your character to be the very best in town and overule even the court house and sheriffs office. I high recommend giving this game a chance.

In two days I burned through 70% of the content and took out the main boss out (Chop).
I got paid $200 on his $1000 bounty (oops)
The game played well (not many crashes/bugs) and does remind me of Old World/ Restaurant Story and the Sims to some degree . It's visually appealing, music is good. However, the ambiance could use some work still. The saloon ambiance chatter is like people with socks in their mouths. :|
I liked a lot of the encounters- Clever/ Well written.

Overall; I got the game for a discount and considering the amount of story-line and content I'd say I
barely got my money's worth.

Suggestion: More Story-lines, More Immersion, More Character Models.

I'm shelving this one for a while. Hopefully we see more.

The game works but there is not much to see. If you just like to watch the screen this is the game for you. Their is a market for games where you do VERY LITTLE and that is this game. Slow pace nothing heart stopping. I recommend this game for people who just like a slow pace progress game. Only two issues with the game one is the optimization, this game runs your GPU like Richard SImmons on crack! I heard noises of my GPU i never heard before: GPU is a nvidia 970. Second is the price 20.00 is a lot for what you get game wise. it seems like most new titles its double billed. This a for game sale for sure.

I am giving a very qualified recommended "yes" to this game.

Like many others noted, there is a lot of great ideas behind this game, and it has a lot of potential, but it leaves you quite unsatisfied after a short while.

A number of issues need to be addressed by the developers to make it a great game.
- The construction and and purchase on equipment and furniture for the saloon is mostly aesthetic. You can bunch the main equipment you need in a corner, and it does not have any impact on the game. Prostitutes can work in the open, no need for a room with a door, for instance. This removes any incentives to build a proper saloon.
- Later game is very easy, and quite boring. Worse it turns into a waiting game. At the fastest speed, one game day is 3 minutes of real time. If you are waiting for the possibility of bringing more people in the town through the Baker or Newspaper, there is a 30 days cool down. Which means you have to wait 90 minutes of real time to do so, and yet you have to stay there to click on events forms that pop-up every few days of game time that stop the game, and this for events that are at that point in time utterly irrelevant as your stats are already at the max. Quite frustrating.
- As it is mostly a text-based game, then imagery should be far more diverse, especially the images representing the individual citizens of the town. It is always the same few faces you deal with. Quite boring.
- Many businesses are really without much use in the later game. Tax reduction with Hotel and City Hall is ridiculous. The three taxmen have normally been gunned down a long time ago when those businesses pop-up. When the rival saloon appears, your saloon is usually very close to have 2000+ opinion level, which makes the rival saloon just a decoration.
- The game allows same sex marriage, but not male prostitutes, including your own character if female can be a prostitute, but not if male. If you are married and romance another NPC, you get in trouble. The designers should decide if we are in the 19th century or the 21st. The atmospheric is odd.
- The animated NPCs, the only dynamic component of the game, are very short on diversity of looks and dressing. At very least, the prostitutes should be looking like saloon prostitutes.

I could list more shortcomings, but I think this provides a good sense of what I mean by a game with great potential but leaving you otherwise unsatisfied.

I enjoyed the time spent with the game, although a lot of it is due to returning to check out new additions and rebalance that came quick early on - developer warned that those will slow down further down the line, but still, the speed at which community's remarks were addressed was impressive. So take this into account if you're worried about hours-per-buck statistic.

Deadwater Saloon is a doozy for me, the game is okay at what it tries to attempt, but around every corner you'll find elbow room for improvement. The feeling is definitely there and I enjoy the story bits and the town building up around your place, but there's not enough encouragement to keep growing, you won't really find good reasons to remodel your spot or to upgrade existing furniture. I also feel like the game doesn't offer enough incentive to play again, early on you'd do another playthrough because numbers changed, or something that won't trigger in old saves was added, not because there was room to build up differently. That being said, I can see myself opening up a new Saloon every couple of months from now on, it's definitely one of those games that I'll keep shelved and return to every now and then, because it scratches the maangement itch.

Would really like to see updates to make the saloon expandable, in both length, height and width, even with preset sizes if necessary.

Other ideas would be:
- Have competing bars/saloons in town
- Animations for fighting/shoot outs
- Player character which interacts with items and people by using animations
- Having recipes which are different in price category or being more addictive
- Interacting with purchased buildings like; building, income, interior/exterior editing, employees
- More outlaw interaction in general
- Having more action points in one in-game passing day (Or removing reduction of action points by completing simple, non demanding tasks, to not limit the player but to expand on options)
- Town punishments which are shown with animations and props
- Exploring of surrounding area
- Being able to pan camera lower to the ground
- More camera zoom levels
- Graphic settings
- Better name generation (Skip previous 3~6 names after being shown or at least 1 to avoid seeing the same names from a list continuously)
- Shift + camera keys or edge scrolling for faster camera movement

Bugs:
- Placement of items at different angles (Remove snap grid, apply simple tracing of objects)
- Placement of rooms is often blocked by invisible objects
- People in town can have the same portrait as the player character
- Better staff UI. Current UI has this short slider which is very annoying

In general. This is a relatively small game and a lot of change can still be made to make it a thriving game.. Pretty much like the concept of the story in game...
Currently, the player is very limited and receives few possibilities to actually expand and explore what could be an extensive world with consequences and great unexpected experiences.

It goes without saying that a lot more is expected from a title like this, with all due respect. I do hope to see more content and after that maybe even some DLC's.

Fantastic Idea with poor execution.

Okay you get the saloon, you can fill the saloon with tables, pianos, make rooms for prostitutes, have gambling tables and more. However the size of your saloon never grows, regardless of town levels, you do not get
more space to build more rooms, the two floors you have and thats it.

The skill's and events are fun, and thats about the only good thing I can say. But this is basically a waiting game, an idle game because aside from the few choices/events you get, all you really do is just sit there watching the game on max speed because there really is nothing else to do in this game. Aside from spending your action points on building rep with people and staff, buying materials for drinks or food.

but once you reach "end game" nothing really happens, I mean you most likly have bought and build the saloon to be as optimal as can be way before then and aside from buying materials there really is nothing to do, none at all.

There are plenty of store sim games, barkeep games and regular sim games that does what they are suppose to do better, much better. I liked the events, I really do, the spirit of what they are trying to do is so clear it is scary but they either ran out of funds and had to release this barebone creation or simply didnt have the skills to followthrough on the idea.

Do I regret buying it? not really, but I wont be playing it ever again either, I ended up with a 100 in everything char pretty fast, all events gives you permanent skill boost 1 if you fail and 4 if you succede, spending action points on people before their opinion of you hits 100 you can get a lot of skill points, more so when you are married, Romancing someone else than your hubby or wife nets a -80 in opinion of the spouse, and with this you can train your skill on said spouse, then romance someone else once it hits 100 again, drop it to 20, build it up and rinse and repeat until you puke of boredom as the chat/romance events are straight forward copy paste with new character name, while the biggere events is where the only redeeming feature of this game is.

That being said, overall I will give this a 3 of 10, making it bareable for the price, but really you can do sooooo much better with your money, really, get something else unless you absolutly need some choices "matter" and managment game roled into one.

The game has drawn me in more than I expected it to and I'm enjoying it very much. I like the challenge of profiting and upgrading, winning favour all while getting strong enough to overcome bandits. I've only experienced one or two small visual glitches that were quickly fixed with a reload and my game play hasn't been affected. Recommend for good casual fun.

Ok i dont usually review. However this is the first game in my library that i have ever felt the need to complete all the achievements. The game itself is very well made and although the mid to later game feels like it needs more to do ( Once you have a successful Saloon is pretty much gravy ) it is still very much worth the price.

Unfortunately this just never lived up to the really high expectations the demo created for it. In fact, I would argue that as a rogue like tavern building experience, the Demo is actually a better game than the full version.

The only real difference between this and the demo is there's no time limit and you can kill the bad guy. There isn't anything past killing the bad guy, there aren't any new tavern building mechanics other than having a second floor.

There are... a lot of missed opportunities with the questlines to include major roleplaying value. There's one questline where randomly chosen townies have a bounty and you are getting suspicion for being the bad guy but the only outcome is you kill the guy with the bounty. Doesn't matter if it's your spouse, best friend, worst nemesis, or someone you don't care about remotely, you have to kill them if you want to stop compiling suspicion (which leads to game over). It's a massive missed opportunity to use your skills to get your friend or spouse out of a jam and/or frame your nemesis.

The game is absolutely replete with missed opportunities. There's tremendous potential here but very little is actually realized. Every questline or challenge has one success state and one failure state, no options to use your skills to solve them unconventionally.

If anything this game is extremely frustrating because it has so much potential to be great. It ultimately feels like they developed the demo and gave up, Just said it was good enough and took out the time limit.

I spent $12 on this and honestly I wish I'd just continued playing the free demo, it's a more interesting, fun, and challenging experience.

I have never been more excited yet severely disappointed in a game than this. It's like that hot girl online who is everything you dreamed of; then you meet her, and it's a balding 40-year-old man playing a joke on you. The demo got me excited I looked past all the flaws and saw a eager and active developer. I waited a long time, and it was released as a complete game, not early access. I excepted it to be polished up with new surprises etc. The full version is worse than the demo! When you spend your first hour just trying to set up your saloon cause you can't place objects anywhere you want and delete one thing, five things disappear. Speaking of objects, I did not expect a demo to showcase everything, yet here we are, with fewer items. They removed the stage and two saloon signs. Where are the fancy naked lady paintings, bear skin rugs, etc.? Why can't I hang a wanted poster outside? Why can't I place the Tiffany lamp on the back bar? Why is it so hard to put candles on a table and get them centered? I was going to refund it was so unplayable, but I'm stubborn and still hopeful it will improve. As of now, I had planned to have a new game and set aside a day to enjoy it. That won't be happening. There's no point in it being that unplayable. Don't waste your money. Come back in a year; hopefully, it will have met its potential. This is far from a full release in worse shape than the demo, and I've seen the early access, and alpha version more put together.

### update I've decided to stick with my review but change it to yes because the developer is very dedicated and working his butt off to fix everything. He's attentive to feedback and listens to it all, so it's bugged out and janky. The soul of the game is fantastic, and I think that's what makes it frustrating. The game gives you blue balls cause it's so close, and the game's release gave you no release. So buy it if you want to support the developer but expect a beautiful disaster.

My God, this is a well-made game in my favorite developmental genre, also in the Wild West setting!
Sometimes the game is affected by budget constraints and repetitive character models are seen. But I think it will be fixed. I will spend a lot of time in this game.

Hours before bandits return to town, I got myself shot. Survived... but barely. I should not confront the bandits.... but.... legends are born this way. RIP

Early impression is positive. Relaxed, calm setting. Perfectly themed music. A couple bugs here and there. But I suspect they will be addressed quickly. Nothing game breaking so far.
Developer is all over bugs and discussion forums and seems to be genuinely invested in addressing issues. Which is always a good sign.

This is an excellent game, but maybe not exactly what you were expecting.
If you are looking for an experience similar to other tavern tycoon games, this game is different (and better).
It isn't about just placing the next tier item or having x number of tables...it isn't about min maxing your food chain...
It's about the people around town, and your relationships with them. Will you be loved or feared?
Can you also craft a cool looking Saloon while you're addicting the locals to your fare..you bet!

I've done about a dozen runs on the demo, and enjoyed all of them. the full game is even better, but it does have some growing pains. I am surprised that this isn't an EA title, but frankly the game is about 90% there, with some teething pains, so maybe the devs opted to not go with EA. The devs are very active and responding to all suggestions and bug reports. Perhaps the bugs we are seeing on launch day are a result of pushing the product out a touch too soon, or trying to do too many fixes at once... who knows, but I am glad to be playing it now, even with the quirks.

In about 40 hours+ of play, I've only had the game freeze once. So these long reviews about game breaking game bugs are a lot of nonsense. Just because you cant place the wall sconce on the first click, doesn't mean the game is garbage.

Frankly my only gripe is that once you figure out the mechanisms, the game can get a bit easy, even on the hardest settings. But I still have many encounters to discover and interesting events to experience, so it is still lots of fun.

Quick Launch-Day UPDATE:
I just want to add a shout out to the developer who has been feverishly answering nearly every question on the forums and crushing bugs like crazy. Really top effort and worth commending. This is a small labor of love, and yes he needed us to point out the bugs, but they are getting fixed fast. Worthy of your support.

I would also add that I am 12+ hours into my fresh save, with not a lot, but plenty more to do. So I think the price point is perfect. Not to mention I will definitely do another run.

Boring...played for an hour already bored. Doesn't look like much content. Maybe at $10 it might be worth it.

Im very hard on games when it comes to judging them and because of that i hardly ever write reviews, but if there was ever a game that deserved a good review its this one, it has tons of potential and is still a good game to get into even with the amount of content currently in. 9/10

Marry a hooker, get aids.

The game has a really strong foundation, but there really isn't anything to do after a certain point - a point you will reach VERY quickly. The devs know this so there's a lot of disperate features to try and keep your attention for one more second of gametime, but they all fall flat. After the first few buildings there's not many more interesting new features the game has left to offer.

I have played the demo before the game released, and I enjoyed it and was super hyped for the game. However there's actually not much more here.

The good :
In my playthrough on the full version, I played as a 'handsome' owner with a lot of skills in finance and mixology. I set up my bar, was running a deficit for the first couple weeks -losing moeny each day on staff and upkeep but quickly expanding what I was offering as buildings came in.

I married a prostitute, got aids. The butcher randomly became my rival and our rivarly was very active in the first weeks, I tried to frame him for stuff, follow him to get some dirt and blackmail for multiple weeks aswell as trying to raise my opinion of other characters to get a militia and run some bandits out of town.

I eventually just end up murdering him, throwing his body into a pigpen and then buying out the sherifs office and absolving myself of my crimes by framing some random woman that didn't like me.

The bad :
After this pretty interesting few weeks of ingame time - nothing interesting happend. I was making a net profit now not a deficit, I was buying out all the different companies in town and getting profit from them to the point I had 10k in my bank and was selling everything in the bar at a loss so that people would like me more. My bar was not my main source of income, the town was as I owned everything.

There was a story arc with some bandits led by Chuck kept attacking the town and my saloon but it didn't matter. With my infinite stacks of money and infinite reputation, all the townspeople flocked to defend me and the fight was over.

And there's no cool features related to owning buildings. I owned the sherifs office but it's not like I had some abilities or features -it's just that one mechanic to lower suspicision was cheaper than if it was owned by someone who disliked me.

There's no replay value, the character interaction system is initally interesting but very quickly becomes boring. I actually had more HOURS of fun in the demo as you were limited to a month of ingame time per save file, meaning the entire game was early game. I had multiple different character builds, a thief character that robbed and murdered, a banker that focused on making money and a seducer that just seduced every man and woman in the town.

In the final game, there's actually no reason to try out any other build as just after 2 or 3 months my character was master of nearly half the stats in the game. Albeit my chronic aids gave me a -4 debuff so never 100 in them.

The worst part is, you barely manage a Saloon. After I spent most of my starting money setting it up correctly, I was done and dusted outside of adding some chairs later on the 2nd floor. You can only have one barkeep, one cook etc. The most expenasion you can do is adding a brothel and some gambling, which I did off the start as I played the demo.

You can only change prices by 50%, either up or down and that doesn't affect demand, instead it affects your reputation. The price of drinks is determined by your reputation with other companies, if you buy them out they will always be dirt cheap.

You can't make your layout efficient for servers and staff, because it doesn't matter. You don't need to add more service staff as it doesn't matter nor can you. There's absolutely nothing to manage and again- not like if it would've matterd as I owned the town and I was making bank.

Edit : After the games launch, there has been a plethora of quick updates to balance the game, and the dev has been very clear that there will be more content focusing on late game and a tougher challenge. All the balance changes so far hit exactly the issues I had with the game. I believe within 3-6 months this game will be a stellar game and far far far more than just a saloon manager. The dev seems to understand exactly what is wrong and is fixing it.

This is an excellent game - I've oficially played it for only a few hours now but I've played the Prologue for about 15 and am kind of wondering if I am getting addicted to it like my character is addicted ingame to alcohol!
I've run into a problem - how do I get patrons to reenter the bar? They will enter for sex and gambling but not food drink or misc like a cigar. I'm fully stocked on these ingredients, have no town suspicion, and have the staff needed. Can a developer please advise?
Thanks!

simply but affordable. as being an early release can only hope it will get a little more action in to it, as now you just click and hope for the best.
graphic are really simple plenty of repeat movement but loving the light giving from the candles.
sound the music do play over and over is all right.
surely more work will be added to it. not the most challenging once you got started, but getting started now that is something. but for a few hours of entertainment this will be great.

"Finished" the game within 4 hrs and probably could get all achievements by another 2 hrs. If devs doesn't add more content then this doesn't worth the price.

Don't get me wrong I like the premises but it is too short for a £15 game. If the devs decided to prolong it it maybe worth the asking price.

my saloon owner had an argument with the woman that supplied the booze so she increased the price and he couldnt afford it so he killed himself because he couldnt sell anything and went bankrupt

Sociopath Simulator?
....
Sociopath Simulator.

Was fun, if easy/more narrative than a challenge.

I got all of my fellow townspeople except my spouse addicted to various things (Alcohol, gambling, opiates, sex, food...) and made bank off of them as a direct result. Then when a rival saloon moved in, I sabotaged the shit out of them, raised my suspicion, and shunted it all off on said rival salon's owner so they'd get run out of town, and promptly bought said salon. And 22 other businesses in town.

Am I the baddie? I feel like I'm the baddie.

But also, I did a metric ton of good deeds so people would like me. And did all sorts of other good stuff that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't get them addicted to all the stuff I'm selling and make money off of the.... you know what, I'm just gonna stop talking. Play the game!

UI: 7/10
Visuals: 7/10
Sound/Music: 10/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 8/10
--------------
Overall: 8/10

It's fairly simple once you get the hang of it, but it's got enough moving parts to be fun.

The dev is very active and clearly cares about the game, so if you're on the fence I would grab it as feedback clearly matters and improvements have already been made after day 1.

EDIT: Dev has been dishing out updates almost everyday since release, bugfixing like an anteater on steroids. That is what was needed to change this review to positive with the cavehat that long term content/replayability is still poor. Nonetheless, good job fixing the game; and keep at it. You know what to do.

Previous review:
It's extremely barebones, full of bugs (no game breaking ones, but still quite annoying), lacks buildables, options, and some kind of end goal.
I've maxed out a saloon, researched everything, I'm the big boss of the town owning every single business that opened, solved all crisis, maxed out my skills and i'm loved by everyone in town.

I had fun, but I don't see the point in playing anymore nor restarting, there is no replayability at all.

So, all in all, a good idea, quite a fun game but... 6H of gameplay for the price seems very steep. Hopefully the game receives a ton of improvements, new buildables and gameplay options soon; but for now it feels like a demo or an early access, marketed as a 1.0 release. I've seen much worse too.

I'd refund it if i could and wait for it to improve, but I can't.

I'd give a sideways thumb but I can't either thanks to steam, so this will be a negative for now until the game is fixed & improved.

One of the worst games i have played.
The idea is good, the game not so much.

The tutorial is not a tutorial.
There is no way to know why we are losing money (I have two staff that cost me 5$/day, so why am I losing 30$/day?
The skill check event are simply horrible. I had some stats maxed out and still only a 30% success rate. Worse, when failing, it reduces the skill. making it even harder to succeed in anything. And there are a LOT of skill check events.

The game is way too fast-paced. A client will arrive in the morning, be served during the night and still be there by the next day at noon.

The graphics are simply ugly, the textures are grainy, and the lights are... nonexistent? No shadows. The sun reflects through the walls.

There are no options for graphics or controls.

The mouse sensitivity is all over the place. Sometimes it's stuck, sometimes it moves too quickly, and the camera pan is way too fast.

The game freezes every time an object is placed.
Sometimes the game will think objects can't be placed, so you have to close the menu, open it again and hope this time it will work.

Oh yeah, and there is that stress mechanic, basically, you will build stress nonstop and you either have to end as a true fat American or a true alcoholic American to cope and counter it.

Finally, the UI. If like me you play on TV, be sure to play close to the screen, or you'll kill your eyes trying to read the text. It's not that it's too small, but the font is so condensed, that it's hard to read anything.

There are plenty of taverns/bars, whatever games out there that work great. This is not one of them.

This is not an early access game, yet it feels like an unpolished beta.

The word that comes to mind after playing through this game is, underwhelming. The initial challenge is good, but once you make a profit with the saloon the game becomes so repetitive and easy. Some the dialog is quite entertaining, but the visuals are janky and yes, there some mildly annoying bugs around.

Pathing bugs for workers, most notably.

It's not an expensive game, so worth a play through if you enjoy management sims. Don't expect much replay-ability.

Recommended for a one off.

If you like numbers game with heavy RNG that portray itself as RPG/building/management - sure this one is for you.

1) no neutral actions - some ppl ignored you on street and you decided not to care -> penalty. Someone house is on fire and you just mind your own business - penalty
2) actions that do not make sense, like staff stealing money and solution is "buy a safe or make relationship better with staff"... I have a safe and all of my two staff are ally (100). Or bar fight happen as muscle was too low... ok... two customers and I have gun and ca 30? value (would understand if there was more ppl in bar or something)
3) the bar management is linear and simplistic: buy item from a vendor (no competition AFAIK so if vendor do not like you, price is high - better murder him/her and have better chance with whoever will take over), sell on fixed price with one of researched menu (crossroad Inn was bad but had depth to this) - there are no combos, no quality of item, no customer satisfaction etc
4) I did not see difference w/ cook level 5 and level 60, same goes for bar keep - ok I lied, cook level 5 cost me 0 in wages.
5) the road event is affecting you but only You need to fix it (it's permanent until you fix it) - weird. Did save-reload to try in row 20 times, chance of success was 39% - 0/20 it happen (RNG...RNG)
6) game is build on premise of MC loosing his/her mind, but after 1.5h of game and that it's not what I though it would be I can say that my anxiety was building up - in fact this is how it should be advertised "anxiety simulator in wild wild west scene" - the money, bar, staff could be stripped down and it would be almost the same.
7) what the heck is with lighting in a night? No, ok i get they did not had 100W LED light but it's a game so you can make it a bit brighter (especially while in build menu)
8) RNG on residents - I do get people can hate you just because but this is just funny AF - new residents move in - they hate you (like -50 and lower) - why? - who knows, "we just met and hate You, gonna spit in your face just for fun, also I do own only other business in this town and since i hate you will sell you booze for 60$ per 200 units - good luck making profit on this if you will be reselling it for 0.2 per single one". Most laughable was that i fast-forward game and general shop opened next and was same beef, bakery was so-so, so i've tried to run fresh-buns-bar.
... just like in real life - no one knows you but they hate You.

Numbers RNG game.

almost 10 hours playing it. i have a conslusion this game felt like click and tap that's it. it really suitable for android game just touch the screen and done. the concept it's good but there is no animation at all for action like shooting or assassin etc it's only text screen for event that's all. if you like a game click and read text event then this game suitable for you to enjoy.

Millions of chances that you will be killed on your first day of work in a newly opened saloon simply because you are slow or you look at the guest obliquely ;)

- it's a really fascinating simulator with amazing gameplay

*Nods approvingly*

Like other have stated, this game is horrible. From the start, you put up a few items for your saloon, then just sit back and fail roll checks and save the game often. Actually, the most action in the game is clicking save new game just to prevent the horrible events. Some minor bugs, IE) Character models floating. The idea of the game is good, but poorly executed and boring. Save your money.

I love these types of games and I really want to love this one specifically, but I think Deadwater Saloon is still in an early access state. After initially setting up your saloon, there's very little content to engage with other than sporadic decision-making. The saloon itself is relatively tiny, leaving little room to customize it with the limited amount of available furniture and objects. And placing them is challenging, as objects will frequently say they can't fit in a space (an issue which is almost guaranteed if you rotate your camera while trying to place an object).

I'd also like to see more complex inventory/stock and menu management. I think it'd be cool if we could build our own menus based on the different recipes we researched, maybe with each item contributing a pro/con vs. the entire menu being available and growing as you research more recipes.

I'm not fond of the stress system as it's currently implemented either. My character was managing about 15-25 stress, then acquired a nemesis. A few days later, unable to control the stress even with the various vices and stress-relieving activities, he shot himself. Game over. It felt like the ending was a given the moment I acquired a nemesis as my stress spiraled out of control, the whole town hated me (after 2-3 days), and bam, dead.

I will gladly check this game out after it's had a few updates for both polish and content since there's absolutely a solid foundation for what good be an incredible timesink, but, to me, it still feels like it's halfway through early access as opposed to a full release worth ~$15.

The sound and music is amazing, and the art and writing are strong for an independent game developer. It definitely puts a lot of work into the atmosphere of living in a struggling town out in the American west in the 1800s.

The problem is that there isn't much gameplay, and it's not particularly thoughtful gameplay. You build a saloon, but there's no design to it whatsoever, it's entirely cosmetic. Certain furniture gives you a huge bonus and so they're must-haves, everything else is cosmetic and designed for once you've beaten the economy. The economy isn't hard to beat, either, you just have to wait long enough for the town to build up enough - and you to research enough stuff - that you can make enough money.

The real danger, gameplay-wise, is that you have to Sims-style have friendships with townsfolk, and if they don't like you, they'll ruin your reputation and you'll never make money. So the game is mostly about choosing whether you'll be a murderer, a blackmailer, or make everyone your friend, and then whether you succeed in a bunch of random skill checks. Gameplay steamrolls here - the more you do a thing, and the more you randomly succeed, the better you get at doing it, until you stop being able to fail and then there's no game anymore.

Is it worth playing once? Sure, maybe for ten bucks. The writing is fine, the atmosphere is great. But unless there gets to be more game play, it's not interesting and it's just something you let run in the background, check on it to deal with events that have popped up, and then let it continue to run in the background because there's nothing to do other than respond to events.

I was a litle hyped due to a youtube review, but after few hours into the final game I was rather disappointed.
After 3 hours you got everything possible, by hour 4 you got everything maxed and own the entire town and everybody loves you.

I am not sure if it is supposed to be that easy, I did not select easy setting...

Building the saloon is a 10 minute job you do right at the beginning, with your starter money - after that you dont need to ever touch it. Nothing breaks down, nothing new gets researched etc. THe building choices are very limited, so is the amount of staff.

All in all, not worth the price, even though it cold be, if there was more to it.

The game is a blast! It has some bugs and will probably need more work and definitely add in new features and décor but overall for the price I think the game is totally worth it. It kept me focused on it for a couple of hours and I have had fun damn near murdering everyone I see or getting in duels. Its also fun to try to build the business and see what all the different attributes will do if you put your time into certain one. overall I would tell people to give it a shot.

It's fun. The core game is nice and easy going and rewarding. It's very limited at the moment but fundamentally it's a very good and entertaining package. I am not recommending it at its current form but neither do I regret buying it. I already had fun worth the low price as far as I am concerned. Best of luck and especially stamina to the developer in the coming months. You might be onto something here.

This game isn't ready yet. I t keeps crashing and is very buggy. It's a nice concept, but hopefully the devs will iron out the creases soon. My main gameplay complaint right now is how much effect the towns feeling towards you matters. Surely there's nothing wrong with you being a grouchy bar owner that doesn't give a damn how the town "feel" about him. I seem to spend way too much time wasting action points trying to make "FWENDS!"

So, this is a great chill game to vibe to. There is a glitch right now (at least in my game) where I get bombarded with rapid fire events that don't stop popping up back to back. I'm hoping that as time goes on this is resolved, because I really enjoy this game and want to keep progressing.

For me the game is fun and definitely worth the (low) price.
There were quite some bugs since release but the dev is bringing updates everyday and working hard to fix them.
The only really annoying bug is the problematic pathing to the second floor.
There are a lot of interesting events and stories that you can complete and developing the attributes of my character and expanding the town is very addictive.

The first game I played my character suicide from stress.
The key to the game is to make sure that the townspeople like you.
Start out with the Savoir Faire, Mixology, Gambling and Muscle at 50 and choose 80 health and you will not fail a lot of events and have a good start with making friends with townspeople.

Great little saloon sim. Tried the demo and then wish-listed the game. Purchased on release. Would recommend.

I have to say I am real disappointed. Going in I love everything about this game. Novel and interesting mechanics (especially the skill testing system), the politics, the visual design, the theming. However, much less than halfway through, I had employed all the staff I was allowed, maxed all but one of my skills (theology was hard to use often but everything else super easy) maxed all the bonuses for decor and base building and was turning enough of a profit every day that I didn't need to manage the saloon at all. The game is so grindy that I just ran it in the background watching YouTube videos tabbing in to change my research, befriend new townspeople and buy out the new stores and their stock. I was crestfallen that I got no achievement for researching everything since more than half of it seemingly had not benefit. The town supported my tavern on rotgut and whiskey, it didn't seem to matter if I imported wine, rum and tequila after literally a couple of hours waiting. Maybe the game would have been more engaging if I had made full use of the murder/blackmail/robbing options but really early on it seemed clear that it was easier, more profitable and helped grind my skills to make friends with everyone. Near the end I noticed the keyword 'nemesis' in a descriptor but I have no idea how you could mess things up so much to have a nemesis. I guess I am saying the game is too easy but I will cheat my way through Dwarf Fortress and mod to death other games for a gentle base builder experience. This was neither a satisfying business management, not a challenging strategy game. It was a game I could beat whilst watching YouTube and (no joke) hold a sleeping kitten in my arms (well for about a third of it). I would absolutely play the whole thing again if the mid and late game were at all relevant and you had to find a way to squeeze in either multiple hookers or croupiers.

So this will be my first time ever writing a review on a game, currently at 41 hrs (gotta give it time nothing can be expected in two hours)

So the good
1. I would say this is a very interesting game as there are both positive and negative effect for actions you choose which give various reactions in your play thru.
2. The money can be easily earned
3. Graphics are very good
4. You can own a pig in your saloon take about stress relief.

Ok the bad
Well there are bugs (Which happens)
I would say lack of content at this time currently it is June 15th 1840 in my present play thru and i have monopolized my town and have 100% town opinion and a VERY postive income with 70k in the bank.

To the developers

What good is a bank if you cant put your money in to it?
The safe is good for keeping the staff from stealing it yes but..... its 70k..

All in all i would defiantly recommend this game totally worth it and i look forward to the different out comes with different stats.

The game has so much potential. Think of Guild, but as a saloon owner. Unfortunately the game lacks content. You can play for a couple of hours and just about have everything and make a steady profit. Right now the game is cheap, so its worth it to support the developer and cross your fingers they keep adding and working on the game, but this is supposed to be an official full release so make of that what you will.

As a fan of Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, HBO's Deadwood and the Wild West in general, I find the idea behind Deadwater Saloon to be pretty exciting. I've played it for a bit and so far, I'm loving it. Very entertaining and addictive. I recommend!

So far, this game is pretty buggy... I'm not sure how it's not early access. If you move any item out of the "bounds" of the saloon when you are trying to place something, it just turns red and now you can't place it anywhere. So If you are buying it, you have to right click to deselect the item and then reselect the item in the menu to buy and try again. When I say move out of bounds, I am not talking about trying to build it outside the saloon, i'm just talking about moving your mouse outside the saloon.

Next, you can build a second floor... but you can't move anything from the bottom floor to the top floor. If you want that safe you bought to protect your money to go to the second floor, well... you need to buy one while you have the second floor selected (Though I haven't even tried to make sure that is right, maybe nothing can go up there haha).

It seems like every time I go to do something in this game there is a bug related to it. They make the game seem like it's a big story crossover with building management, the last 5 days my dude has stood in the saloon doing...nothing... just trying to make some money. I am hopeful that later on in the game more storyline stuff will happen, but for now it feels kind of like... a mobile game maybe? You even have action points (4 to start) to do with in a day.

These bugs... really should have been caught with QA considering it's some of the "first" things you do in this game, small dev team or not. Not trying to be a ♥♥♥♥ about it, but QAing for a couple hours would have found those out.

The quests are... yeah...
"You see Mr Smith walking down the street" (While I am in my saloon)
A. "Nod to him" (44% chance)
B. "Don't make eye contact" (10% chance)
C. "Quickly turn around and run down the alley and hope to not be seen" (30% chance)

Oh and failing these gives you stress... I mean, in the wild west, I am sure seeing some guy walking down the road isn't going to stress you out. This is one example of a solid 15 weird events that feel like they were just put in there to have something happen instead of well thought out dialog/quests. It's awkward.

I also have other bugs than this, I bought the hotel business and for the entire week it hasn't earned a single penny, I can't do any actions of it... so did I buy for no reason at all?

The townsfolk needs a rework, badly. The fact people can go from friendly/nuetral to hating my guts for literally no reason... just feels forced. I would expect them to hate me if I was doing bad crap to the town/stealing/rumors/etc but I am not doing any of that. Then all of a sudden Ms. Sally (Whom I saved her life last week) just decides to spit on the ground and say that this town would be better if my "kind" wasn't here. It's like everyone in town have mood swings, and you have to make them like you again by using your daily points, which I am currently on 8 AP, to roll the dice and hope you get them to like you, for 20 points.

If you don't do this, or murder them, then they can horribly tank everyone's in the tavern opinions of you, the towns opinions of you, etc. They often sit around -50 tto -90 and you have to use your AP to turn it up by 20 points, unless you fail the percentage. You can also only do this once per 12 in game hours.

Nothing feels authentic, everything feels forced, it really reminds me of a mobile game where you do a few repetitive stuff and then wait til your AP come back, to do the other stuff again.

I haven't played for long, but I'm really enjoying the game so far. I've started 3 times, I died in two, and had a very successful town on one. Each of the game choices had its own set of challenges. Really fun in my opinion. The Dev seems to be working very hard on any issues, and doing a fantastic job. I think this game will be keeping me entertained for a while.

Ok, after several patches and minor bugfixes, almost all of my "Pet Peeves" have been dealt with. I have just had the best game of this and it still continues.
Questions:
1. When I go to all of the trouble and expense to build a second floor (roughly 6-700 quid), why do I not get to expand my employees to include some of those items upstairs. I built additional brothel rooms upstairs but am unable to hire any extra Professionals for those Work Areas. I wanted to add a small bar and bar back uptairs to handle drinks for those Gambling upstairs, and again I was not allowed to build the bar or hire another bartender to staff it. I was able to build gambling tables upstairs but not hire additional staff to man the tables. The small stage is nowhere to be found to build anymore, so the drama skill is mostly useless. When I choose the leadership and drama skills bonus I simply remove all of the drama bonuses 40-45? and move them to cooking and mixology skill.
The gunfight with the bandit leader was epic. He still beat the crap out of me the 1st time and stuffed me in a gunny sack like an unwanted batch of kittens. Lucky he did not drop me in the river (the bastige).
After the patch before last I noticed that even though I clearly mark the townspeople as friendly, I have found that the three first business owners have an average likability towards me that is "Negative 43 points". So my question is: Why do all of the new people to town treat me like I am some sort of child molester. Clearly they are acting like assholes...the games word for it not mine...I would have called them f***ing a**holes but this is steam and they frown on that kind of word play. I am simply using the terminology that the game uses when you begin your game options. So clearly relative to an active game mechanic. It took me several years to overcome those legendary bad opinions. I literally had to start Kissing A** right from the begining. Not just to the one person but to their whole family till all of them were 100% positive.
Now building on the second level has some challenges. Not everything likes to be rotated and placed. Sometimes you have to mess with the pause button on off to get a more likeable result. Still moving your rooms upstairs does allow more tables to sell food or drink from on the first floor. Moving the gambling and girls upstairs allows for a little discreteness to the business however.
The next question I have is...since I purchased and own the new business in town then why do I have to use an action point when I make a purchase from my own business. Like if I own the gunsmith why cant I bring in 7 double shotguns for my bouncers, myself, and at least my bartender to sneak away under the bar...simple questions, concepts, and common sense.
Next purchasing shells of ammunition? Now I have just talked 58 citizens into going into battle with me...and I have to beg them to bring extra ammunition? Are the weapons loaded when you purchase them? I can pay to have the road fixed but I can not build a small armoury next to my office upstairs? Goodness knows that I can not put another bar up there so I will have plenty of room! You know, extra poker tables upstairs may be nice for special events or groups of citizens to play a few friendly games on.
This is a very fun easy paced game to play. The shootouts are epic, barfights many, and I would also like to request a spot on the top bar counting down the research points as you work through them.

Played the heck out of the demo, then grabbed the full game when it went on sale and let me continue my prologue game. It's almost great. It does have issues but the setting, the atmosphere and music are all wonderful. The gameplay and roleplay events are where it kind of falls flat after awhile. You'll be entertained by all the things you can do and people to see and annoy/get drunk and shop options and random events, but after awhile it becomes quite repetitive and is kind of shallow. Saloon management is set and forget once you've built everything. You also quickly max out your skills. There's also a lot of characters but not enough portraits to prevent a lot of repeated portraits as new characters are generated using the same faces.

It's a shame as the background music in particular is really atmospheric for my little crowded saloon. I really do hope it improves, the developer is reading the reviews and trying to fix issues.

Final verdict: Grab on sale or if it changes dramatically or if you think the developer's responsiveness and effort should be rewarded I guess.

I never post reviews. This is my first. But this game has all the features of a classic in the making. I hope they continue to improve it with updates.

I was super excited for this release and though the game delivers what was promised , it still feels a bit empty. Content is limited so if you're looking for some fun customization options, you'll be extremely disappointed.

I don't see the point for replayabiity at the moment .There's really no point in playing wide because buying other buildings doesn't really give you much but money and discounts on services. Being able to marry is cute but there's nothing behind it. Also the stress level mechanic is unnecessary .

I will say that the developer seems dedicated to improving the game so patience will be needed to see where they take this beautiful bare bones baby.

So, I was hesitant to give this a thumbs down for the mere fact that I thought the idea of this game was AWESOME and I fell into it instantly.

I ended up buying the full game and have basically gotten all of the achievements and finished the entire game in a matter of 20 hours. I think the worst part of all for me, is the second half of the game has been just me sitting around, waiting for prompts, getting townsfolk to all like me, and gaining dirt on them. I don't blackmail most of them, but I gain dirt just to do SOMETHING. 90% of my attributes are maxxed out, so most of the choices I get are 100% and it doesn't matter what I choose. It's just you waiting for one that isn't maxxed out so you can increase its stat.

I understand that the point of this game is to look at it as a character development, build a story, and focus on certain attributes that fit to your character. But, in the grand scheme of it all, it's incredibly easy to just make your character good at everything and then the story and progression becomes meaningless.

I think the idea of this game is awesome, but the progression of the town is incredibly fast and the increase of your attributes seems a bit too strong in my opinion. I need to still mess with making it tougher in the settings when starting a town, but the fact I just kept it on normal for everything and achieved everything so quickly just threw me for a loop.

Overall, especially if the creator is reading this, I truly enjoy what you are putting together, but I do feel a little ripped off for spending $15 and already finishing something I thought would make me fall into it for hours on end. Thanks for showing us your creativity and giving us something different. I just would like some more challenge and more interaction within the game.

Much love.

Updated my review below, overall fun game that has Dev actively listening to community. I am excited to see where this game goes.

Game appeared more buggy than the demo available prior to release, however Dev is actively tackling issues as the pop up.

Placing items was glitchy and took multiple tries, just isn't as fluid as the demo was. Dev addressed and seems to be much better now.

Additionally, load/save was broken and update made saved games unplayable, have to start all over again. Worked through this issue with the Dev, it appears there is some issue with saved games either 0kb files being created or some bug in the "player" profile. Moving all data out of the LocalLow file seemed to fix this issue.

Putting things on top of other things.
Once you get your saloon reputation high enough to beat the other saloon, done easily before it even arrives, the game has nothing to do.

That may change if the developer adds to the game.
I would have picked a neutral review but that option isn't included.

The graphics glitches I can deal with. The fact that the game was unplayable due to lag in the mid to late game I cannot.

The devs are a working a lot of new features and improvements!
The game was released in a bit if rush, I think, and without doing a properly beta testing.
But the past products of this company are all pretty good and they never abandoned a project.
For now, is not a perfect game, but is improving every day.
I'll give the devs a chance to really make it bright!

I like running a saloon, I only had one problem one pot tortilla would keeping me from getting an award from researching all the recipes. I have a good cash balance and live in a nice looking town

The game runs good, bud there is no challange. Yes you have money, stress and health to think about.
Bud you really need to play with the goal to fail, to get in problems.
Building is bare bones and once you build your bar there is not muth need for change, your staff is very limited.
In the beginning interactions will fail because of low skills, bud you bearely get punished.
In early game events dont hapen often, the hapen more in late game when the are no longer really helpfull.
At a certain point families stop moving to your growing town unless you pay for a event that will make a family move to your town (30day CD).
You can buy other businesses in the town, bud there is no management of it.
You run the shop your self (General storem butcher, gunshop, docter ...) all at the same time and the just increase your income. Your income keeps increasing and you bearly have things to spend your cash on.
And as you get new businesses you can buy upgrades ore beter equiptment, bud you were ethere missing some other busines, you already had beter guns ore the where to all to late when then the finally drop it all on you.

There are not many western games out there to play, so I enjoy this one. If you like to try to manage your own saloon in the late 1800's and become rich enough to buy out other businesses, this game is for you.

Overall, the game works just fine. It's just shallow. Boy is it shallow.

You spend the first hour or two of your playthrough dancing between bankruptcy and a stress-induced suicide. But then, something magical happens. You research enough food and drink items, maybe build a couple gambling tables and voila! You are net positive on cash flow. This improves your stress. Stress reaches 0, you get thousands of dollars, and just fast forward until the game ends.

There's no real strategy because the game limits you as to how many brothel rooms you can have, number of croupiers, and so on. So, you just build the max and research the best selling food/drink items. Logically, you can maximize the number of people in the saloon by not building dumb.

The problem with this game is the same one with Tavern Master. At some point in the midgame, you go from struggle to absolute perfection. All you have to do is survive til then. Once you do, every game mechanic pretty much goes right out the window... aside from townspeople framing you for suspicion points. Again, with 0 stress and likely a lot of maxed out skills, you just murder them, put the stress back on them, or bribe the sheriff and voila... yet another mechanic that has no bearing on the inevitable outcome.

I give this a thumbs down because A) it's too easy, B) the game mechanics more or less force you to win.

A mediocre if not worse experience overall
-Bad pacing
-Gameplay glitches
-Becomes repetitive fast
-No end game? Haven't finished the preacher mission yet but I've already researched everything and bought every other business in town. Cash is neverending
-When you finish researching it all, you still have a notification with "nothing being researched"

Needs fixing and expanding

Deadwater Saloon is on the surface a fairly standard tavern/pub management sim in Early Access, but there is much more than meets the eye right away. Navigating relationships with the townsfolk that move in and the businesses they run, keeping supplies moving, and building your character through RPG style events make Deadwater standout in the genre. Couple that with the dev team regularly updating (as of this post the team has patched a bugfix at least once a day since release) and responding to community feedback far better than nearly every other game maker on Steam and I am left eagerly wanting to see what the future holds.

Like the devs past games and liking this one as well so far. Some minor bugs, but they seem to be getting worked out pretty quick. Once all the systems are learned, the game starts to become easier.

The game has it's quirks. But it's a good playthrough and scratches an Itch that I don't see other games get.

Despite it's faults, the Dev seems VERY passionate about fixing issues and adding additional features.

It's worth the 15 bucks.

This is little more than a Clicker type game. It is almost entirely random number driven and there is very little depth. You're kinda just ham fisting your keyboard. With the exception of some minor fun designing your saloon, there isn't a lot going on here. Even the events mostly feel so random that they're not very immersive. You can get married but then nothing ever happens but the stress reduction bonus. You can buy a desk but there is nothing from it but another cost reduction. You can get bouncers to fend off the local gang but again, it is pretty minimalist interaction. The most complex part of the game is getting a claim on another person so you can duel them - and that is mostly Clicker game style action that just uses the random number generator again. Your skill points only go up and go up so rapidly that the game gets trivial in short time. Has potential but is missing a LOT of game play.

I really did want to like this game and I do feel as though I have gotten my money's worth, in my case $16. It was my entertainment for the weekend. The game is quite enjoyable in the beginning, but after a few hours it's very repetitive and I only continued to play in order to be a completionist. I had not watched videos etc. and tried to play optimally. In the time I have actively played, about a dozen hours, my character has maxed out all but the Theology skill and I own a number of other businesses. At this point I am buying another one each day. Everyone in town has 100% opinion of me and has been given an addiction. Eventually I was just doing thing because I didn't want to waste my 11 action points. Unfortunately I do not feel as though there is replayability for me.

I know this is a positive review and all ive done below is mention what it needs but hear me out.....this is a solid starting point for what i see to be the coolest tycoon/rpg game ive ever seen, and i want it to grow into so much more.

This game is a solid base and for sure worth buying. Really hope they keep updating. As is, i would say you can get at least 10hrs worth of fun out of it in a single run. Could use some improvements such as, if you kill the owner of business that cant be purchased, like the town hall or the rival saloon, its just gone. No one will rise to the occasion and take over the place so you just lose the building forever. Also i believe it is a bug with the pig farm but you can literally kill off your entire town with absolutely no repercussions in a matter of lets say 10 day night cycles. Can kill like 8 people a day and everyone just loves you. Really could use a rebalance of the stats. because like with the whole whole killing the entire town thing you can also sue the entire town in a matter of a few in game days netting you 10s of thousands of dollars in a matter of days.

But other than a lot of balancing and need for more "end game" content and side stories like the Whisky Preacher, the game has really solid bones, love the way it plays and the management of the whole thing, just really hoping for more, make the pricing a little more open, make buying other businesses in town come with a little more responsibility.

TL;DR: “I'm going to build my own T̶h̶e̶m̶e̶ ̶P̶a̶r̶k̶ ...Saloon with Blackjack and Hookers❗” Literally. With Blackjack. And Hookers.

Deadwater Saloon is a lightweight "design and management" game with somewhat shallow story.
Graphics is good. UI is ok. Game play is well in accordance with expectations. Gameplay is heavily relying on random events, therefore players who prefer predictability may dislike it.
The wild desert setting and "cynical society" approach is a part of fun. You don't have a lot of decorations and design options - they didn't have a lot either, back in the day. Keep it simple stupid and start crawling up the social ladder.
Bit short here and shallow there, some bugs are getting addressed by the devs as i write this review. Within expectations. Get it for discount. 🙂👍

The game utilizes Unity engine and does this very well.
The game runs in 64bit address space without a lags at low settings (looking great nevertheless) on my 16GB RAM laptop, with integrated GPU of i7 CPU.

More reviews on my curator's page:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28825089-nex2god/

PS: There is much more detailed and beautiful heavyweight competitor game called "Crossroads Inn Anniversary Edition" which has a tons, a TONS of negative reviews because devs failed to answer the player-public requests in time.
By the time of my review Deadwater Saloon has all the potential of newly created game and has ongoing attention of its game devs. It is living and improving project. This is the main reason why i recommend the game.

This is a remarkably fun game, with enough randomness and difficulty settings to provide lots of replayability.
The art is a bit crude and there are a few glitches and bugs here and there; but the Dev is incredibly responsive and engaged and is making fixes and improvements at a near superhuman pace.
The game plays somewhat like Tavern Master but with a bit more player agency and a lot more profanity. All in all, a romping good bit of fun and well worth the asking price. Give it a go, you can thank me later.

I would liek to love the game - Played the Demo and was hooked. but as it turns out, there is not much more content then in the Demo. I finished setting up the Saloon, started buying other stores and now I sit at 40k$ like a few ingame weeks later and all buyable businesses are already mine. I cannot spnsor more familys, it seem slike tthe town is fully developed and I just sit there with a laggy game running at full speed to get all recipes unlocked - not really fun any more. deduct 2 hours of my playtime to know when I was done with the content, the last 2 hours I just let the game run to unlock recipes, but it was la lagfest on my 5950x/6900xt combo.

The game has a solid base, bbut it lacks content to continue playing. for now, not recommended.

Building and maintaining a wild west saloon is exactly the kind of daydream scenario that management games of this type were made for, and this one comes through on the strength of its premise. Has a full range of business management scenarios like hiring and firing your bartenders and saloon girls, maintaining your reputation in the small but growing old west town, and designing and building your actual bar. Constructing your physical space is typically my favorite part of this type of game, and this one was no exception to that, although art assets could stand to have a bit more variety. But the underlying fundamentals of this game are strong and immersive. You can play it gritty and violent, including intimidation, lying, and duels in the street, or make friends with the locals and develop a strong beer list and menu. I appreciated that there was more than one approach that could lead to success. Totally recommend this one!

Old West is an aesthetic I'd love to see more publishers explore... mostly because I love the history, and partly I'm tired of the prehistoric dinosaurs and post-apocalyptic dystopian zombies.

Wee Doggies, these things sure are nice!:
• Soundtrack
• The building structures, art, landscape and overall setting (circling birds was a nice touch)
• Recipe progression
• The ongoing quests with the Big Bad, Chop.
• The variety of businesses that pop up in town, old timey and lore friendly.
• Improvements in some of the camera controls. I can left-click and drag around on the view.

Could benefit with more variety:
• The mesh/textures of the citizens.
• The repetitive speech bubbles.
• Repetitive "interactions" with townspeople.

Could use some fixin':
• Sometimes when you move an entertainment item that's staffed, such as a gaming table with a croupier, or a bartender at the bar, or a brothel bed, the poor NPC just stands in their old place, as though the link or pathing is lost. "It's over there now lil' buddy! Pitter-patter lets get at'er! "
• I'm not sure how to move something from the first floor to the second floor. Maybe there's a way to do it? Maybe not.
• If there's an easy way to "undo" that wall or that placed item without switching to delete, that'd be dandy.
• Once you've laid down some wall paper or completed a structure change, it appears you're stuck in the build/structure tab and need to escape all the way out of the tab before switching to a different structure item or tab in the build menu.

This is pretty fun, in a small indie way. I'm enjoying putting myself through the story and trying different angles.

The complexity/difficulty are a little weak, though, as the game plays out. The first couple of hours can be tense, but once you get some momentum it becomes incredibly easy. My first playthrough I'm making insane money, the whole town loves me, and my saloon is booming. I'm going to play again when I'm done and crank up the difficulty, but I'm honestly not expecting many surprises because the system isn't particularly deep.

Also, on another note, this game does something I haven't had happen to me in a very long time - every once in a while my fan explodes to life in an incredibly noisy way. For such a simple, low res game, I'm amazed that whatever it's doing is putting that much pressure on my system. I play much more demanding games and they manage to do what they do without that. I attribute it to this being developed by a small team (which I don't actually know for sure, I just assume it from the type of game, and the fact that it's seemingly not well optimized.)

But the bottom line is that it's fast, simple, and fun. If it seems appealing to you, you'll probably enjoy it.

I do recommend this game but it only last so long, when it comes to keeping your attention Just wish there was more to it is all.

fun game. kinda only last like 10 hours before you max out and run out of stuff to do but i think its worth the price. only negative at the moment is a glitch(?), i got a person kicked out of town who owned the train station and after that no one would take over as owner so i couldn't restock anymore, everyone kept just working at the winery. i would kill off whole family's and get new family's in town and again would all just start at the winery. so at that point i just stopped playing because it kinda broke the game play. i'm sure it'll be fixed.

Fantastic game, although I wish there were more variety of human models and if they matched their portraits more.

Very cool mix of RPG story and building sim. You have a character, interesting events, chances to get married and get to build out your saloon at the same time. It's pretty quick to pick up, but takes some time to figure out how the systems work and how to improve your saloon and finances. Overall really enjoying it so far and looking forward to expanding my booze empire!

I've been looking for something different from the dozens of simulators I've played for quite some time, and I finally found it! The style stands out and I'm loving the interaction with the townspeople.

I definitely agree this feels like early access, though, and frankly you're only able to get so much time out of the game before you've maxed all the stats and have a good income. I feel I've just about done everything there is to do. It's not super replayable IMO, since there's limited furniture and no options for expansion. I hit a lot of bugs when trying to create a second floor. It seems it's still being given lots of attention, though!

Overall, no regrets on the purchase. Thanks for making something fresh!

I enjoyed it at first because I thought it was Early-Access and I was willing to give it a pass on lack of content and lifelessness.

But it's not early access. 6.6 hours is about the maximum amount of gameplay you can get out of this.

After playing the demo, I was excited for the full release, but I wasn't super impressed once it arrived. Basically, once your Saloon starts to make so much money, which is subjectively too easy, the game stops being a challenge and you can simply buy out any and all "competition".

The dev updates/patches all the time, and there are hookers and opium, so... there is hope.

Had a good time with this game on an easy play through, I am starting it on normal mode now. Take what you what from this game, it's not extremely long, but you can have many hours of fun playing around with it. I had a small bug during one of the updates that prevented me from progressing in the game and the developer fixed it the next day after I posted about it on the forums, really cool support there.

I like it.
I had to save scum in order to get my saloon of the ground🤷🏼‍♂️ Maybe I am just bad at management. There are definitely a lot of character builds that are just not viable early game. I felt I had to go savoir faire and mixology to have a chance to start making a profit.

Praying to RNGesus is a must; the constant rolling checks (failing which will lead to stress and suicide) and random emerging businesses make or break you initially. Later, you can just tank the failed checks (as that is the main way of developing your stats).

I WISH it meant more into the RPG storytelling. Might be my lack of engagement, but lot of the skill checks held no narrative stakes for me. There are some bigger story arcs, so clearly the developers do know how to raise the stakes…
Also wish there was some sort of endgame… Feel the bigger story arcs got wrapped up mid game, beyond which I just quietly bought up the entire town, got all my skills to 100, got all the town affinity to 100, got everybody addicted to my services etc…
Now I am just swatting away random skills checks, waiting for an end that feels like it’ll never come.
So yeah…
Would love some more immersive storytelling. Some endgame.
Maybe more games in other settings, say in a Lovecraftian one😬🥰
Had an ok+ time

Played the prologue to this and was instantly hooked do thank you devs for putting that taster out there, you made an easy sale when I played that. Its a great management Western themed game with interesting elements like takeover businesses and making the town like you as it grows and more establishments rise. Its an addicting game once you know what you're doing and it'll keep you hooked. I bought this day one and never get a chance to play it but they were quick with updates as I was checking Steam often which is another great move by the devs. Hope they keep up the work, it's paying off. Highly recommend this game.

Love the pacing and the ability to change up the difficulty based on different factors like economy and townspeople base aggro.

The game is interesting until you get the Saloon churning out income. Once you get to that point you just stare at the screen with a few random events popping up, grind stats, buy town businesses and wait for new ones to be built. At that point it's pretty boring.

I'm near the end of my second go at running the Saloon (Once I figured out the system for success in my first run and started a new game). My MC is married to one of the prettiest gals in town, all but two of his stats are maxed, he owns the entire town that can be bought, his Saloon has most max stats and almost all research is done. From this point on it's just a matter of achievement grinding. I don't see this having much replayability unless you want to play an outlaw type of MC for achievements.

At the beginning I found the system really exciting, because it's a bit different from other classic management games, but unfortunately the enthusiasm didn't last long and it gets boring quickly. After about 8 hours of play, I had all the skills maxed, all the buildings in the city were mine (which doesn't really help), and everyone loved me. But there was no end. At the beginning there were a few interesting events, e.g. with the band of robbers, but it was too easy to get a grip on that and later there was nothing more in that direction. Many things like lowering taxes or the competing saloon had no particular effect in my game, you earn so much that it just doesn't bother you. Limiting skill points so that you have to set your character would have made a big difference, or more events where you can lose more, or investing in the town so you have smaller goals. Unlocking recipes was so boring and only based on time, as was building and setting up the saloon. It was all unlocked from the start and you have no upgrade options other than unlocking more action points over time. In addition, the game hung up several times in between and forced me to restart. For me, the game felt like Early Access and not a full release. Really a pity from the basic idea you could make considerably more.

Decent premise but mediocre execution. The game quickly becomes repetitive and offers only a veneer of variety. Instead of engaging in resource management or having to develop a strategy, you merely have to employ a few key skills over and over to slowly grind your way to where the balance of power is inevitably in your favor.

There's a lack of transparency in how certain game mechanics work or how different settings will affect gameplay. In game, there's a definite lack of polish with the occasional misspelled word, poor grammar, and inaccurate descriptive flavor text. Quite frankly, it is off putting to me personally that basic proofreading errors not only made it into a final version but haven't been corrected in any of the many updates.

This feels more like an Early Release game still in development than one which is "ready".

If it's on sale....sure throw a few bucks at it and enjoy a play through.

It's a good game. I'd really like to see this game taken to the next level. (A western town simulation and generational play) Unfortunately, it's just a grow along with a town and saloon is pretty basic. Nothing epic but worth the price tag.

This is a great game to play while doing something else like watching youtube. A chill game that you don't need to pay attention all the time.

The Developers has fixed the issues I had with the game quickly.

Thank you for fixing the firepower problem so quickly.

OK its only 5.7 hours i thought it was longer :V
but anyway, i wasnt expecting to like this game Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat much, but damn, i really do
This shizz is great fun
And i get the feeling there is more depth to it than i have yet discovered

Please make more.