Deadwater Saloon

About

Deadwater Saloon is a single player role playing game with a business theme. It was developed by Tanglefoot Games and was released on September 13, 2022. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

In Deadwater Saloon, players navigate a creepy, abandoned saloon as they uncover a dark mystery. With a focus on exploration and puzzle-solving, the game features a unique card-based inventory system. As players delve deeper into the saloon, they'll encounter eerie supernatural occurrences and a cast of strange characters.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

64%

Audience ScoreBased on 156 reviews

gameplay7 positive mentions

stability8 negative mentions

Engaging initial gameplay with a promising premise of saloon management and cowboy capitalism.
Atmospheric background music enhances the overall experience, immersing players in the Old West setting.
The game scratches an itch for casual management gameplay, providing a fun experience for a limited time.

Repetitive gameplay loop that quickly becomes tedious, lacking meaningful progression and variety.
Limited content and customization options lead to a feeling of being unfinished and abandoned by developers.
Many players report bugs and performance issues, with some expressing disappointment over the lack of updates and support.

gameplay
33 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
70%
9%
The gameplay of the game offers an engaging start with a unique premise of managing a saloon in a wild-west setting, which initially captivates players. However, it quickly devolves into a repetitive cycle of tasks, lacking meaningful progression and variety, leading to player disinterest. While the game features interesting mechanics and atmospheric elements, it suffers from a lack of depth and transparency in its systems, making it feel more like a demo than a fully realized experience.
- “Engaging initial gameplay: the game kicks off with a promising premise – design and manage your own saloon, navigate relationships, expand your influence, and handle adversaries in a wild-west setting.”
- “Novel and interesting mechanics (especially the skill testing system), the politics, the visual design, the theming.”
- “Deadwater Saloon - this is a wild west life simulator with a top view in which you have to build your saloon and pump it up, meet new people and start relationships with them, interesting mechanics of pumping the saloon, many different characters with their well-written backstories; the game is very similar to The Sims, but in a more interesting style.”
- “Repetitive gameplay loop: unfortunately, what starts off as an engaging premise quickly turns into a tedious cycle of tasks.”
- “While the initial allure of building a saloon empire and dealing with the complexities of the old west drew me into this game, the lack of meaningful progression and a repetitive gameplay loop ultimately led to my disinterest and boredom.”
- “The gameplay and roleplay events are where it kind of falls flat after a while.”
story
25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
64%
12%
The game's story is criticized for being limited and lacking depth, with few events and challenges that fail to sustain player engagement beyond the initial experience. While there are promising elements, such as atmospheric music and some engaging story arcs, players express a strong desire for more diverse storylines, immersive quests, and endgame content to enhance the overall narrative experience. Overall, the potential for a richer storytelling experience is evident, but significant improvements are needed to keep players invested.
- “There are some bigger story arcs, so clearly the developers do know how to raise the stakes…”
- “Would love some more immersive storytelling.”
- “The game shows promise, especially with its atmospheric music and core mechanics, but it desperately needs the infusion of additional events, storylines, and challenges to maintain player engagement beyond the initial stages.”
- “Deadwater Saloon is a lightweight 'design and management' game with somewhat shallow story.”
- “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?”
music
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
58%
25%
17%
The game's music is consistently praised for its atmospheric quality, enhancing the overall experience and setting a strong tone. Reviewers highlight the background music as a standout feature, contributing significantly to the game's appeal, despite some concerns about gameplay depth and engagement. Overall, the soundtrack is described as perfectly themed and a major strength of the game.
- “The sound and music is amazing, and the art and writing are strong for an independent game developer.”
- “Perfectly themed music.”
- “The game shows promise, especially with its atmospheric music and core mechanics, but it desperately needs the infusion of additional events, storylines, and challenges to maintain player engagement beyond the initial stages.”
- “It's a shame as the background music in particular is really atmospheric for my little crowded saloon.”
graphics
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
30%
30%
The graphics in the game receive mixed reviews, with some praising the aesthetic of the Old West setting and the overall quality, while others criticize the visuals as janky, grainy, and lacking in detail. Although there are some enjoyable elements, such as entertaining dialogue, players have noted the presence of glitches and bugs that detract from the experience. Overall, the visuals are rated around 7/10, indicating a decent but flawed graphical presentation.
- “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.”
- “Graphics are very good.”
- “Some of the dialog is quite entertaining, but the visuals are janky and yes, there are some mildly annoying bugs around.”
- “The graphics are simply ugly, the textures are grainy, and the lights are... nonexistent?”
- “There are no options for graphics or controls.”
- “The graphics glitches I can deal with.”
atmosphere
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's atmosphere is highly praised for its authentic and immersive background music, which effectively enhances the experience of the rugged old west setting. While the atmosphere, including the music and overall ambiance, is considered wonderful, some players feel that additional events and storylines are needed to sustain engagement. Overall, the atmosphere is a standout feature that significantly contributes to the game's appeal.
- “The authentic and immersive tunes successfully transport players into the rugged landscapes of the old west, enhancing the overall ambience and providing a nice touch to the game's atmosphere.”
- “It does have issues but the setting, the atmosphere, and music are all wonderful.”
- “It definitely puts a lot of work into the atmosphere of living in a struggling town out in the American West in the 1800s.”
stability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Overall, the game's stability has received mixed reviews, with some players encountering minor visual glitches that can be resolved with a reload, while others report significant issues such as frequent crashes and freezing during gameplay. Despite these problems, the developer is noted for their responsiveness and commitment to addressing bugs and improving the game.
- “Game appeared more buggy than the demo available prior to release; however, the dev is actively tackling issues as they pop up.”
- “So far, this game is pretty buggy... I'm not sure how it's not early access.”
- “It keeps crashing and is very buggy.”
replayability
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
29%
57%
Overall, the game's replayability is viewed as limited, with many players expressing that there is little incentive to replay due to a lack of content and variety. While some appreciate the randomness and difficulty settings that offer a degree of replayability, the consensus leans towards a lack of long-term engagement and interest in restarting the game.
- “This is a remarkably fun game, with enough randomness and difficulty settings to provide lots of replayability.”
- “I don't see this having much replayability unless you want to play an outlaw type of character for achievements.”
- “It's not super replayable in my opinion, since there's limited furniture and no options for expansion.”
- “I had fun, but I don't see the point in playing anymore nor restarting; there is no replayability at all.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game's optimization has been widely criticized, with players reporting severe performance issues, including frequent freezing on capable hardware like the RTX 3050. While some improvements have been noted since the demo, many still find the late-game performance lacking and attribute the problems to the game's development by a small team. Overall, the optimization remains a significant concern for players.
- “Having played the demo before release, the game has come a long way from fixing the bugs and improving the optimization of the game.”
- “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.)”
- “The performance is awful, so much so that it started freezing constantly on an RTX 3050, I would guess about 50% of the playthrough.”
- “Poor late game performance.”
- “Having played the demo before release, the game has come a long way in fixing bugs, but the optimization still needs improvement.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be overly repetitive, with engaging elements quickly devolving into a tedious cycle of tasks focused on achievement grinding. Many resort to multitasking, such as watching videos while managing in-game activities, indicating a lack of engagement with the core gameplay.
- “Repetitive gameplay loop: unfortunately, what starts off as an engaging premise quickly turns into a tedious cycle of tasks.”
- “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.”
- “From this point on it's just a matter of achievement grinding.”
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
300%
Players find the humor in the game's mechanics, particularly the absurdity of new residents moving in with an inexplicable and extreme dislike for the player, often resulting in comically low relationship scores. This unexpected and exaggerated reaction adds a layer of amusement to the gameplay experience.
- “The randomness of the residents is hilarious! It's funny how some of them can move in and instantly dislike you for no reason at all.”
- “I love how the game captures the absurdity of social interactions. It's just funny when new residents move in and immediately have a negative opinion of you!”
- “The humor in the game is top-notch, especially when new residents arrive and their instant dislike for you is just so over-the-top.”