Deadwater Saloon Reviews

The demo was far more fun to play than the released game. Shame because it had potential.

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.

Had promise. Half released half finished and abandoned. This treatment is getting old and destroying any chance of honest game devs getting a chance to put out a nice product.

this was fun for about one evening of play. Not worth the money and unfortunately abandoned.

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 played the demo and thought, this game is probably better if you have the full game. I played this game for what I thought was a fair amount of time for some form of build up of joy or anticipation, anything to make me want to play it. I was left disappointed, play the demo and find out for yourself, that is ALL this game has to offer. Not only is this easy, but it is boring, once you have "built" your saloon and hired every role, all you have to do is befriend people and read a few scenarios. Sure, suppliers move to town and citizen population grows, but other than that there is nothing else. You don't unlock more wallpaper, flooring, bar counters, no unique people, minimal customizing of your barn shaped saloon and everyone looks the same. What you see from day one is all you will ever have.

Game is a bugged mess, abandoned by developer. Stay Away. Two most serious examples are: 1) Your town can just randomly stop growing basically blocking your playthrough. No new people are coming, no new houses are built and no new businesses are opened. 2) Syphilis is one of game's diseases that gives you a -4 debuff to all your stats. The only way to cure it is to wait till your town has a doctor and use "Treat Disease" there. The problem is - the game does not count syphilis as a disease which means you cant treat it and if you got it you're basically stuck with -4 debuff for the rest of the game blocking you, for example, from gaining achievements for 100 skills. The developer knows about this bug because it already been reported on official bug forum in september 2022. Yet it still hasn't been fixed. Even bugs aside the game is pretty short and has little amount of content.

Promising Start with a Stagnant Middle - Needs More Depth Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5) What began as an exciting journey into a world of saloon management and cowboy capitalism quickly fizzled into a repetitive and uninspiring experience in this early access video game. The initial charm and allure of designing a bustling saloon, expanding your inventory, and navigating relationships with allies soon gave way to monotony and lack of direction, leaving players wanting more. Pros: 1. 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. This concept initially keeps players intrigued and invested in the game's mechanics. 2. Atmospheric Background Music: The game's background music is a standout feature. 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. Cons: 1. Repetitive Gameplay Loop: Unfortunately, what starts off as an engaging premise quickly turns into a tedious cycle of tasks. The gameplay loop of managing the saloon, dealing with enemies, and increasing your inventory feels monotonous and lacks the variety needed to keep players engaged over the long term. 2. Lack of Direction and Goals: The absence of clear objectives beyond the initial challenges is a major downfall. Once you've overcome your over arching nemesis and his gang, the game fails to provide new goals or meaningful progression. This lack of direction results in a stagnant middle-game experience that can easily lead to player disinterest. 3. Limited Events and Storylines: The sporadic events and challenges that the game does offer are few and far between. These events add much-needed spice to the gameplay, but their scarcity only exacerbates the sense of repetitiveness and leaves players craving more variety. Final Thoughts: 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 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. As it stands, this early access game falls short of providing a satisfying and lasting experience. If the development team can address the issues of directionlessness and monotony by introducing new content and diversifying the gameplay loop, there's potential for this game to turn the tide and become a captivating adventure once again. Until then, I find it hard to muster any intention of revisiting this game in its current state.

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.

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.