The Tavern In the Woods
Chris J Mitchell · 2025 · Adventure, Interactive Fiction, Visual Novel, Exploration, Immersive Sim
PC
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →
Screenshots
About The Tavern In the Woods
"Tavern in the Woods" is a single-player, first-person, story-driven mystery.You take on the role of a weary traveler, and your journey has led you down an unfamiliar path through sparse and lonely countryside—a forgotten wilderness. At last, you arrive at an ancient tavern, nestled deep within the encroaching woods. Your heart weighs heavy with doubt—will there be room for you to rest? But as you step inside, you find only silence, an empty place, and a lingering mystery waiting in the shadows.
Gameplay:
You assume the role of a first-person protagonist, exploring the environment as the story gradually unfolds. This is a work of interactive fiction that immerses you in a haunted landscape.Key Features:
- Atmosphere: An immersive, medieval-era setting—you arrive at the tavern late at night only to find it deserted. With no horse, no weapons, and only the expectation of a meal and a bed, your evening takes an unsettling turn.
- No Combat: The game focuses on atmosphere, exploration and narrative. Combat is not required, though you may be witness to it!
- Investigation: Where has everyone gone? Is a dark supernatural force at work? Uncover the truth through careful exploration.
Additional Technical Details:
- Game Duration: 30 minutes to 1 hour (or 1–2 hours for thorough explorers).
- No Save Function: Due to the short playtime, saving is not currently implemented.
- Presently only Keyboard and Mouse Controls are compatible with the game.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Interesting little experience. I didn't get every achievement, but seeing the general story took me ten minutes, which is totally fine for what it is (and it's not like I paid for it). There was a jump scare early on that legit got me, which doesn't happen very often, so I'll give kudos there. The pages you read tell an interesting little fantasy story, and I never felt like anything was taking too long to happen. Using a [spoiler] goblin [/spoiler] as a central... hero? Character? I'm not sure how to characterize it. Anyway, using that as that is different, though the model looks a LITTLE out of place. My biggest complaint is the narration, and this is a weird complaint: I don't know if it's a problem with the sound quality or what, but it has a slight echo to the voice, that makes it sound almost synthetic, like it's a text-to-speech, even though it clearly isn't. It just takes you out of it a little bit, which is a shame because I honestly quite enjoyed this and look forward to seeing what the developer does next, whether they do another free quickie or something more substantial. I played this because I'm a fan of visual novels and it's marked as one in the tags, and I don't th…1 found this helpful
I love the lighting and general ambience. I hope another similar one is made or that this one is expanded into a longer experience/story.
Very short game, but was great experience to explore. Would love to find another such short game, with a touch of scary
Pretty cool for a free game with achievements. It was cool to explore. About fifteen minutes of gameplay. The game is very dark and was disappointed there was no brightness settings but its a horror game so its supposed to be dark, but other than that, it's pretty fun.
Once again, I wish there was a meh option for recommendations. This game isn't bad, but it's not good. Everything works, but it's visually very dark. When you find a note that scrolls, you have to scroll back up to the top when you're done reading it or the next note that scrolls will start at the bottom. You don't actually do anything and there's not really a mystery. But it works and the models aren't bad.
This is a relatively short game (~30 minutes), but it is story-rich and atmospheric. I've played it 3 times, I think, and I really love it. I love the artwork style and moodiness of the scenery. There are little sound effects that give just enough creepiness without making you "scared". I personally love walking simulators with a great story, and this hits the mark. I really hope to see more from this developer!
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