by David RodriguezIf you fancy board games, cafes, or board game cafes and perhaps even flirt with the idea of running one yourself for whatever reason, then Dragon’s Brew should be on your radar. This cozy sim that fans of Stardew Valley and Supermarket Simulator might grab onto sees you doing just that, and its demo is live right now.
The seaside town of Pebblebrook is in need of some entertainment and light refreshments – it’s up to you as an intrepid entrepreneur to build an empire of dice, cardboard, and coffee. Dragon’s Brew is kind of a game within a game. In the intro, a dungeon master addresses you and your goal of becoming the ultimate board game cafe manager. The hooded figure promises to intervene on your journey, providing tips and more as you embark on your storefront conquest. In other words, it’s a fun setup and explanation to have a guide and narrator throughout the game.
Customize your character, name your cafe, and you’re off. You start very modestly – one table with four chairs, one board game inherited from your grandma, and just a couple of recipes to sate your customers. The demo’s quests tutorialize the basics, like placing board games you own on your cafe’s board game shelf. Not only are these offered to customers who come in and wish to play something for one to three hours, but they also provide bonuses on food and beverages. One board game might shave off some time to prep oven-baked goods to serve, or increase the amount of money you get from certain cookies you can bake. Immediately, there’s a synergy that must be tapped into in order to profit the most.
With money from your cafe, you can source new board games from the local game shop or go to the market to pick up more, different food and drink ingredients to vary your offerings. Of course, you have to know the recipe in order to properly make something, and that’s where the game’s light RPG elements come in. When you gain skill points from completing certain quests, you get to use them to unlock new recipes of your choice. Get a new drink or food recipe, make sure you have the ingredients, then make and serve. Later on, you can also do some agriculture and grow your own ingredients in the backyard of your cafe.
Once you open your cafe for the day, you get a pretty steady influx of people looking to patronize your place. Set them up with a table or give them a treat to go from the till; either way, you get instant income. The board gamers tend to get thirsty or hungry while rolling dice, so you’ll see them request something to eat or drink, too. I had to balance shuffling over to my table, which I ignorantly put in the far corner of my cafe (I thought having it near the front’s natural light was good aesthetics!), cooking food to serve, and helping people at the counter. It’s simple and fun!
Everything was going fine enough until I went to serve two customers playing a game at my table, and I got stuck behind the chair. I tried everything I could to wiggle free, including moving the table itself, but I could not because it was considered in use even when no one was sitting at it. Call it karmic justice for bad placement, regardless, it’s a big glitch that made me quit the game to come write this. I also encountered a lot of issues with menuing in storage containers and my own inventory, with overlap and sticky cursor stuff happening often, at least on the controller. I got a nice decorative lamp from completing a quest and somehow managed to make it disappear from my inventory entirely. Oops? Menus and controls need some refinement for sure.
Still, I was pretty intrigued with what I played. The demo only has two game days to complete, and even though my second day was cut short by a freak chair accident, I like the more lax management style in Dragon’s Brew. The game’s release is a little way out, so plenty of time to freshen it up and nail down the pesky protrusions a bit. I’m rooting for this game and want it to find its audience. This appears to be the debut of Radic Creative’s first game, at least on Steam, and I wish them the best with it!
Dragon’s Brew is due out in the fourth quarter of 2026 for Steam on PC and Mac, with console versions to follow. The demo for it is out now!
Dragon's Brew
