Ale & Tale Tavern: Steam Deck Performance, Recommended Settings

Performance

Although the cutesy World of Warcraft aesthetic may give the impression Ale and Tale Tavern doesn’t have much going on, there’s actually a fair amount of things happening under the hood.

Customers appear outside and can walk through the entrance into the player’s tavern. They then need to order something from the player’s pre-designed menu, which can be one of several different items. On top of this, the player also needs to be cooking, cleaning, growing crops, and a host of other things. Oh, and you can have helpers running around or up to three other human players.

The point I’m getting at here is that given the lower specs of the Steam Deck, expecting Ale and Tale Tavern to run at 60 frames per second may be a little hopeful. It may be possible in the future, but right now, the game is best played with a 30 frames per second lock on.

It is possible to get the indoor action running at 60, but the moment customers appear or you step outside, or go adventuring, the framerate plummets. I have had some drops below 30 when the game becomes its most chaotic, but for the most part, 30 frames per second is a target the game can hit providing you’ve got the right settings.

Recommended Settings

The settings below are design to keep Ale and Tale Tavern running at a mostly smooth 30 frames per second.

Normally with Steam Deck games, I recommend using FSR to upscale the image. However, with Ale and Tale Tavern, I strongly advise that you don’t. FSR doesn’t make enough of a difference and it makes jagged edges more pronounced. By turning it off in the Steam Deck’s quick access menu (the right “…” button), this helps to keep the edges of objects much cleaner.

If you do find yourself desperate for a higher framerate, it is possible to switch the resolution to 1152 x 720 and upscale it with the built-in FSR. Just keep in mind, the jagged edges of surfaces will become more pronounced and the general look of the game will become more blurred.

Personally I don’t think you need to run the game higher than 30 frames per second to enjoy it, but the option is there if it’s bothering you. Just, as mentioned above, don’t expect a smooth 60 just yet.

Bugs and Issues

I didn’t suffer any major issues but the game does have a habit of not explaining things clearly, especially when playing on Steam Deck or with a controller. In a game where you can place different items down, it took me a while to learn that to drop animals I needed to go into my inventory and click the drop button rather than, you know, place it down like everything else in the game.

I also found that my customize avatar didn’t transfer over from PC to Steam Deck. Everything else in my save did without any issue, but for some reason my avatar chose to stay put.

Verdict

As someone who has played both House Flipper games, and House Flipper adjacent games like Hotel Renovator, I’m not surprised by how much I took to Ale and Tale Tavern. It’s less ‘cozy simulator’ and more ‘constant stress juggling’ but once you get into the groove, it’s hard to put down.

The developers seem receptive to feedback as well. Take, for example, one of the big complaints at launch: Just how useless workers were. That didn’t last, though, and a few updates later that problem’s now in the rearview. In short, I’m cautiously optimistic about the game’s future.

It’s not perfect on Steam Deck by any means, but in terms of whether it’s fully playable, and more importantly enjoyable, I’d say a big fat yes to both.