[Dev Log] The Management Core of Dragon Song Tavern: Beyond Farming

I love farm sim games — but there are already so many great ones out there.

So, when I was designing Dragon Song Tavern,
I never wanted it to be “just another farming game.”

Sure, there’s a farm system — you can plant crops, raise pets, and harvest ingredients —
but farming was never meant to be the core.
It’s the foundation: something that helps you keep a steady supply, cut down costs,
and make your tavern run more efficiently.
That’s why we intentionally kept farming simple — light, cozy,
something that supports your adventure rather than consumes it.

The real depth of Dragon Song Tavern lies in management and planning.
You have to think about your daily ingredients, menu rotations,
customer preferences, and even your dragon’s magical mood buffs —
and then decide, “What should I sell today? When is the best time to sell it?”

Upgrading your tavern does help you serve more dishes in a day,
but that kind of progress is gradual and limited.
Eventually, the key to making real profit isn’t how much you sell,
but what you sell, and when.

And of course, part of the fun comes from chasing rare ingredients —
the ones you can’t just grow on the farm.
Some of them require careful planning: choosing the right adventure maps,
tracking boss spawns, or going out at the right time.
Others simply depend on luck —
like stumbling upon rare herbs or magical fish in the wild.

It’s that balance between planning and chance
that creates the rhythm I really wanted players to feel:
a sense that every day in your tavern is different,
and that good management is about intuition as much as strategy.

But if I’m honest, that’s also been one of my biggest challenges.
Many players never make it far enough to experience this side of the game.
Some stop before reaching the point where the tavern really opens up —
before they get to see the systems connect and come alive.

So in the future, I plan to make some of those videos myself —
developer guides, maybe even storytelling-style devlogs —
to share these systems more personally.