08 Jan 2026 10 min read

An Evening at the Inn - Issue #2

Welcome back to the inn, travelers. After a busy, and not very restful holiday, I'm here with the first issue of 2026 – a bit late. Along with all the usual bits and bobs, this issue has the first interview exclusive of An Evening at the Inn – a short conversation with the creator of Spirittea. Haven't heard of it? Good.

Please consider supporting An Evening at the Inn and my work as a freelance journalist via Ko-Fi. Comments, feedback, tips? Reach out to madsenhayes@gmail.com

From the Innkeeper

Tea Time

A core missing piece of meaningful video game coverage, for years now in my mind, is a lack of retrospection. The industry, media included, is endlessly obsessed with what's next and the new hotness. I obviously know why, because companies and outlets alike need to make money and keep interest up. But as I've gotten older and the industry goes through change upon change, I think there's more of an emphasis on looking back to the past, and even finding comfort in nostalgia and memories. I don't claim to have the answer on how we do all that better, but in my coverage I often strive to look back on the past with developers.

In the hopes of investigating what happens to an indie RPG years after it releases, I talked to solo developer Dan Beckerton (who generally goes by Cheese Master Games), the creator of a little game called Spirittea.

Released in 2023 after a successful Kickstarter, Spirittea is essentially Stardew Valley meets Spirited Away – where you manage your very own spirit bathhouse. And like many games, Spirittea was inspired by Beckerton's own personal experiences

"I started formulating the idea when I was teaching English in Korea, where I'm living now. I was teaching and learning about game development in general, and my friend told me he was learning some coding using one of those skill-learning websites – the one he was using was called Udemy," Beckerton says, "

Before making Spirittea, Beckerton only knew rudimentary development tools. But he started learning tools in his spare time at school, or when he didn't have classes to do at home.

"The more I was learning, the more I was realizing how daunting of a task it was. I'd need to know about 3D modeling, texturing, mastering the Unity engine, and coding," So around that time I just started consuming loads of game development videos. And that's when I learned about Game Maker Studio, which people said was great for retro style games, pixel art, and 2D."

From there Beckerton started working on a game called Fables of Talamos, which he considers his "learning project." After that, he and his wife gathered all their saving and moved back to Canada, Vancouver specifically as it's a hub for both artists and game developers. After that was when Spirittea was born, and put on Kickstarter.

Of course, even the game's bullet points mean the game is instantly going to draw the comparison to Stardew Valley, which isn't necessarily a problem for Beckerton.

"It's a double-edged sword for sure. We kind of pitched it as Stardew Valley meets Spirited Away. I don't know how publicly we made that claim, but certainly that's what people came to the conclusion of," Beckerton says, "Then you'd get comments like it's not as good as either of those things. And it's like, okay, thanks, I'm not saying it's as good as them – I'm saying it's inspired by them."

With so many games coming out these days, it's hard not to get those kinds of comparisons. Anything that has vaguely Soulslike mechanics will be compared to Dark Souls – and for years, anything that had turn-based combat was compared to Final Fantasy (a certain game from last year definitely falls into that).

But anything that's vaguely Stardew-like is an impossible task of comparison, because Stardew was such a flash in the pan that it simply can't be replicated – and ConcernedApe [Eric Barone] has done an unbelievable job of building that game. And for Spirittea, one of the biggest challenges was making the distinction of what's different while still appealing to the largely same playerbase.

"He [ConcernedApe] has been working on updates for longer than I'd started and finished the project. So he's an impossible goal to reach. And it's a different kind of game," Beckerton says, "There are a limited number of quests. The story in the game is you're a writer with writer's block, coming to town, and you're goal if to finish your book and leave. I didn't want someone to play the game to the point they're sick of it. I wanted them to finish it, be like 'that was a good time,' maybe I'll come back to it."

But what I was especially interested to learn about Spirittea was how Beckerton felt about it years later – through both post-launch support and lingering interest for an indie RPG.

After moving back to Canada, Beckerton wanted to give his wife the ability to work as an artist, and they also had children to take care of. This meant he scaled down the amount of post-launch work and support he was doing.

"The reason I didn't mind doing that is because the game still had a slow burn going on, it never totally fizzled out – and it was still making enough to pay the bills for a month sort of thing," Beckerton says, "So it's like, okay, there's no harm in continuing to work on it right now, because every time we do an update we get a little spike in sales."

With that, and the Nintendo Switch version selling better than the PC version, Beckerton plugged away on Spirittea, ultimately culminating in the game's final, and biggest, update released in December 2025 – which he'd been working on since March.

And while Spirittea has provided a steady trickle of income, it's also had another effect, in how it's hit players.

"I occasionally see, especially on the Discord, people will pop in and say they love the game so much. I think when the game came out you probably saw that a lot more. It's one of those things where one negative comment equal ten positive comments," Beckerton says, "I do still get negative ones, but the worst are like Steam reviews where they played 40 hours and don't recommend. Why did you play for 40 hours? I don't give that much time to games I don't like. But I'm slowly developing a thicker skin, and I'm just like, the game wasn't for you."

But on the flip side of things, Beckerton says every positive review, especially when you can tell a player sunk in hours, is a nice little boost. And that seems to really be the lingering experience of a game like Spirittea, a select set of players discovering it for months, years, on end. But, of course, the question then becomes, what next?

Beckerton hopes to make another game at some point, and notes that nothing is stopping him from doing so, outside of basically being unable to do the music himself – and he bemoans the amateur soundtrack of Spirittea. But one thing I found particularly interesting, is how his playing habits have changed since making Spirittea.

"I think I played more indie games before, I experimented more. I don't have as much gaming time these days, so you'd think I would navigate towards indies, shorter experiences. But I still enjoy really polished games like God of War, with a nice story being told," Beckerton says.

But despite having to pick and choose where to put his time, Beckerton does have hope for the future as an indie developer – and for indies at large.

"With AAA fumbling the ball, so many studios getting closed or merged, and layoffs like crazy – you've got all this talent that's going and forming their own studios, that are going to be indie studios, but in a new sense, because beginnier indies are competing with them. And you just hope there's enough space for everybody," Beckerton says, " But I still feel quite optimistic, just do to how much gaming has grown in popularity. It seems like people aren't obsessed with graphics as much. If you make something really fund, it can do well. Like you can find an obscure indie game that looks like Commodore 64 graphics, and it's got 10,000 reviews, and you've never heard of it, but this many people have obviously. It gives me hope."

Around the Realm

Mikhail Madnani interviews The Hundred Line creator Kazutaka Kodaka on the "limitless possibilities" of the game's structure.

Into the Spine does an incredible round-up at the end of every year (that I unfortunately forgot to respond to this year). But there's no shortage of RPGs on here, and I particularly liked reading about Tales of Rebirth from Niki Fakhoori.

William Hughes talks about the "sweeter side" of the doomed hometown trope in Octopath 0

Jesse Vitelli does his annual roundup of the weirdest little guys in video games

Jade King on Yakuza 5 and the Christmas game (yes, it is)

The Back Page

The game recommendation of this week is, of course, Spirittea – a genuinely delightful little management RPG. There's a real thrill to running your own spirit teahouse, and it's one of those games that manages to find a nice sweep spot between decent complexity and an overall shorter runtime (about 30-40 hours). The kind of thing you'll finish and say "that was a good time," then move onto something else – and that's beautiful.

But I did see another game pop up on a Steam sale today that I'd like to recommend – Small Saga. This delightful little gem is like if you took Final Fantasy and smashed it into Redwall (both integral parts of my childhood). As it turns out, I also love Ratatouille and The Rescuers – so maybe I have a thing for Rat Fiction. We're all learning something today.

Now here are the major RPG releases for January 2026. Some good stuff on the way. For a personal play, please read my review of Trails Beyond the Horizon, the game I spent 130 hours of my vacation playing.

Jan 15 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS4, PS5, Switch 1 & 2, PC)
Jan 15 - Cassette Boy (PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series, Switch, PC)
Jan 20 - Blightstone (PC Early Access)
Jan 22 - Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade (Xbox, Switch 2)
Jan 22 - Arknights: Endfield (PS5, PC, mobile)
Jan 22 - Hermit and Pig (PC)
Jan 29 - Card-en-Ciel (PC)
Jan 29 - Code Vein 2 (PS5, Xbox Series, PC)

And finally, on a personal note, for the first time in a decade, the Denver Broncos are AFC West champions – that's right, I'm a football fan. I'm sorry to say you'll all be subjected to football talk at some point or another. But until then, please enjoy Screech getting ready to cheer for the Broncos' playoff run. (And yes, for your information, he loves it).