Coffee Talk (2020)

Really good vibes and chill game, although relatively dark in its world-building and narrative. It's an enjoyable short game with beautiful art, fun characters, and some funky lo-fi tunes.

I found the dialogue to be quite meandering at times, which I must say, probably is actually more accurate to the barista experience, hearing people sometimes talk in circles and monologuing. Makes sense, really.

The brewing part felt really meaningless at first, not adding much more than a small fidget distraction to break up the talking. But after a while, as the customers have more specific requests and want help with a specific drink, it actually starts to add some stakes!

Ok so I wanna take a sec to rant about this guy:

This fella comes into my wonderful coffee establishment and is like

"I need a drink. It needs tea and ginger and some other ingredient pick one idk."

So I'm like "Sure! Lemme whip that up for you." I start making the drink. I add Tea. I add Ginger. And for the mystery ingredient I add cinnamon, because who knows maybe he wants that. I finish making it and hand it over. Bro looks at it carefully.

"This isn't right. You didn't even follow my instructions. It's fine, whatever I'll get over it."

Sir. WHAT?? The hell do you mean? To be sure, I went back and looked at the text log. Yep, there it was. "Tea and Ginger". The nerve of this asshole, coming into here and getting upset when I serve him a drink he asked for.

I'm only kind of half joking with this post, cause I play this game to chill and experience the story, not to have customers get angry at me when I do exactly what they ask. I can't tell if it's just bad writing or the game entirely failed to communicate something but this doesn't seem right.

Beat fairly quickly during 2 play sessions. It was free and I had it installed for someone else to play. I wanted something relaxing and short to play. I knew going in that it would not be my kind of game but it was not bad, kind of like watching a movie. The story and characters were interesting enough. I was not expecting the world building to have fantasy creatures. That made it feel a bit like Shadowrun but I'm not sure it added anything worthwhile to the game. The only significant input I had was failing to notice the new "tea" ingredient for the werewolf until near the end, and I messed up every order that had a name with no clue to the ingredients. I guess you were supposed to experiment during each day, or on endless mode. I did not like the lack of input on the story. I would have encouraged the girl to not neglect her normal job for a maybe book deal, the elf and succubus to break up, and ratted out the alien to the authorities. The other characters did not really have much to input on, though I was actually surprised by the twist ending. I expected the endless and challenge modes to be something, but both seemed to be just a sandbox for trying ingredient combinations. I would have thought challenge mode would at least have time limits and score to see how well you know the recipes.

5/10

I desperately need someone to sell me on this game. I’ve been struggling to get through it over the last couple weeks. I played through a few nights the first evening I played it. Since the. I’ve played one night here and there because I find it hard to convince myself to keep playing.

I’m surprised. I really thought I’d enjoy this more than I am. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It’s a bit one the nose but I don’t mind, I’ve played other visual novels that are equally so.

Tonight was the first night that I started the game from the menu rather than from a suspended state. And I learned that I’m only about a fifth of the way through the game. That can’t be possible and I don’t know how I can get through the rest.

I can’t figure out why I’m not having a good time.

The gameplay is meaningless. All you can do is make hot drinks but it has no bearing on the narrative. I looked it up, there are unlocks but no matter what you do the story is the story.

So the story is PRETTY IMPORTANT! Too bad it is the laziest tropes and an offensive grafting of the "its about racism but it is orcs and elves as the minorities". It is just as lazy as that Will Smith film everyone called ORC COP.

I "played" this for an hour and got through a few in-game days and when it was not cringe-inducing or offensive it was BORING! I quit because I started to fall asleep playing and thought "what am I doing?!"