Late For Embargo

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Written by Eric Krause

The gentle rain falls past the Seattle neon, just outside the window. Inside, your customers: orcs, elves, vampires, succubi, humans, and even an alien all enjoy a coffee. Sometimes made well, other times not so much. It doesn’t really matter in the end. They’re not really there for the coffee. Some are there to talk, work or maybe just some quiet. The warm drink is just a bonus.

This is “Coffee Talk,” made by Toge Productions. A game not about stressful choices or faced paced action, but about casually running a coffee shop. You play as the self named barista/owner of the shop. The café, Coffee Talk, is a late night coffee shop where all the drinks are the same price and any coffee, tea or milk based drink is available. As the barista, your task is simply to make the beverages for those that would like some. Other than that, you merely listen as customers come in and talk. Sometime they come in to talk to you, other times they come in and mingle with the other customers. You have no control over where the dialog goes. There are no choices in this game other than what ingredients you choose to make the drinks.

Coffee talk has no menu, customers come in and order what they like. Which means you don’t always know how to make the drinks. “Coffee Talk” gives you five tries to make the drink they ask for. By mixing and matching different ingredients you can figure out the right combination to serve. Once you’ve found a drink it is then saved in your brew-pad for later reference. Run out of tries making a drink? No worries, they’ll drink it anyways and just make a snarky comment about it.

Toge Productions has a clear story with messages they want to convey. As the player, you are just there to experience them.  “Coffee Talk” is set in a fantasy version of Earth, where all sorts of races, species and creatures co-exist. The game uses this fantasy setting to tackle issues of video game crunch, racism and class discrimination, using the characters to convey each of these themes. While the dialog sometimes seems clunky, the messages always come across.

The most regular customer is Freya. A charismatic writer. During the beginning moments of the game she writes for a local paper, The Evening Whispers. Eventually, she begins to work on her own novel based around the customers that frequent Coffee Talk. Gala, a friendly werewolf, helps to mix up the gameplay of making drinks, as he is looking for a calming remedy for when he goes into a fury. Neil, a collective alien species provides much of the humor in the game. Each of the characters have their own personalities and I couldn’t help but feel like I had friends.

If the experience of “Coffee Talk” wasn’t already chill enough, the game also provides a wonderful playlist of low-fi beats. All the songs are connected to the in game phone; if you don’t like a song just skip it! I found myself sitting on a loading screen multiple times just listening to the music and watching the pixel-animated rain fall on Seattle.

If your looking for a relaxing experience to play right before bed or in the morning while you drink your own coffee than consider “Coffee .”