Cool, Relaxing and Funny
In this game you play as a bartender in a cyberpunk future which mirrors the aesthetic of the legendary adventure game Snatcher. The objective is to serve drinks to your customers and to attain the highest score possible, but, choosing to give the wrong drink or changing something in a drink's formula will sometimes net you different dialogue with certain customers; so should you be going through for a score attack or if you're chasing dialogue paths, the choice is yours.
Given that this is practically a visual novel the writing has to be at least enjoyable for the game to be worth playing, and it is! It can be funny and paints a good picture of the state of the world that you're in though drink descriptions and character dialogue touching upon social and economic issues without becoming boggy and un-engaging. The characters, from the prologue, seem fun, and there are characters who I dare say will become regulars at the bar in the full release.
The art and aesthetic of the is an attempt to replicate the look of DOS games, with the character sprites and UI looking similar to games like Princess Maker 2 and other DOS visual novels. With a palette focused on pink highlights and grey dark backdrops, the game feels very closed off, and given that the developers state that the game should be played in full screen because it's more "cozy", I'd believe that they intended the game to be played in a dark room in the evening to chill out with, especially with how simple the gameplay is.
The gameplay is little more than clicking on ingredients and following a recipe given to you when a customer orders a drink, you can do this by clicking on each ingredient with your mouse or using keyboard shortcuts for each ingredient. There are times when your customers may also order a "big" drink or you may have to serve two customers at once, which requires you to specify that you want to make a big drink and use double the ingredients or specify that you want to make multiple drinks which will allow you to make two drinks one after the other without serving them individually respectively. While not challenging you can net a score bonus for serving your customer under 45 seconds, which again, is not hard to do, but gives you enough time so you don't feel like you're in a rush which allows you to retain the calm and cozy glow that this game gives you. Though at times the game will allude to you that you could give certain customers completely different drinks to what they asked for in order to start a new dialogue path which can catch you off guard, so one thing I did was I wrote down the recipes for each drink on a piece of scrap paper should that ever happen and the recipe is not fresh in my memory.
The music is great and fits in well with the game's aesthetic well, with the game allowing you to choose the song you want to start the night with and then have the game run on a shuffled playlist, or if you really like a track in particular, have that track run on a loop throughout the entire night. The songs are varied enough in style that it doesn't get boring, but recognizable enough that you'll get excited when a track you like comes on. Occasionally a track may come on that busts you out of whatever flow the previous track had going for it, like Base Of The Titans, Out Of Orbit or Neon District, but you may find yourself caught up with those tracks as well. With a sound team which is currently two artists strong, I'm impressed with the soundtrack and listen to it outside of the game frequently. Personally, there isn't a track in the game I dislike, and I look forward to the full release's soundtrack.
With the game currently selling at an incredibly low price, with one purchase allowing you to either purchase the prologue by itself, which does include a windows, mac or linux download, the prologue and the full game when it releases or all of the above with a download of the soundtrack, it's great value for money. So if you're finding yourself in need of a game to unwind with and have a penchant for cyberpunk, I'd say go ahead and drop the cash for an enjoyable experience which feels like it's going to pay off in a big way with the full release!
