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Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our second game of 2023 is Tinykin. The target completion date is February 27, 2023.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after February 27, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You are also free to come back any time after the completion date and share your thoughts! This club is meant to be open to all whenever you want to join in the fun!

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is Coffee Talk?

A visual novel about a barista in a fantasy version of present day Seattle with some light drink making elements.

How long is Coffee Talk?

How long to beat lists it as 4 hours long.

gonna have to squeeze this one in tonight i think , yakuza ishin comes out in 2 days so plate will be full for the rest of the time between now n the deadline...

on a side note you keep (accidentally) leaving tinykin in the part at the top on the bi-weekly post , its been a small amusement these last 2 were i noticed it ... thought someone else would've saw n caught it lol. ;)

So I was pretty close to the end of this one when it came on the list (I've had it via Games with Gold for a long time) and this spurred me to finish it.

I did not enjoy this game.

I wanted to enjoy the game. I like the idea of the setting, the use of drink making mechanics to spice up a visual novel and give it a little gameplay, and the underlying politics. My issue was that it is just SO talky and everything is so on the nose. It feels like amateurish writing from a very young person just starting out who doesn't know about subtext or character shading or anything. Everything is just "I want to make this point about inclusiveness so I will do it over and over and over again in obvious and laborious ways."

It was just dull, repetitive, predictable, and didn't have one character who was a character and not just an archetype.

The graphics and music were great. The drink mixing was okay (could have been better of course.) I even agree with the social messages the game gives. I'm not at all anti-woke. I just don't like my video game characters in a visual novel sounding like an inclusiveness or anti-capitalist PSA instead of, you know, characters.

This i think was a Fine piece of digital media ... i say this in that the idea of what is a game came to mind while playing it . like walking sims being a game debate of years gone by this made me feel not like i was playing a game n more like i was reading or watching a mehh slice of life. the characters i think were all fine , i wouldn't say i Wasn't interested in seeing where their stories went , but honestly i just don't think it was a good game at all when there were next to no mechanical aspects or choices to any of it , you just read click on a couple things n read some more. i got the most of the good endings but 1? and that was anoying but i just looked up the 'true ending instead and frankly i didn't miss much so i'm happy i didn't go back n 'replay' those segments. i think the topics it talked about were all fine n good and that didn't bother me , it even made me laugh in a sad wayy at times,.. but as a person who follows games and already things about alot of these topics it did nothing for me vs say something like citizen sleeper last yr doing similar things but more game to the game..... anyway 6/10 i can't say i'd recommend

I watched my partner play this over the weekend and I'm feeling about the same as the rest of the group. It's not that I found it bad, but every thing it does, I think is done better in other games. Like, for a game that is mostly writing, it's writing just doesn't hit me like I would like it too. And the drink making was fine, but not as in depth as I was expecting.

This is on me and my expectations, but I definitely expected this to be more like Strange Horticulture where you have to be doing specific puzzle things to advance the conversations forward.

I am curious to see if any of this is updated for the part 2 coming down the road. I would give this a 5/10 and would have a hard time recommending it to people.

I went into this game blind, knowing only that it involved talking and coffee making. Any enthusiasm I had to play this thing evaporated the moment I realized it's in an urban fantasy setting. On top of that, the dialogue is as mediocre as everyone else said, the coffee making minigame is missing a layer of interactibility, and there just isn't much else that could hold my attention. I can't give a damn about the romantic troubles between an elf and a succubus who both are coded as modern, fashionable young people with only the smallest justification for having their drama in a fantasy setting. The racial allegory is obvious, to the point where writing a story that is literally about modern race relations would be better served in a non-fantasy setting. The absolute last thing you would want when doing earnest social commentary is for people to look at your story and ask, "hmm, which ethnicity do the orcs represent?"

This would have been a much more interesting piece of kinda-interactive fiction if it just did what it's doing for real instead of fucking around the bush with fantasy races. God, I hate urban fantasy.

I give this game café americano out of double shot latte.