Review - Coffee Talk by Toge Productions
Once upon a time, I wrote that I wanted to do more analytical work on the blog. With some concentration, and given how quickly our world can change these days, some luck, this will be the first in many entries to come. My goal tonight is to present you with some down-to-earth reviewing and analysis. Ready?
Today, I’ll be looking at Coffee Talk by Toge Productions. This is a 3 to 5 hour indie game, and if you have Xbox Game Pass, it’s free!
So, is it worth your time?
The premise of the game is straightforward - in an alternate Earth where humans live side-by-side with a host of fantasy creatures ranging from elves to orcs, you as the mysterious player character run a nice little coffee shop in downtown Seattle. The game tells the story of the ensemble cast of characters that come to frequent the shop, with the major through line of the whole thing being the character Freya and her quest to write a book. The gameplay focuses on brewing drinks for your customers, sometimes via experimentation, though often simply by fulfilling their orders as requested. The entire game is very much like a Chillhop music stream - it’s relaxed, it’s got lofi hip hop music, it’s got a pixel-based art style, and all of it is set in the warm glow of a cafe juxtaposed against Washington’s rainy backdrop. I can smell the java already!
Its core gameplay loop is straightforward - a character walks in, they give you an order, you make it (often using their dialogue to guide you to which ingredients to use), and dialogue continues. Rinse and repeat. You have the option of checking your phone as well, which has a social media app, a list of drink recipes, a newspaper app that displays some very well-written short stories, and a Spotify rip-off to control the soundtrack.
First off, let me say that I appreciate the game’s crafting system. It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s understandable. It’s got an intelligible UI. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I am pretty tired of crafting systems that virtually require a university course to understand. This is a huge boon to building the relaxed nature of the game, since this is the major mechanic you’ll be playing with, and I love this aspect of it.
However, I have to say that I didn’t find the core mechanics of the game to be especially engaging. While the narrative, the actual honest-to-God written word, is just barely strong enough to see you through your first playthrough, it won’t see you through to a second. And this is a problem for a game with a narrative design in some ways predicated on multiple playthroughs.
Let’s dive a bit deeper. The problem with the gameplay is in the core loop itself - characters give you their orders, and by that I mean that they almost always outline which ingredients to use and in what order. It reminds me of Life is Strange: Before the Storm’s talkback system in that you need to derive what to do next via keywords in the dialogue you just received, but that had the great benefit of being rooted in character and still presenting a challenge. This doesn’t do that so much. Occasionally you’ll be presented with only 2 of 3 ingredients, or a very vague order, and there’s a recurring quest to help one character find a perfect drink, but on the whole there’s no challenge to this set up.
This is a missed opportunity for great narrative design building a strong core mechanic, and what’s worse, the game actually comes close to doing this. In my opinion, a stronger core mechanic would have seen players creating drinks based off the characters’ personality, body language, and dialogue. These are all already present in the game. It would have been more experimental, leaving players to build drinks based off of these clues rather than fulfilling orders that are explicitly outlined by the character. It also gives designers more freedom for characterization (what if each character had a favorite drink, for example) and unique challenges. The game already has a stat system for drinks that could complement this idea, and in some instances it actually does do this…but incredibly sparingly. Moreover, the multiple playthroughs of the game are built on this kind of design idea as well - by playing through more, you (might) pick up new recipes for drinks that you can then give to characters at key moments in the story to make small alterations in what happens (giving them what they need rather than want), something that is supported narratively through this idea of the player character exploring multiple timelines in this universe. That said, there’s very little reason to ever experiment or discover this aspect of the game when most of the experience is based on fulfilling specific orders. I know implementing this sort of system brings up a whole host of other questions - fail states, greater branching, resources necessary to actually create this sort of system, and so on. But I don’t doubt that it would have made for a better game, frankly.
I think you can now see my main point of critique - without an engaging core mechanic and more reasons or opportunities to experiment, the game stagnates, ultimately discouraging you from additional playthroughs to unlock more narrative content and recipes.
Let’s move onto another aspect of the game for analysis - the main character. You! “The barista!” For the most part, I think this part of the game is handled well. It very much follows a similar design philosophy that other games have in treating the player character as a 4th wall-breaking stand-in for the player, and especially in this case, a literally alien figure to the diegesis. I recently played through Control as well, and it reminded me of how that game handles Polaris and Jesse. Is Jesse addressing the all-seeing, silent figure of Polaris with her many internal monologues, or us the player? It sort of doesn’t matter - both character and player inhabit the same frame of the narrative. There’s some interesting implications made in this game, however, that I’m not sure are fully addressed by this multi-playthrough, time-manipulating aspect of the player/player-character. It’s implied that you/the character are someone with immense power trying to bring these people together. As a designer, I wonder if this is asking too much of us in a linear game with no fail states, and I wonder: what does it say of that goal if the characters come together no matter what we do? Is that an effective thematic statement, or…is it pointless? And if the player doesn’t discover this aspect of the character/themselves (since it is optional content), what then? I myself am not sure as of the time of writing, and I’m not convinced the game has engaged with these questions either.
However, the narrative still stands out as the strongest part of the game. The characters are interesting, the dialogue engaging, the drama juicy. There are times when the long stretches of dialogue meander a bit much, but in a game focused on a relaxed social setting, this is to be expected. On the whole, the game does a good job of balancing the needs of pushing the story forward while reveling in its setting. If you like visual novels, this may be a bit more up your alley in that regard, especially given the gameplay deficits. I do enjoy visual novels, but when gameplay is present, I’m still going to critique it and push it to be the best it can be, ha. Some of the character arcs were wrapped up a bit too neatly in too short a time, and on the whole the ending left me a bit unsatisfied, but the journey there made up for that in many, many ways.
That said, playing this game comes at an interesting time in my personal life, so the narrative hit me a bit harder than it might have otherwise. The world continues to struggle against the COVID pandemic, the US continues to deal with political upheaval and civil unrest rooted in racial struggles, and for me personally, I continue to struggle with my own battles, internal and external. The commentary on racial struggles presented by these different characters, though a bit on the nose, is welcome during these times, as is the sight of a brighter future for all of us when we can gather in cafes once again, create new friendships, and find self-fulfillment.
So, what’s the final verdict? Yes, this game has issues. It could do with a more engaging core mechanic, and more polished narrative design. But it’s an interesting experience all the same, it’ll only take a few hours of your time, and the vision it paints is a worthwhile one. Plus, as we head into the next series of lockdowns for the US, it’s a good break from reality, a soothing simulation of a normal life, and a strong reminder of what we’re fighting for. So yeah, give it a chance!
*** Random Thoughts / Honorable Mentions ***
Aqua’s squishy walking sound is YIKES.
The various conversations on game development and writing were a bit too “inside baseball” for me. Sure, none of it was particularly esoteric, but the explicit breakdown of how these artforms and industries work not only seemed to grind the game to a standstill but caused me to wonder if literally anyone not invested in them already would really care or understand.
Why do all artsy games with social mechanics have to have a gamedev character? We’re really into self-insertion these days and meta-commentary on the industry these days. Not a bad thing, I guess, but it’s noticeable, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Calling out Mr. Hendry so quickly as a perv felt…odd? Seemed like a bit of a jump, especially since it was quite obviously not the case and the situation was so quickly resolved…
Hyde makes some interesting statements about overpopulation - “those who should be telling us not to breed don’t have enough control over us.” If that doesn’t send up some red flags, I don’t know what should. The open endorsement of authoritarianism in that sentence was…off-putting. I hope that’s not what the writers really believe.
The “you’re” vs “your” joke between Neil and Freya in the last third of the game is…nonsensical, and worst of all, commits the sin of not being funny.
The secret ending is definitely interesting. I like the concept a lot! But as I said, it’s too reliant on multiple playthroughs and hidden game mechanics to be really great.