I'll admit it: Even though we've only been self-isolating for a few days, I already miss coffee shops. Sure, I'm saving so much money by making my drinks at home, but there's more to coffee shops than a quick caffeine fix. The people, the noise, the smell-there's an atmosphere that just can't be replicated at home. Honestly, there's a reason why so much fan fiction is set in coffee shops.
So while we're locked inside for the next however many weeks and months, the next best thing might just be Coffee Talk, a video game-for PS4 and Nintendo Switch-in which you brew drinks and talk to people... and that's about it. In Coffee Talk, you play a barista in an alternative version of Seattle where elves, werewolves, and all sorts of mythical creatures live alongside humans (like in , which you probably didn't see before the movie theaters closed). The coffee shop you run is only open at night, so patrons are sparse, but conversation is plenty.
Over the course of two weeks, you become acquainted with a bunch of eclectic regulars, like a vampire model who's visiting from Japan, and a pop star who wants to get away from her overbearing father. My personal favorite is a journalist who comes in to procrastinate from work (even if she hits a little too close to home). The patrons vent about their problems while you offer their advice, and as everyone gets to know each other, a humble little community forms, made up entirely of weirdos with a shared love for drinking coffee at night. You might, like me, be so starved for human connection right now that these characters end up feeling like your real friends. I won't judge you!
One day, I might be making a green tea latte for an orc who's stressed out about her work as a video game developer. On another, I'm asked to create a werewolf relaxant before the full moon rises. If there's anything larger at stake here, it's the clunky metaphor about race that's hinted at when an elf and succubus argue about their parents' disapproval of their cross-species relationship. Most of the time, you're simply just sitting around making coffee though. And right now, that feels like more than enough.
Coffee Talk is more like an interactive novel than a video game. Like a book, you can pick it up whenever you want and take it at your own pace. The only real interactive element comes in when customers order their drinks. Using combinations of three ingredients, you can make a huge variety of drinks from a simple espresso (coffee, coffee, coffee) to a Spiced Lady (chocolate, milk, cinnamon). Coffee Talk is incredibly simple: no weird mechanics, complicated controls or fast-paced gameplay. This isn't a stress-inducing game where you have to rattle through orders as quickly as possible. You're free to experiment with the coffee and tea ingredients (at one point, I accidentally discovered an Indonesian tea called STMJ just by playing around). There is no penalty for making mistakes either. I can attest to that-my latte art sucks.
Apart from that, you're also given a smartphone on which you can check everyone's social media profiles, browse the news, and play some lo-fi beats to brew to. Coffee Talk is a relatively short game (I finished the story in about three hours) but it packs a lot into its limited gameplay. I spent an embarrassing amount of time in attempting to perfect my, I repeat, terrible latte art. I pressed the buttons on my Switch as fast as I could to find out if my journalist friend would ever finish her novel. And admittedly, I winced a little bit when a newspaper landed on the counter with a headline about a deadly virus-but come on, all art is weirdly clairvoyant.
There's more low-key drama here than you would ever care to find in a real coffee shop, but Coffee Talk is as close to the real thing as you're going to get at the moment. If you're looking to waste a few hours forgetting about the world, why not spend it brewing a cappuccino for a vampire? It's heartwarming stuff-a remedy that goes down like a cup of hot tea.
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