1233 became latte in my head by about the third ticket and i got through day one with 13 served. the switch from tapping out drinks to reading what a ghost actually wants from you is such a good change of pace. i liked that the scarecrow could leave me grave moss for the shelf too because suddenly a good drink changes what i can make later.

the first thing id fix is the message after serving the investigator. it said i earned a secret but the ledger and the night recap both counted it as a rumor. id have that message use the same label as the ledger so players know whether they mixed the wrong drink or just heard an unreliable tip. i also tried the ghost recipe with stale melancholy and got the same kind of rumor you can get from a near miss. calling out the stale jar by name there would tell me what to buy tomorrow. the number shortcuts a player mentioned worked great for me and id give mouse players the same consistency by reserving two lines for every ticket name so the ingredient buttons stay put when a cinnamon roll comes up.

if youve got room for one more jam game after closing try purr or treat the midnight reef and leave me a rating and whatever feedback comes to mind.

I liked the different day-night gameplays and atmospheres. The day is actually quite relaxing... And the night is very not haha, which I liked a lot

The game is very well polished for a game jam, well done ! 

I went into this expecting a fairly straightforward cozy café game, and it ended up having a lot more depth than I anticipated. I played through the whole thing twice.

The daytime café worked really well on keyboard. Once I started remembering recipes as little number sequences, I could really pick up the pace. Those ingredient hotkeys made a big difference when several customers were waiting. I tried the controller too, and everything worked as expected, but direct ingredient entry on keyboard suited the timed orders much better for me.

I really liked how the daytime earnings connected to the nighttime investigation. Making money and collecting tips let me refresh the magical ingredients, then making the right drinks at night earned information for the case.

Having patrons pay with secrets and rumors was a fun way to connect serving drinks to learning about the town.

The progression of the nighttime recipes was one of my favorite parts. On the first night, the highlighted words help you learn how emotions connect to ingredients. The second night takes those highlights away, and by the third night the dialogue becomes more poetic, so you have to think about what the person is expressing. That felt like a thoughtful progression.

I enjoyed getting familiar with those associations and then having to read between the lines.

The visuals looked really nice and felt cohesive throughout. The audio sounded great too, and the controls all worked as expected. Overall, the presentation felt very complete.

The main thing I was unsure about was the final resolution. On both playthroughs, I accused the same person but chose different motives and supporting evidence, and I reached the same partial outcome. I felt like I had collected strong evidence, but I couldn’t tell which part of my case the game considered insufficient.

How are the motive and the two pieces of evidence evaluated together? Some additional feedback about what was missing from the accusation would help me understand the result and what I should reconsider. I was invested in putting the clues together, so I wanted a clearer understanding of how my final choices affected the outcome.

There was a lot here to enjoy, and the nighttime conversations and investigation gave me much more to think about than I expected from the opening café shift.

Really impressive work for the jam.

I like the cafe and mystery combination! I struggled a little with the amount of reading, though that might just be me. A few more interactive moments between conversations could be nice. If you happen to try A Borrowed Shadow, we’d really appreciate your advice too. We’re still learning with our first jam!

The day and night split is a strong idea, with a busy cafe rush by day and then candles and a portal leading to the Weary Investigator talking about the lamplighter at night. The cafe art, the tickets and the newspaper intro gave it a clear cozy mystery feel. My constructive note is that serving in the day rush did not register for me, since my station presses stayed at nothing yet and I missed eleven orders, so clearer serving focus would help.

Here comes a really long comment. (It's a good thing because I feel passionate)

I really enjoyed this one and was really surprised how much you managed to get done. Even though I have no idea how much of AI wrote the code, things were pretty polished despite a 4 day time limit.  I even stopped at the intro screen because I was surprised by how  the menu looked. I like to play games blind without reading any instructions until I'm truly stuck and I'm surprised how much of the gameplay I understood intuitively. Rumors and secret was the only thing I didn't quite understand until night 2. I didn't understand what the extra ingredients did so I got them late. A quick reading of the description would have cleareed all confusion though.  I got the ending where the school teacher came back so 1/3 people returned. The game was fairly long for a jam but I enjoyed it. I might give the game another go to see if I can figure it all out now that I understand the game.

Possible improvements:

1. Add a full screen or smaller screen option? The game viewport was taller than my laptop screen so I had to scroll up and down. Thankfully important game elements were super close to the top so I was mostly fine. The biggest issue was the shop area where the procede button is hidden on the top right unless I scrolled
2. Add better controls. The day order shortcut felt really janky to me. I'd say keep 1, 2, 3, 4 as is but swap 5, 6, 7, 8 with q, w, e, r just so the shortcut for the ingredients match keyboard layout somewhat. Going from 1 to 8 felt awkward. I'm not sure if the change would make it feel better.
3. More upgrades or scale money better? Maybe it's an accessibility thing but I maxed out everything super quickly and then money sort of served no purpose.

What I liked

1. The subtle tutorial was nice. The beginning was really hectic because the player is sort of just thrown in but I noticed you gave extra time to adjust. The ingredient portion for rumors and secrets highlighted during the first day helped a lot with getting me to understand the goal.
2. Once again. The UI was really nice. I don't do a lot of UI so I guess I'm easily impressed.
3. I encountered no bugs.
4. You mixed 2 gameplay idea fairly well. The vibe was immaculate.

Overall very nicely done.

The game was fun and engaging. The music was really good and made me bobbing my head to it. Good job with your game.

really fun game , and engaging but i feel like the ui could be worked on a little better , specially in the night , and the writing is good and easy to grasp .
Good Job!

Hey! That's a pretty good Halloween deduction game! I could see a bigger version of it!

What stands out the most is the writing. In a game where the main mechanic is reading it's pretty important :) Luckily it was fun to read and not "skip dialogue"! The gameplay was fun. Implementing two types of gameplay for a 4 day jam is a bit of a gamble, but you made it work.

The presentation was good. I liked the assets, although I guess the cup icon looked more like beer glass than a coffee cup to me. The music fit the atmosphere pretty fine.

As for the theme- I think you had a really interesting take! Although I really feel for the barista. Working full day AND THEN THE NIGHT SHIFT? Hardcore!

Really fun game, i played it more than i thought i would at first, Good job!

This is a creative concept. Would be great to see mobile control support added. Thanks!