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.