#ROBOT BARTENDER VISUAL NOVEL FULL#
#ROBOT BARTENDER VISUAL NOVEL SIMULATOR#

But never has a digital watering hole mirrored our own so accurately.

A safe haven for sinners and saints alike to briefly escape reality. Then again, that’s the intention of the bar. At other times, it feels like a college mixer. VA-11 HALL-A sometimes feels a battered life preserver in a sinking hellhole. Meanwhile, one of the drinks, The Bad Touch, is actually named after the popular Bloodhound Gang song (which may be one of the greatest music videos to come out of the 90s). The game is riddled with pop-culture nods from Monty Python, Terry Pratchett and Seinfeld, to Metal Gear Solid (the subtitle 'Cyberpunk Bartender Action' is a play on 'Stealth Espionage Action') and Gundam (Jill’s VR smut service “Shining Fingered” is a play on Shining Gundam’s signature move). The quirky minds behind Sakuban Studios didn't stop with feel-good banter. Breasts, legs, or wings? Standard Friday night stuff. In fact, a few tangents are so leftfield and candid that you have to remind yourself that you’re playing a video game instead of eavesdropping on someone’s private chat.Ī civil debate about which part of the chicken is best arises between Jill, Alma and Dana before the Mega-Christmas bar party. Somehow characters are able to seamlessly segue from bombs like “hiring a sex worker to be their daughter for a night”, or orgies with Mega Santas, to poignant conversations about honesty and forgiving yourself for past sins. What’s pleasantly surprising-and often off-putting-about the interactions between the customers is the wildly bipolar nature of topics that come up, regardless of what anyone is drinking. In Glitch City, augmented soldiers, Lilims (autonomous humanoid robots) hackers, reporters, aggressive bounty hunters, and White Knight soldiers became your loyal regulars. Related: If Only All Adult Games Were As Clever As CatherineĪs VA-11 HALL-A takes place some 100 years into the future, you won’t be serving just any old run-of-the-mill humans. Upping the “k” on drinks has a different effect on each customer, and it’s guaranteed that the conversation will get a little more, shall we say, less dignified (ed: the parallels between this and the real-world dissociative wobble-inducing drug ketamine - also known as 'k' - are plentiful. The single mechanic of the game hinges on not only which beverage to serve Valhalla’s customers, but how much karmotrine to include. It’s like a kind of synthetic alcohol added to drinks to get clients drunk if you give them a heavy dose. There aren’t too many ingredients to remember, but the one really worth worrying about is karmotrine. This is a bar, right? Where’s all the juicy dialogue? Not even Tapper with his charming mustache could penetrate the chambers of the human heart. Down the road, other titles dabbled in cocktail-serving, from bartender challenges in Genshin Impact, to Hitman and his original Bare Knuckle Boxer concoction (though the clientele still seemed…oddly quiet when it came time to give feedback).īut apart from the occasional nod or trite expression of “thanks”, the conversation between the employee and customer got stale real quick.

#ROBOT BARTENDER VISUAL NOVEL FULL#

1982’s Burger Time paved the way for scads of cooking/restaurant simulators, while 1983’s Tapper put you directly in the driver’s seat of a constantly full and insatiable bar. Games conveying the trials of the hospitality industry have been with us for a while now. The game showcases not only the weighty responsibility of cocktail artists themselves, but how refreshing a mundane chat could be.

#ROBOT BARTENDER VISUAL NOVEL SIMULATOR#

VA-11 Hall-A, or Valhalla, is a bartending simulator from Venezuelan studio Sukeban. Speaking of the passage of time, do you think they’ll have bars like ours in the future? It’s a real good bet! Throughout the centuries, saloons, speakeasies and sports bars have had a hand in nurturing human connectivity (ok, maybe not sports bars). Some of mankind’s best (and worst) ideas start there with just a drink and some banal conversation. Even more fascinating are the places you can guzzle it legally: overpriced establishments designed to damage your liver, filled with colorful characters and their colorful language.

Robot bartender visual novel