Necrobarista

I love the art and the music presented here: The character designer Ngoc Vu created very memorable designs that eek personality in every way. The music kept the tension up and the catchy bits stayed in my ear for a while.

Playing through the game was a little slow paced for my taste. The story was intriguing at the outset, but took a long time to build up into the any sort of activity-filled scene. The game is more of a slice of the cafe's ongoings, with heavy emphasis on the development of character relationships.

The characters' internal struggles have a hard time surfacing. They become a bit lost on the audience with the sporadic switching between scenes. With every jump, time became more lost on me.

For a game about the scarcity of time, this made time extra difficult to digest. I acknowledge that the scenario--a Terminal where spirits pass, run by quasi-immortal beings-- lends itself to a feeling of timelessness. But at the story's core, the dead only have 24 hours to stay. I don't think I felt that as strongly. I felt lost with regards to feeling time progress.

The presentation as a 3D environment with stealthy camerawork was an attempt at cinematic drama, but without voice acting, it is more reminiscent of the old silent films. A bit difficult to digest.

Interestingly, the parts of the game that put me most at ease were the Memories (text-only excerpts of dialogue, story, and lore). These sections let the writing speak for itself, without the complication of messaging through the contemporary set and characters.