#60 - inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories (demo)

Today I'm going to be looking at the demo for an upcoming narrative-driven simulation game that looks like a lot of fun! It's called inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories. This demo is free on Steam, so feel free to check it out for yourself.

"Konbini" (コンビニ) is the Japanese word for convenience store. It's a borrowed word from English, but the Japanese don't have a "v" sound in their language, so "b" is the standard replacement consonant for "v" in words. And of course, the Japanese have abbreviated the English word to make it easier to say.

inKonbini takes place on a rainy night in Japan, in late August of 1993. I actually spent 3 years living in Japan in the early 2000s, so this game felt very familiar and nostalgic for me.

You play as Makoto, a college student who is just starting work at her aunt's konbini, called Honki Ponki, while between school semesters.

Aunt Hina recommends all her employees keep notebooks on them for taking notes. She specifically asked Makoto to journal her experiences each night. She calls to check up on Makoto, since it's her first night shift.

Aunt Hina has already taken notes for Makoto in the journal, so you have a general idea of what to do if you get lost. However, you can call her anytime to receive more advice.

Looking around the office, there are several things you can click on and Makoto will comment on them. One is a postcard about to fall off a shelf. It's an unsent card from Aunt Hina, to a mysterious stranger.

Note: Most of the Japanese characters on this card seems to be flipped backwards, and some of the characters are even flipped upside-down! I also noticed this throughout the store. I have no idea why.

Calling the phone number from the postcard gets you the answering machine for Chief Matsuda's Treasures. Hmm...

Whelp, time to go straighten out the store so you can open for the night!

There are several things to do besides just stocking shelves. Look around for anything that needs reorganizing or adjusting. You have to be detail-oriented; I'm neurotic about details and took several laps around the store to check everything, and even I missed a few things!

I found a notebook from one of the other employees. In it, he mentions that Aunt Hina threatened to change his nametag to read "Charlie" if he didn't stop making mistakes, so customers would think he's a foreigner and be more forgiving. Considering he's only known as Charlie, looks like Aunt Hina followed through on the threat.

Once the place was straightened up, I started restocking shelves. There are some limited supplies in the back office, both on the shelves and in the large fridge and freezer. I packed as much as I could on the shelves, even reorganizing some products to make them all fit.

All done! Time to flip the sign on the door and start taking customers.

The first (and only) customer of the night was an old man, braving the ongoing rainstorm to pick up some supplies.

He almost immediately noticed a mistake I missed. Someone stocked bread in the wrong place!

You can go and chat with him, where he'll reveal he knows your aunt very well. Although they're not on speaking terms at the moment. You'll quickly deduce that he's Chief Matsuda! The plot thickens...

There are several multiple-choice options during conversations, so there are several ways to play out each scene. I only played through once, so I'll be showing the general direction my game took. I'm not sure if it would be dramatically different if you chose other options, though. You can definitely experiment and see what happens.

I also forgot to stock a brand of ramen that Chief Matsuda always eats. He takes this as a sign that it's time to make some changes in his life and he asked me for a recommendation on a new brand of ramen.

Chief Matsuda heads over to the pet food section and asks for further assistance. His cat has been avoiding him and acting strange. Someone recommended he try a hypoallergenic cat food, but he can't read the labels very well.

If you inspect the cans, you'll get more details to read. Eventually, I found the right brand for him.

When he's done shopping, he'll meet you at the register and you'll have to scan the barcode on everything in his basket.

Then of course, you'll accept his money and make change. Fortunately, the register keeps track of what you owe the customer and deducts each time you pull bills or coins from the till.

Random trivia: In Japan, it's considered rude for an employee to take money directly from a customer's hands, so they have a small (usually blue) rectangle dish that the customer puts their money in, then the employee makes change and puts it back in the dish for the customer to take. That way, no one is directly handing money to the other.

More trivia: Japan's smallest bill today is 1,000 yen (roughly 7 US dollars). They used to have a ¥50, ¥100, and ¥500 bill back in the '50s, but they were mostly phased out by the '60s and turned into coins. Considering this game takes place in 1993, these bills are not accurate to real life.  They also have never had a ¥25 coin; the next denomination after ¥10 is ¥50.

Chief Matsuda is still feeling depressed and may vent a bit about some of his bad luck to you at this point. I got a choice in how to respond:

I chose to cheer him up, and it seemed to do the trick.

He stands outside to admire the rising sun as the rain lets up. If you join him, you get a little more dialog with him before the demo ends.

Overall, it was a fun little game to play and I'm excited for the full release! I enjoy simulator games, and this one was very relaxed and story-heavy. Unlike other store simulators I've played, where you spend a whole shift desperately running around, managing a bunch of customers and store inventory as fast as you can. Working a night shift means a slower pace to the game, so you can have one-on-one conversations with the customers and really enjoy the atmosphere.

There's also no clock in the game, so you can take all the time you want to do everything. I probably spent over an hour just wandering around the store, clicking on everything and getting to know where everything was. I was expecting an influx of customers, so I wanted to be prepared for the busy rush, but I ended up with a single customer who was chill and fun to chat with.

Note: I haven't been paid to advertise this upcoming game. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm very anti-advertisement, so I will never accept money or favors to advertise anyone's game. This is just a personal creative writing hobby of mine; if I'm writing about a game, it's one that I personally enjoyed and wanted to discuss.

#51 - Tavern Manager Simulator

How do you do, fellow gamers?  I'm back with another set of video game screenshots!  And today's game is a simulator game.  I actually love simulator games; I have a whole category in my Steam library dedicated to them.  It's the only library collection I've made that's specifically for a genre of game.

I got Tavern Manager Simulator on sale yesterday, and whereas there are probably better simulator games in my collection, I did enjoy this one in particular.

It opens with you acquiring a run-down tavern just outside a large castle.  The place is boarded up and you need to remove some planks in order to get in the back door and open up the tavern.

The place is in disrepair and you spend some time picking up trash and cleaning stains on the floor before you can open the place.

The large piles of garbage are too much for you to deal with right now, so you just throw a cloth over them to get the place open and running.

You have a small private room just off to the side of the bar room.  There's a bed in here where you can sleep until 6 AM the next morning.  There's also a desk where you do all the "paperwork" for the tavern.  This desk is where you can upgrade your tavern and its amenities.  The more you level up your tavern, the more variety of foods you can sell, and the larger the tavern will grow.  Literally; it will actually expand into a proper dining hall if you upgrade it enough.

Although the most important category is the Delivery tab, where you can order resources (food), furniture, and decorations.

You will need to make regular food orders as your supplies dwindle.  You can place an order anytime and it will be at your back door in less than a minute.  You can actually watch a horse-drawn cart show up down the road as soon as you order.  Almost half the wait time is just watching it turn in a loop before stopping for you to unload it.

Next, you need to fix your sign out front.  This is what you will use to signal when you're open.

When it's facing the tavern, you're closed.  But when it's turned to face the road passing by your tavern, you're open.  You can switch it anytime, day or night, to start or stop the flow of customers.  You can also customize your new sign.  Here is my tavern's sign, turned to signal that I'm open for business:

To start, you'll only have ale.  Pouring ale is a bit of an art; you have to hold the pour button until it fills to the green line on a bar.  Any less and it's just a "good" ale.  In that green, it's a "perfect" ale and will have a sparkle to it. And if you go over, you will spill on the floor (requiring a clean-up) and it will be a "bad" ale, with a puke-greenish tint to it.

Make sure you hand out as many good or perfect ales as you can to customers!  You're earning reputation to help improve your customer base and upgrade your tavern, so keep those customers happy!  I don't know what the customers will do if you serve them a bad ale.  I've just been dumping them in the trash and taking the financial loss so I don't hurt my reputation.  Here was my very first customer:

You have a limited supply of dishes, so make sure to clean them as often as you can in the kitchen sink.  You can get water from the well behind your tavern, and every dish you scrub counts for 2 cleaned dishes.  It's super easy to clean, just swirl it in the soapy water for a few seconds and all the gunk will disappear from the dish.

You also have to clean your tavern as you go.  Most patrons will leave a mess on the table when they leave.  Collect their coin and dishes, but also don't forget to wipe down the tables as needed.  Some customers will also leave footprints all over your floors.  Don't forget to sweep them up!

Most customers will only make a single food/drink request, then leave when they're done.  But this guy kept requesting more beers until he passed out on the bar.  You can literally pick up these drunk customers by the scruff of their neck and toss them out.  You can also ask anyone to leave anytime you want, but it's more fun to throw them out while they're black-out drunk.  Plus, you collect a ton of coin from all the booze they consumed.

There are also beggars who might come into your tavern.  You can give them what they ask for, which will give your tavern a boost in reputation, or you can tell them to scram.  Later, you acquire a frying pan, which you can brandish as a weapon against unruly patrons or beggars.

This beggar lady came by pretty often.  I had one guy come by saying he was dying of thirst and just needed some water.  I went to the well out back and got a pail of water and he was very satisfied with that.

Over time, you start to expand the menu; first to sausage, then vegetable soup, and then grilled meat.  It gets more complicated as you go on, because you now have to pay attention to customer's requests and not just hand out ale to every customer.  Eventually, your kitchen gets fixed up as you level up your tavern and expand your menu.  It starts to look like a nice place to work!

You will also unlock fairy helpers, whom you can assign jobs in the tavern.  Which is nice when you have to cook soup, grill meat, chop firewood for the stove and grill, pour ale, clean the outhouse, and do dishes.  PLUS ensuring customers are getting the food they want in a timely manner, cleaning up after them, and ordering more food when your supplies are getting low.  It can get intense.  Thankfully, I have not been completely swamped with customers yet.  I got maybe 1-3 orders at a time, so I have a little time to balance everything.  Just having a fairy to do dishes is a huge relief during open hours.

When you're closed up for the day, if you explore the grounds outside your tavern, you'll find hidden tributes to other medieval fantasy series.  So far, I've seen references to Zelda, Dark Souls, Shrek, World of Warcraft, and Lord of the Rings.  Let me know if you find any others!

If you catch a break (which I rarely did), you can chat with your customers, which gives you a +1 to your reputation.  Although they usually just have either something weird to say, or a medieval dad joke.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable game.  I had fun running back and forth, trying to keep food and drink prepared and dealing with customers as they came in.  I had to make a lot of orders in the middle of the day to keep my stock up initially, but as I got used to the game, I was able to more effectively plan my food and drink and I was mostly able to make an order at night and be ready for the entire next day. It helps that none of the consumables ever went bad, so I could prep a bunch of stuff and leave it sitting out until customers ordered it.

I always felt there weren't enough hours in the day, though.  Every minute of the day was a real-time second, so I basically had 24 minutes max to host customers every day.  I'd run my tavern until I was almost out of everything late at night, then I'd spend the last few hours of the night/morning restocking and prepping for the next day.  If I went to bed, it was usually with only an hour or two of sleep before getting up the next day.  So far, I don't think sleep deprivation is a thing in this game.  I ran my tavern for 3 days straight without any side effects at one point.

So if you like restaurant managing/waitressing games, this was a pretty fun medieval spin on the genre.  Come grab a pint and enjoy!

#48 - Death From Above

Note: I set this game to display in 4K resolution, but it enabled a resolution scale and wouldn't scale larger than 1080p for some reason.  After I beat the game, I realized I was in borderless windowed mode.  Changing it to fullscreen granted the full 4K resolution.  So these screenshots are all going to be 1080p instead of my usual 4K.

Death From Above takes place in the Ukrainian town of Nenatsk during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.  You play a Ukrainian drone operator who is captured by invading Russian forces.  But you're freed by a little old lady whom the Russians took for granted.

You grab a drone and a bunch of grenades and set out to clear the region from Russian invaders.

You can customize your drone and its pilot.  As per usual, I switched to a female drone pilot.  I also chose a camo pattern for my drone with Ukrainian colors and a Ukrainian flag trail behind it.  Not very good camouflage in real life, but colorful and fun for a game!

You set out to restore communications with your military unit.  There's an antenna nearby, guarded by several Russian military members, so you move to engage them.  You can switch between your pilot and your drone, and for the most part, you only fight with your drone.  Your pilot can't pick up a weapon and engage the enemy, so you want to keep them tucked away somewhere safe.  Your drone has some seriously good range on it though (and unlimited battery life), so raise it high enough in the sky so as not to be seen by enemy forces and go scope out the target area ahead.

You can also turn on thermal imaging to make people and vehicles show up easier.  Good for finding those stubborn forces hiding in the woods.

An interesting detail is that every time you kill a Russian combatant, their body immediately sprouts sunflowers.  The sunflower is Ukraine's national flower, and if you haven't heard the story, there was a Ukrainian woman recorded on video who approached an occupying Russian military member and offered sunflower seeds to put in his pockets, so his dead body would blossom sunflowers. (Source)

Once you restore communications, you receive a message from Special Forces HQ, asking you to clear out Russian forces in the nearby village.  From this point, you'll receive messages from HQ after each mission, directing you toward your next mission.

Also, you'll see a wanted poster of Putin on the wall in this room.  Make sure you improve the poster for a huge score bonus.  There are several of these posters to be found around the map.  Don't forget to deface all of them!

To take out enemy forces, you switch your drone to a bomb view, giving you a target reticle directly below your drone.  In this mode, you can drop your grenades on enemies.

Also, you can ask troops to surrender using the drone.

I've only had one guy surrender to me so far, but I got blown away by a tank before I could accept his surrender.  The tanks just sat there idly, unmoving.  I didn't realize they were armed and ready to target my pilot as soon as she wandered close.  Oops.

The Russian troops were looting washing machines from homes, but after you clear out the enemies, you can pick up the washing machines with your drone and drop them onto designated pallets for homeowners to reclaim when they move back in.  It doesn't matter which pallets in an area you drop them on; they get beamed up into the sky every time you drop one off, as well as giving you a score bonus.

Once you take over a Russian command post, you'll find the FPV drone.  It acts like a guided missile; when you launch it, it shoots rapidly in the direction you're facing and blows up whatever target it hits.

You have some control over its direction, but it needs space to make big turns and it has a very short battery life that will drain in seconds, so make sure you're prepared when you launch it toward a target.

I should mention that you have unlimited ammunition in this game.  Despite blowing up the FPV drone on each use, it will respawn in your inventory after a few seconds.  Also, your regular drone can only hold 6 grenades at a time, but every time you fly it close to your pilot, it automatically refills all your grenades.  So go nuts and take down as many enemies as you can from a safe vantage point!

By the way, the soundtrack for this game is awesome!  Starring all Ukrainian bands.  You can download it on Steam.  The title song, also called "Death From Above," was made and performed by the band Antytila.  They have three versions of the song: an English version, Ukrainian version, and a 21-minute instrumental version.  I've been playing this song on repeat for months now; it's my favorite on the soundtrack!

There's also the band Surface Tension, who released their single "Завтра (Tomorrow)," both the original song and an instrumental version.

The band Odarka Zyrko released their single "за тобою (Behind You)," also the original version and an instrumental version.

Finally, there's GO_A with their single "Kalyna," which is the Ukrainian name for the guelder rose.  It's a prominent symbol in Ukrainian culture, showing up in a lot of their media.  This is probably my second most favorite song on the soundtrack.

You can hear "Death From Above" playing on radios scattered all throughout the game.  But in the first village you come across, if you follow the sound of music, you'll find the actual band jamming in a house!  Sadly, you can only watch from a single window.  I had to take 2 screenshots to get all the band members in there.

This game actually benefits Ukrainian forces in their ongoing war.  The publisher, Lesser Evil, claims that 30% of their proceeds are donated to two organizations helping the Ukraine war effort: "Come Back Alive" and "Army of Drones."  Once they've earned back their production costs, they'll change their donation amount to 70%, using the remaining 30% to continue improving this game.

So if you want to show support for Ukraine (while also experiencing what it's like to operate a combat drone in occupied territory), I highly recommend playing this game. It's only $10 on Steam, or $16.46 for the supporter's edition, which includes this rockin' soundtrack and more skins for your pilot and drone.

If I had anything to complain about, it's that the controls currently can't be changed.  I'm used to using Shift and Ctrl to go up and down in helicopters in other games, but you use E and Q to fly your drone up and down in this game.  It took me a while to adapt to their controls, and I kept getting them confused and dipping into enemies instead of flying away.  Developers, please let us change the controls!

Also, the game is relatively short.  The whole game takes place on a single large map, but you are directed toward missions in specific regions of the map.  There are 8 missions in total (plus a secret warship mission!).  If you rushed through it, you could probably beat the whole game in an hour or less.  But you earn points toward your total score for every little thing you accomplish in game - every enemy you kill, every vehicle you destroy, every flag you raise or propaganda site you discover.  Heck, every washing machine you return gives you a boost to your score.  So if you were to run around doing everything you possibly can... well, it took me about 4 hours to complete, and I know I missed a bunch of stuff.

Your total score gives you a global ranking, which you can see on the main menu.  I started last night at #5,549 (I had previously played the first mission then quit), and by the time I beat the game, I was #194 globally.

So long story short, this was an extremely fun game with an amazing soundtrack, if not a bit short on gameplay and clunky controls.  I hope they continue to improve on it and make it much more enjoyable.  Lesser Evil, on their Steam page, claims, "We are uncompromisingly anti-authoritarian, anti-prejudice, and pro-democracy. We publish video games with clear political or social intent and messaging. We publish games that take a stand."  So even though it's a short game, it's meant to deliver a message against fascism.  And I think it did a pretty good job in getting that point across in the span of its gameplay.  Slava Ukraini!