Espresso Moka

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/11/25
Playtime: 20m, two playthroughs, Marco stepped in both times

This is a work in direct, confrontive conversation with its predecessor, with community response to its predecessor. I was one of those respondents, having a truly whiny litany of complaints with the former work. “I don’t like AI art.” “Why is it so hard to do simple things?” “Why is the game haranguing me for not knowing things it hasn’t told me yet?” I believe I called it an “All Thumbs Simulator.”

EM is a sequel to that work, using its familiar characters with full memory of both the previous work AND ITS RESPONSES to usher through another low stakes morning ritual as gameplay. Buy and make some coffee. Buuut is that really the work’s aim? Or is it to taunt and double down, not trolling exactly, more like playfully tweaking self-important blowhards like me? Yeah, it’s definitely the latter.

Here’s one of innumerable examples:

- In the first game I complained about having to search pockets for something the protagonist knew, player did not, and game refused to acknowledge.
- Remembering that experience, the FIRST thing I did this time was a painstakingly thorough search of my pockets.
- To be followed by this:

"Hey look!" Monica claims your attention "There are the shorts
you love, the ones that drove so many people crazy with their
pockets in your last game."

"It's better not to mention it," you suggest "I don't want players
to run away thinking they have to search all the pockets for the
wallet."

I honestly laughed out loud at that. I mean that’s pretty unambiguous, yeah? Game’s having a go at us. This meta-teasing is the overriding vibe of the piece, from photos of the previous game’s aftermath that critics (just assume I mean ‘me’ when I try these lame misdirections) bemoaned weren’t part of the game, to some in-your-face fourth wall breaking. Even to interrogating the word ‘shrew’ which drew comment in the last game.

All of it coming to a head with the game’s dramatic climax of… pouring coffee. At that point, the setting becomes explicitly fourth-wall compromised with characters and narrator coming onstage to address the player directly. The impetus for that… it’s got to be deliberate. The game’s NPCs berate you for not reading instructions, where earlier gameplay provided

>get sheet
You take the written paper sheet.

>read sheet
A folded sheet of paper with the words "READ ME FIRST!"
clearly visible.

That response alone is kind of hilarious, I mean I was TRYING to read it and reading just told me to read it! The trick I did not tumble to, which I expect the game EXPECTED me not to tumble to, was to first (Spoiler - click to show)unfold it. Because in this world of micro-detail, implicit actions are for losers! All the better to later berate me for not accomplishing.

I did find there to be an excess of bugs and implementation issues which clouded the water a bit. Manipulating my credit card eventually just led to me unable to pick it up off the counter where I could see it. Many physical rituals had exactly one bespoke way to accomplish it, rather than any number of reasonable synonyms. Just try running water in the sink, or doing any damn thing with the moka. Even buying strong coffee seemed bizarrely out of reach. These implementation gaps made it as much a chore as its predecessor, and cast uncertainty on the ‘bug or creative choice?’ boundary.

But by directly engaging these artifacts in the text of EM, basically carrying the throughline from last game forward, it kind of takes on a hilariously confrontive tone. “Yo dawg, I heard you didn’t like some stuff so I TRIPLED DOWN ON IT FOR YOU.”

There is no better sum of this than the extensive, almost pathological use of AI art in its instruction and quick start manuals. I am in the camp of rejecting this ‘art’ as uncanny valley plundering of real, human accomplishment. “I hear you,” says EM, “how 'bout you drown in it?” I mean look at those dead eyes and faces. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO ME, AND ARE DEFYING ME TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. They are absolutely SMUG about this!! Check the accompanying docs if you don't believe me!

That is absolutely hilarious. I can’t help but wonder how something like this can possibly play outside its critical context. Without the first game and some critics (my) reservations as part of the text, how does this land for new players? Does it matter? It is so clearly FOR US, why not enjoy it that way?

If you can under the relentless gaze of that shark-eyed couple.

Horror Icon: Freddie
Vibe: Trolling
Polish: Rough
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, I would need to seek professional therapy, as clearly development would have devolved into an extended, schizophrenic shouting match with myself.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

Note: This review was written during Spring Thing 2025, and originally posted in the intfiction forum on 11 April 2025.

My first parser game play of the competition! And this looks fun. I am a bit of a coffee nerd myself, daily enjoying freshly ground coffee brewed in a Hario Switch V60/immersion combo. But I have never used a moka pot. Though I have seen some YouTube clips using one. I can so get into the player character’s mindset. No problem!

Note I hadn’t played the author’s previous game. And I didn’t read the manual for this one before playing. I only went to the walkthrough when I got stuck - though more on that in a bit …

It’s a light parser game, where you buy a new coffee maker, and try to make coffee with it. Your girlfriend helps talk you through the process, and gives tips at times. And it’s satisfying getting to the end.

On the downside it was a bit fight the parser in places. And there was quite a lot of parser disambiguation, I think a little more playtesting might have helped smooth things. It’s also perhaps a little harder on the player than it needs to be. Eg the need to unfold a sheet before reading. And I absolutely could not manage to read the back of the sheet, no matter what I tried. That’s when I went to the walkthrough.

However, I managed to make my coffee and I was smiling throughout. So well done to the author for a fun play experience, from one coffee nerd to another!

Must resist buying a moka pot …