Espresso Moka

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 …