More Cyberpunk Bartending In New Valhalla Demo
No dogs this time
I quite enjoyed being a cyberpunk bartender mixing exotic and dangerous cocktails for talking corgis and androids in the free prologue to VA-11 HALL-A [official site] last year. It has a horrible name, but the visual novel-ish mix 'em up was fun and interesting.
A new demo serves up a look at how it's come since then, switching to a new engine and showing off a different slice of story. No dogs this time. Nab it from Itch.
This demo's what developers Sukeban Games took to PAX East in March. The new engine and setup is a lot more pleasant, offering a nice big view of the bar and - glory be! - a guide to making drinks. It still takes a little trial and error at first, but I found it far more pleasant than the old version, which seemed to assume the player had the same knowledge of mixology as the character. When your only way to change the dialogue is mixing drinks differently (or poorly), clunky mixing is/was a real problem.
As for the different slice of story, I dig it. The drunk dogs were fun, but I suspect this shows a lot more of where the game's headed. If you miss the dogs, Sukeban say, "We plan to remake the Prologue episode with the new engine (the one we use with the demo) as a free DLC after the full game is out."
And look, here's a new trailer:
[Disclosure: RPS Bargain Bucketeer and occasional newsie Cassandra Khaw has worked on this game.]