It’s an interesting thing, alcohol. Even more fascinating are the places you can guzzle it legally: overpriced establishments designed to damage your liver, filled with colorful characters and their colorful language. Some of mankind’s best (and worst) ideas start there with just a drink and some banal conversation. Throughout the centuries, saloons, speakeasies and sports bars have had a hand in nurturing human connectivity (ok, maybe not sports bars).
Speaking of the passage of time, do you think they’ll have bars like ours in the future? It’s a real good bet!
VA-11 Hall-A, or Valhalla, is a bartending simulator from Venezuelan studio Sukeban. The game showcases not only the weighty responsibility of cocktail artists themselves, but how refreshing a mundane chat could be.
Games conveying the trials of the hospitality industry have been with us for a while now. 1982’s Burger Time paved the way for scads of cooking/restaurant simulators, while 1983’s Tapper put you directly in the driver’s seat of a constantly full and insatiable bar. Down the road, other titles dabbled in cocktail-serving, frombartender challenges in Genshin Impact, to Hitman and his original Bare Knuckle Boxer concoction (though the clientele still seemed…oddly quiet when it came time to give feedback).
But apart from the occasional nod or trite expression of “thanks”, the conversation between the employee and customer got stale real quick. Not even Tapper with his charming mustache could penetrate the chambers of the human heart. This is a bar, right? Where’s all the juicy dialogue?
Enter VA-11 HALL-A: an intricately-woven visual novel and self-proclaimed cyberpunk bartender sim. You play as Jill, a 27-year-old down-on-her-luck bartender living and working in the dystopian world of Glitch City. By day, she spends her time discussing the news with herself and her cat, digitally redecorating her room, and trying to distract herself from the depths of her own mind. It’s in the evening when Jill really shines as the after-hours bartender at VA-11-HALL-A, or Valhalla, to a cast of lonely, bitter, scared, hard-working, horny, thirsty patrons.
Valhalla is owned by the BTC (British Trademark Council) and offers a total of 28 futuristic BTC-approved drinks, all found in the indispensable BTC hand-book. Some of these cocktails have even been attempted offline andin actual kitchens. Here, take a peek:
There aren’t too many ingredients to remember, but the one really worth worrying about is karmotrine. It’s like a kind of synthetic alcohol added to drinks to get clients drunk if you give them a heavy dose. The single mechanic of the game hinges on not onlywhichbeverage to serve Valhalla’s customers, but howmuchkarmotrine to include. Upping the “k” on drinks has a different effect on each customer, and it’s guaranteed that the conversation will get a little more, shall we say, less dignified(ed: the parallels between this and the real-world dissociative wobble-inducing drug ketamine - also known as ‘k’ - are plentiful… a friend tells me).
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As VA-11 HALL-A takes place some 100 years into the future, you won’t be serving just any old run-of-the-mill humans. In Glitch City, augmented soldiers, Lilims (autonomous humanoid robots) hackers, reporters, aggressive bounty hunters, and White Knight soldiers became your loyal regulars. What’s pleasantly surprising—and often off-putting—about the interactions between the customers is the wildly bipolar nature of topics that come up, regardless of what anyone is drinking.
Somehow characters are able to seamlessly segue from bombs like “hiring a sex worker to be their daughter for a night”, or orgies with Mega Santas, to poignant conversations about honesty and forgiving yourself for past sins. In fact, a few tangents are so leftfield and candid that you have to remind yourself that you’re playing a video game instead of eavesdropping on someone’s private chat.
A few unassuming, yet stand-out moments:
Donnovan D. Dawson - Lies in Translation
There’s a beautiful snippet of conversation with the crude CEO of the digital news source, The Augmented Eye, thatdoesn’tinvolve him sexually harassing anyone. He posits that learning Chinese in just two weeks while working in Hong Kong was a piece of cake, which soon devolves into a conversation about just what constitutes Chinese: Mandarin or Cantonese, or other dialects within China. As Dawson can’t even pronounce the word “Cantonese” it’s safe to assume he’s full of shit.
Dorothy and Alma - Hot Hack
A Robot and a Hacker walk into a Bar. Dorothy is a Lilam sex worker, while Alma is a “well-endowed” hacker with a penchant for one-night stands. Upon Jill’s request to explain the ins and outs of hacking, Alma’s detailed description works on Dorothy like 50 Shades of Grey to a bored housewife.
Nacho and Red Shiba: Boxes in Boxes
A thought-provoking observation between a part-time Corgi bartender and his superior about the absurdity of repetitive tasks, like shipping boxes in boxes. The fact that this conversation happens non-chalantly while Jill talks to herself behind the bar makes it even more of a gem.
Dana and Jill - Beer Clicker
This is perhaps one of the best moments of VA11-HALL-A, as well as one of the most creative uses of alcohol I’ve ever seen in a game. In an inspired use of the main point-and-click mechanic, you are in charge of the rate of Jill’s beer consumption. Get her to chug all 12 beers too fast and she’ll go to sleep, but sip too slowly and the conversation won’t reach its full potential. Quite a pickle.
Dana, Alma and Jill - Chicken
A civil debate about which part of the chicken is best arises between Jill, Alma and Dana before the Mega-Christmas bar party. Breasts, legs, or wings? Standard Friday night stuff.
The quirky minds behind Sakuban Studios didn’t stop with feel-good banter. The game is riddled with pop-culture nods from Monty Python, Terry Pratchett and Seinfeld, to Metal Gear Solid (the subtitle “Cyberpunk Bartender Action” is a play on “Stealth Espionage Action”) and Gundam (Jill’s VR smut service “Shining Fingered” is a play on Shining Gundam’s signature move). Meanwhile, one of the drinks, The Bad Touch, is actually named afterthe popular Bloodhound Gang song(which may be one of the greatest music videos to come out of the 90s).
VA-11 HALL-A sometimes feels a battered life preserver in a sinking hellhole. At other times, it feels like a college mixer. Then again, that’s the intention of the bar. A safe haven for sinners and saints alike to briefly escape reality. But never has a digital watering hole mirrored our own so accurately. The quips, comments and thoughtful commentary tossed out by both bartender and client may seem glib, but they go down as smooth and satisfying as a shot of Suntory.
Over time, these futuristic weirdos feel more like drinking buddies than strangers. You might not want tolivein Glitch City, but I’d gladly shoot the crap with this motley crew any night. Of course, if you’re really in the mood, you could always head over toN1RV Ann-Afor another round, but remember, it’s a weeknight. Ok fine, who wants a night cap?
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