Coffee (or Coffee Story, as the file is called) is a rather impressive concept of a game, with a ton of potential for future updates. Though, there are some issues that are holding me back from a 4 or 5 star.
PROS:
Art style: The pixel art is rather unique and easy to read. So many go for an 8-bit or 16 bit which makes them hard to stand out. Characters are easy to pick up from their background as well, even the ghosts, which is very important.
The animations are great as well. With the non-sexual animations having a ton of character. Most importantly, the sex animations are just as good. The human/human-like characters are done well, and the less human-like animations (from what I've seen) are defiantly very unique. My only complaint is with one animation, being the one that plays when the ghosts in the first floor of the manor come at you from the south and the animation only shows their back with your character's limbs wrapped around, I wish that was from a side angle instead.
Story: A lot of erotica games miss the mark when comes to story. So many I've seen have a half-baked (at best) story just so it's doesn't seem like a porn game but rather an erotic game, or have a story that's entirely just about sex. A few just put too much story with little actual sexual content. I feel like this hits the sweet spot in the middle. An interesting story that makes me want to learn more with sexual content being a core part of the game.
Gameplay: I am mixed on this, but I'll only explain the good parts here and then get into the bad parts later. Having to budget your actions in order to push through each step, with trial and error being important in order to figure out how to solve the puzzles, makes it feel like a rather interesting roguelite.
Helpful dev: It's great to see them interact with their community such as what I've seen here. Defiantly helpful when issues arise.
CONS:
I want to say the biggest issues are with the game play itself.
No guide: There isn't much of a guide when it comes to this game, be it in-game hints/a tutorial or an out-of-game walkthrough. This makes it extremely difficult to figure out what to do and very easy to miss stuff, like what I feel like happened with me in the lab section of the dream. While the intro where you save Yuri does teach you how to interact with objects that show interactivity, it doesn't tell you how to interact with stuff that doesn't give you an interaction prompt (i.e. the pictures). An easy fix for this without requiring a tutorial would be hints baked into the map itself. Like paintings showing different objects interacting, or design queues like lights and/ot colors to guide the player both on the path they should follow as well as side content. This alone has made me get stuck in the manor for over an hour not knowing what to do.
Days/real world: When not in the dream world, you're in the real world. There isn't much to do here outside of story beats. It's a real chore managing your character's health and it brings the rest of the game down. This needs the most redesigning to make it less like repetitive busywork between gameplay sections, and more like a continuation of gameplay or removed completely in favor of a menu system. I'd much rather the first. One idea would be to make the real world a puzzle too, with completing the puzzle helping you in the dream world. But at the very least add something to this so it's less easy to get stuck in a cycle of eat, pop in and out of school, then do what else is needed to be healthy without knowing that the store does have items you can bring into the dream.
Cutscenes issues: Cutscenes where the character would be eating/drinking don't reset those counters and thus make it harder to manage health on days those happen.
PROS:
Art style: The pixel art is rather unique and easy to read. So many go for an 8-bit or 16 bit which makes them hard to stand out. Characters are easy to pick up from their background as well, even the ghosts, which is very important.
The animations are great as well. With the non-sexual animations having a ton of character. Most importantly, the sex animations are just as good. The human/human-like characters are done well, and the less human-like animations (from what I've seen) are defiantly very unique. My only complaint is with one animation, being the one that plays when the ghosts in the first floor of the manor come at you from the south and the animation only shows their back with your character's limbs wrapped around, I wish that was from a side angle instead.
Story: A lot of erotica games miss the mark when comes to story. So many I've seen have a half-baked (at best) story just so it's doesn't seem like a porn game but rather an erotic game, or have a story that's entirely just about sex. A few just put too much story with little actual sexual content. I feel like this hits the sweet spot in the middle. An interesting story that makes me want to learn more with sexual content being a core part of the game.
Gameplay: I am mixed on this, but I'll only explain the good parts here and then get into the bad parts later. Having to budget your actions in order to push through each step, with trial and error being important in order to figure out how to solve the puzzles, makes it feel like a rather interesting roguelite.
Helpful dev: It's great to see them interact with their community such as what I've seen here. Defiantly helpful when issues arise.
CONS:
I want to say the biggest issues are with the game play itself.
No guide: There isn't much of a guide when it comes to this game, be it in-game hints/a tutorial or an out-of-game walkthrough. This makes it extremely difficult to figure out what to do and very easy to miss stuff, like what I feel like happened with me in the lab section of the dream. While the intro where you save Yuri does teach you how to interact with objects that show interactivity, it doesn't tell you how to interact with stuff that doesn't give you an interaction prompt (i.e. the pictures). An easy fix for this without requiring a tutorial would be hints baked into the map itself. Like paintings showing different objects interacting, or design queues like lights and/ot colors to guide the player both on the path they should follow as well as side content. This alone has made me get stuck in the manor for over an hour not knowing what to do.
Days/real world: When not in the dream world, you're in the real world. There isn't much to do here outside of story beats. It's a real chore managing your character's health and it brings the rest of the game down. This needs the most redesigning to make it less like repetitive busywork between gameplay sections, and more like a continuation of gameplay or removed completely in favor of a menu system. I'd much rather the first. One idea would be to make the real world a puzzle too, with completing the puzzle helping you in the dream world. But at the very least add something to this so it's less easy to get stuck in a cycle of eat, pop in and out of school, then do what else is needed to be healthy without knowing that the store does have items you can bring into the dream.
Cutscenes issues: Cutscenes where the character would be eating/drinking don't reset those counters and thus make it harder to manage health on days those happen.