VA-11 HALL-A Download PC

Gameplay

Premise

VA-11 HALL-A has been described by its developer, Sukeban Games, as a "cyberpunk bartender action" game, and has been described as a "bartending simulator meets a visual novel somewhere in a cyberpunk dystopia" by TouchArcade. In the game, the player assumes the role of a bartender at "VA-11 HALL-A" (pronounced Valhalla), a small dive bar in a dystopian downtown said to attract the "most fascinating" of clientele. Set in the year 207X, according to the game's official website, VA-11 HALL-A is described as a "a booze em' up about waifus, technology, and post-dystopia life", in a world where "corporations reign supreme, all human life is infected with nanomachines designed to oppress them, and the terrifying White Knights ensure that everyone obeys the laws." Corruption and food shortages "run rampant" in Glitch City, the city where the eponymous bar is located.

At the bar, the player's interaction with the game is focused on preparing drinks based on the given instructions and then serving them to characters. However, the game's experience is primarily storytelling and dialogue-driven, since as the player serves the characters they also listen to their stories and experiences. The game also includes scenes outside the bar, such as at Jill's home where players are able to have text conversations and use apps on her phone. Players can also visit shops and buy items using money they earn while working at the bar to decorate Jill's home, as well as to pay the rent. Keeping Jill happy at home helps her stay more focused at work as well as making her more attuned to cocktail suggestions. Players find out about VA-11 HALL-A's world through the patrons of the bar and a selection of news reports on their in-game tablet computer at the outset of each day. At the start of each work day, the player creates their own music playlist for the game in the bar's jukebox.

Bartending

There is no time limit for creating drinks. If a player makes a mistake whilst creating a drink, they can just reset the order and start again; thus, there is no real tension in the gameplay. Making flawless drinks gives the player more money through tips. To create a drink, there are five different ingredients that the player can mix together:

Adelhyde (a sweet flavour)

Bronson Extract (a bold taste)

Powdered Delta (a former rat poison)

Flanergide (a spicy kick)

Karmotrine (makes a drink alcoholic)

Although the ingredients are fictional, mixing them together creates nonfictional cocktails as well, such as the Piledriver or Blue Fairy. To add additional variety, patrons at the bar may ask for single, multiple, or one large drink; these drinks can be served either aged or with ice. Players must also pay attention to infer what patrons actually want, which may be different from what they order. For example, a character might be feeling depressed and ask for a sweet drink, though the player instead giving them a shot of alcohol to help them forget their troubles would have a better effect. Alternately, the player may be able to make a character happy by talking to them instead of letting them feed on their alcoholism. At various points, the player can also tweak the customer's drink, such as adding Karmotrine to a cocktail that was previously non-alcoholic. In these ways, the player creates new scenarios as they advance in the game.

Optional ingredients can be added to the drink, with its usage altering how much the drinker gets drunk. There are no dialogue options in VA-11 HALL-A, with the only interactivity being making clients' requested drinks. Most of the time, clients tell the player exactly what they want, though some can be more cryptic, for example by asking for a certain flavour. As such, VA-11 HALL-A contains nonlinear gameplay in the form of branching storylines, though it is dependent not on traditional choices but rather through the drinks the player prepares. There also exists a recipe book where the recipes to all drinks that can be made can be looked up. Sukeban Games says that they hope the book, which was a requested feature in the game's prologue, would make the bartending "feel more organic", as well as allowing players to experiment.

While the characters drink they also converse with the player. Depending on how well the player is able to recall drink recipes and create drinks to the clientele's preferences, such conversations change, as well as the overall plotline, which is relative to the player's overall competence. Designer Christopher Ortiz noted that the bartending mechanics in VA-11 HALL-A were made to deliberately "tease the player's mind into doing things out of the box", as opposed to "playing through it like a machine, always serving what the patron wants and never questioning what they are doing." Traditional visual dialogue options which the player could choose, however, were deliberately avoided as they interfered with the subtlety of the game.