Indie Game Spotlight: Necrobarista

Coffee. Feelings. Interpersonal drama. Gangsters. Does this feel eerily familiar for you, too? Now, add in a man who claims to be the ghost of Australian folk hero Ned Kelly and robots…with knives. That’s right, it’s Indie Game Spotlight time and we’re talking Necrobarista!

Damon wrote the script for Necrobarista; they now handle social media, community, and communications for Route 59. To keep it simple, they said, “That basically means I spend a lot of my time making really bad memes.”

How would you describe Necrobarista?

Necrobarista is a visual novel about death and coffee, set in a back-alley cafe frequented by both the living and the recently departed. It’s made in full 3D, which is a very uncommon way of developing a visual novel, and we’re placing a lot of focus on cinematography and developing a unique anime-inspired aesthetic

Necrobarista is set in a specific location. How is this important to the game?

Being set in a cafe is super, super important to the game. Our cafe, the Terminal, is a liminal space. Literally. It sits on the boundary between the real world and the afterlife, and its customers are a mix of the living and the dead. This lends it a feeling of being a place of transition—between here and there, between being unfulfilled and being satisfied with your life, between uncaffeinated and caffeinated.

The aesthetic for the game looks amazing! How did the team come up with it?

Thanks! It was a really long process - Route 59’s first prototype started development in 2014, and you can take a look at some footage of it here. You can see the origins of our art style in that video, and after nearly five years of iteration, we’ve settled on a really cohesive and (we think) gorgeous aesthetic. I’m currently working on some videos that show off never-before-seen prototypes, so make sure to look out for those on our Twitter and Facebook in the coming weeks!

How do you think Necrobarista will impact visual novels, gaming, and anime?

Necrobarista will:

1. Hopefully inspire a wave of 3D visual novels with interesting and innovative aesthetics.

2. Be the first good videogame. Also, Maddy will be added to Super Smash Bros and Reggie will call us to say that he’s proud of us for making the first good videogame.

3. Eventually, be adapted into an award-winning anime, bringing everything full circle.

What’s some advice you could give to anyone looking to get into the indie game scene?

Learn tools and make games. If you’re into code, pick up Unity or Unreal Engine and follow some tutorials to learn how to use them, and then make some tiny/constrained games. If you’re more into writing or art, try something like Twine or Bitsy or flatgames. Don’t try and make a masterpiece, or the game of your dreams - just make little things and then progress to bigger stuff. Don’t forget to share the games you make, and - most importantly - be good to people!

What can players take away from Necrobarista?

Necrobarista’s gonna break your heart. Sorry.

Necrobarista will be released on PC and Mac via Steam (add them to your wish list), PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch! In the meantime, check out Necrobarista.com or follow their Tumblr!