Café Paris – PC Review

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Have you ever dreamed of running away and settling down in Paris where you open your own coffee shop and get to know the locals? If yes then good news! Café Paris is the latest release from Virtual Sky Interactive that you need to add to your Steam library. If no, then you need to get with the times and realise the dream.

Order up… coffee and a view!

So, is the hustle and bustle of Café Paris worth it? I’ve spent a few hours digging around in this game and can give you a run down.

Interior of a modern café with counters, pastries, and a city view through large windows.
A quiet time in Paris

Gameplay

Café Paris is an endless simulator game that allows you to serve drinks, build relationships with your customers and of course, enjoy Paris! A simple premise that has simple execution. Unlike some café simulator games, the creation of drinks in Café Paris is done at the press of a button. To serve cake and croissants you simply left click on them and they’ll appear in your hand. Serve your customers by pressing E. That is essentially everything you need to know about the game mechanics of Café Paris. 

As an endless simulator, the shop never closes. Honestly, I was a little bit disappointed by this fact. When playing simulator games I like that you can end the day and see your profits and how much you’ve spent. For me they just add another level of immersion to a game. As this wasn’t element wasn’t in the game, it made it hard to feel like I was actually achieving anything. Obviously, this is kind of the point of endless games and Café Paris made it obvious from the get go that this would be the case. If endless games aren’t your idea of a good time then this, potentially, isn’t a game for you. However, it could be a good introduction to the endless genre for those who have never tried it out before.

Interior of a virtual café with instructions for gameplay and a speech bubble indicating an order for a coffee and croissant.
If only real barista training was this easy

Characters & Storylines

One of the things that Café Paris really emphasises is building a relationship with the NPCs that come to your café. Each have their own storyline that you can uncover as you see them more often. There is a short conversation that can be had with most characters that is a simple hello how are you conversation but the stories do go deeper.

When you have access to one of these stories, the customer moves to the opposite side of the bar and waits for you to interact. The first person I was able to interact with was a character called David. At first it was just a normal conversation but the pacing of the relationship development is pretty intense. It felt like it went from 0 to 100 really quick. They also cover some quite heavy topics such as anger issues and failing relationships and you’re limited in how you can respond to each situation.

A 3D-rendered scene set in a cafe with customers and dialogue subtitles at the bottom.
When is getting involved too much?

Despite there being a large number of characters to interact with, you seem to only be able to take part in one of these on going storylines at a time. Hopefully in future updates they push to make characters interact with you more regularly rather than waiting to get through a plot line.

Graphics & Audio

Café Paris is a nice game to look at. Vanilla Sky Interactive have done a good job at creating at atmosphere in such a limited space. The graphics themselves are similar to what you would expect to see in any sort of shop simulation game. The character design is also pretty solid. Then again, it would have to be given the number of times their face fills the entire screen when you’re in there mini-episodes.

Dimly lit café interior with large windows overlooking a street scene at dusk.
From dusk til dawn the coffee needs brewing

Longevity

As I’ve mentioned, Café Paris is an endless game. If you’re wanting a game that’s pretty simple that you can switch off and play then this is the perfect addition to your library. The character stories are interesting but to me felt rushed which made them a little less enjoyable. I also thought that there was going to be more drinks or pastries added to it as you played more hours, but I only ever had access to the same three coffees and two cakes for the entire time I was playing. There was no way to upgrade anything because you didn’t get any actual money from the sale.

Even so, I still sank a good number of hours into the game as it was easy to get into a rhythm. There’s definitely the potential for players to spend a lot of time behind the counter serving up bougie cappuccinos.

Final Thoughts

With interesting stories and plenty of coffee to go around, Café Paris is a chill simulator game that will fit right into any simulation fans Steam library. Personally, it’s not something that I am going to be playing religiously. If I have no idea what I want to play, it’s definitely a good filler game that you can hop in and out of without feeling like you need to catch up.

As a result of that I’m going to give Café Paris the Thumb Culture Silver Award.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

You can check out the trailer for Cafe Paris below. Or, if you’re looking to expand your Steam library even more, you can check out our PC reviews here!

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