Coffee Talk.
When I was a kid, when we’d visit my grandma in Nashville, my younger sisters and I would race up the carpeted stairs and plop down in front of what had to be an old TV, even for the early 2000s. We’d click on the 1985 Nintendo that either our older siblings or cousins must have played on some time before we’d discovered it, as how else was it in front of us now—maybe a miracle?
Since there were three of us, we took turns with the two wired controllers, which were not retro or vintage, just old at the time, but we were young enough that we couldn’t tell the difference. The only other video gaming experience I’d had back then was playing with my older brother—racing games where I somehow could not learn, no matter how many times I was reminded, that swerving my body did not swerve the car. I had to use the controller, the joystick, my fingers, not my arms. The Nintendo was easier to comprehend, especially because all we did on it was play Super Mario Brothers, and we’d sit patiently cross-legged for hours working through the mazes, trying to avoid the things that might bite us, run after the things that would make us grow.
I’ve always loved video games, but the simpler the better. When I was a teenager, my sisters and I would gather around our bulky desktop and play Sims the way we played Super Mario: for long stretches, taking turns. We spent whole summers like that, having these imaginary people move to different houses and fall in love and remember to eat before they passed out. Sometimes we treated them better than we treated ourselves, but maybe it is self-care to let your mind drift now and then, to focus with great devotion on something arbitrary, made up.
I played Super Mario and I played Sims and both of these pretty much exclusively with my sisters. Now, I have a Nintendo Switch, and I’ve tried to convince them to buy one too, but to no avail. Video game consoles are expensive, and no longer do they magically appear at the top of the stairs. I was worried I wouldn’t play mine much if I had to play it alone, but lucky for me, my boyfriend has one too. He’s part of the reason I caved and got mine—video games are always more enticing to me when other people are around, playing with me. So we play now and then, but we’re mostly more into talking or walking or doing other things.
I got into cozy games because they seemed less intimidating than regular games and like they wouldn’t demand too much from me. There are the classics, like Animal Crossing, which I’ve written about, and then there are all these others like Little Misfortune, which is basically a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story, and it’s voice acted, and it’s spooky, and Florence, which is a more linear story that you kind of passively participate in, and it’s lowkey heartbreaking? but also beautiful? And now I’m playing this game Coffee Talk, and it’s as simple as Florence but somehow cozier, maybe because it’s not so sad. You own a late night coffee shop in this alternative Seattle where there are all these fantastical creatures living alongside humans. And they know your name and refer to you, but they’re mostly just telling their life stories to each other and you press the A button to read more and sometimes they ask you to make them some beverage, but they never tell you how to make it, so you just guess, putting together ingredient combinations, and they almost always tell you (or at least me) that this wasn’t what they ordered, but that it’s good anyway, and maybe that’s what I like about it.
Maybe I like that the stakes are incredibly low, and the story will go on even if you do nothing right, and everyone is happy to be there, happy to have other people to talk to, and you’re mostly just eavesdropping, and the aesthetic is that ‘80s video game rough sketch vibe, itself imperfect, and it’s nice. It’s nice to sit on the couch after a long day of working and reading and writing and teaching, to skip over into this world where you own a coffee shop and even if you gave someone a drink nothing like what they asked for, they’d still be polite about it, give it a sip, say it tastes good. It’s October now, and things are picking up in the real world, and maybe we all could use a little unconditional kindness. Stories to overhear. Carpeted stairs to race up, a game waiting at the top somehow.
Image: Toge Productions
