Be a coffee tycoon and private eye in the newest genre: business management noir

[HARDY]

The screenshots for Coffee Noir feel like they're from three different games. One looks like a moment from a visual novel where you speak to a young woman working at a bakery. Another shows a hard-boiled detective in a trench coat at a rainy, darkened train station with a comic book narration box providing some exposition. A few more show the complicated control panel of a coffee manufacturer with dials and knobs labeled "Packaging Facility" and "Roaster" and "Forklifts," pictures of ledgers, and what looks like an entire book of business negotiation strategies.

It's all one game, though—a business management sim about running a coffee company and a hard-boiled noir detective tale with both a comic book and visual novel feel. And it's set in an alt-future London.

Coffee Noir, you had me at... all of those words. Here's a hot cup of trailer:

"A unique combination of a business management game and detective novel with elegant graphics in a noir comic-book art style," reads Coffee Noir's website. "Experience an advanced business management simulation along with intriguing story set in alternative future of Neo-London."

Yes, I am interested in both running and managing a coffee company and solving a disappearance, and trying, as the site puts it, to "gain the trust of your business partners to not only win the good deals but also to get the clues essential for solving the criminal mystery."

[CGTitan]

Um, combining a business management sim, with a film noir, may be a recipe for disaster, but then again, the indie market is known for odd tastes and mixtures. I mean, the coffee should be as black as those monochrome visions that we expect in a noir.