PROJECT MIX: VR Cyberpunk Bartending is an upcoming virtual reality visual novel hybrid. Take the role of a new bartender in New Mong Kok, Hong Kong and make a new start while getting to know about the lives of your customers.
At the time of writing, Project Mix is on Kickstarter and has already been funded at more than twice the initial goal. They’re looking to include further stretch goals including some music tracks by Shoji Meguro (originally of Persona fame), enhanced romance, and a non-VR version, among others.
This article is based on the short demo, which was made by developer PLECTRUM SOFT’s own efforts without any funding.
Mixologist
You play as Rone, a young former triad member who wants to leave his criminal past behind. A meeting with the owner of the Eleventh Heaven Bar leads him to find a new job, working as a bartender.
This is all very new to Rone, which allows the game to easily slip into a tutorial on making drinks. It provides you with quite a few different options to mix, with different spirits, glasses, garnishes, and more. You need to use these to meet your customer’s wishes and improve your relationship with them.
The VR mechanics feel great for the most part. Pouring drinks feels natural enough to get accurate enough every time. Most movements are made easy to perform. Lightly hitting the drink on the table to open it quickly became second nature (admittedly after a single smashed bottle). The one exception to this is shaking drinks to mix them, which I sometimes couldn’t get quite right until I emptied the shaker and tried again. Keep in mind, this is an early demo of course.
There’s a helpful recipe book to consult with directions about the proportions of drinks, whether it should have ice, what glass to serve it in, and more. They’re categorized too, with (so far) seemingly fairly obvious directions of the type of drink the customer wants. I did find that a couple of my customers said the drinks weren’t what they were hoping for, so I wonder if I may have misunderstood something in the directions here or if they’re just never happy.
New Life. New Friends?
As PROJECT MIX: VR Cyberpunk Bartending is currently just a demo, we only meet a few people. They’ve all been interesting so far though.
We have someone running away from the law with a seemingly sympathetic backstory, a pink-haired gamer girl who makes content for ‘Especially Fans’ who is bad with socializing, and a reckless cop who is far too free with her gun. There’s also the boss of the bar, who shares her thoughts on life with you.
Two of these characters appear to be part of the prologue of a longer arc within the story. I imagine that we’ll find out more about their circumstances as time goes on and what I saw was enough to make me want to explore that.
Dialogue options make an appearance too. It’s too early to see much of what these do in the demo, but dialogue paths are mentioned as are Persona-inspired scenes where you get to have heart-to-hearts with the characters. Beyond that, the system of talking with the patrons and mixing the drinks they want reminded me of Coffee Talk.
Small Interactions
As well as mixing drinks, there are plenty of other things to interact with. You can cook ramen (without water somehow) in the microwave and eat it, light cigarettes, and even give one to your cat while you pet it. This is not advised outside of the game, but the cat lit up with hearts while I did this, so I guess it works.
You can also perform other actions just for fun which I’m presuming aren’t intended for normal gameplay, but are accounted for, like throwing bottles at people.
Anime Stylings
PROJECT MIX: VR Cyberpunk Bartending is inspired by ’90s anime and Hong Kong cinema. There’s a very gritty feeling to the setting, yet somehow the character with bright pink hair doesn’t clash with this.
As is often the case with VR games, the screenshots in this article don’t really do it justice for how it looks in-game. Everything looks clean and fairly visually impressive, especially for a game made on no budget. They even included jiggle physics.
Reading text has been an issue with VR visual novels and other games in the past, but I found it fairly easy to read here, aside from in a few circumstances where I had to move the dialogue box due to what was behind it. Luckily this is easy to do. This one was one of my main concerns with the game, so I’m glad it isn’t a problem.
The background music fits the atmosphere and aims to be a mix of genres with an overall leaning towards jazz-fusion styles and which so far sounds reminiscent of many mid-’90s CD-rom video games. You can listen to a mix on the Kickstarter page. The sounds work well too, though I did notice a few very recognizable stock ones including a certain well-known ‘wow’ sound which brought me out of the immersive experience a little.
Final Impressions
While the demo of PROJECT MIX: VR Cyberpunk Bartending is short, it feels like it has real potential. There’s a lot here already with just a small team working on their own initiative without funding, so I’d love to see what they can do with the ability to buy in the additional skills that they need.
And yes, I’d love to have an excuse to listen to some more Shoji Meguro background music, so that’s another reason to support them.
Kickstarter: Click Here
If you’re interested in other sorts of lounge-y, character conversation story games, consider checking out our review of Hookah Haze as well.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
