First Impression: Coffe Noir (PC) ~ Detective Business Educational Game

Official website

It’s quite clear from the fact that I’m writing a gaming blog that I love games. I also work in a school secretary. Now, I came across this recently translated game that combines both worlds called Coffee Noir. Yes, this is an edutainment game. This game is developed by Doji Educational Innovations, a Poland-based company that specializes in educational and training tools. This game is browser based, so no installs needed. So, I have played this game for a few hours and I’ll describe in this article my thoughts about the game. This is my first impression of this game, which means I haven’t finished the game. As usual for my articles, feel free to write a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Solving that crime

First, before I forget to mention, the version I played was the version that is meant for casual gamers. That’s also the version I linked at the start of this article. If you want to know more about the educational side of this game, feel free to visit this website.

In this game, you play as a private detective solving crimes. Your name is Arthur Oliver. You try to solve a disappearance case and you go undercover as a boss of a coffee producer to try and get in contact with the suspects who could have kidnapped your client.

In this game, you will learn a lot about various topics like business management, economics, negotiation and many other skills. The developers created a video with more information about the story and the game, which you can see here.

The original language of the game is Polish and it’s recently translated into English. Due to the high amounts of text, I can forgive some parts of the game not being translated. While I was playing this game, I screenshotted the areas where I still found some Polish and mailed them to the developers. They replied a day later and they said they are going to work on it.

Another issue that I ran into is that in multiple areas the textboxes overflow. What I mean by that is that the text continues outside the UI. It’s a shame since this game looks great visually. I also notified the developers of this issue and they said that they will work on that as well.

The presentation of this game is well done. It didn’t take long for me to find my way in the UI. When I wanted to adjust some sales settings, I had to click on “sales” and I was there. The only thing I couldn’t find easily is an overview page of all my income and expenses. That would be a great tool in this business simulation.

Visually, this game looks great. Most of this game looks like it’s drawn by hand. I like the art style that is used in the game. I sometimes forgot that this game is an educational game and I was enjoying myself and if you can achieve that, you know you are doing a good job.

Something I wasn’t too fond off is the music. Don’t understand me wrong, it’s good music, but there isn’t too much music in the game. And when I heard the same music track for the 6^th time, I got bored with it. So, I muted the music and played my own music in the background. The sound effects in this game weren’t muted, and thankfully so, since they add so much atmosphere to the game.

Still in development

If you visit their IndieGoGo campaign, a campaign they ran in 2016, they said that there is still much in the pipeline for this game. A year after the IndieGoGo campaign we got the English version of this game. Now that it is released, we will get one major new feature in late 2017 and that is voice acting.

That’s something that the version I played lacked. The game sometimes felt boring due to me clicking in some many menus and reading so much text. If there were more voice acting and more animation on screen, this game would be more interesting to casual players. But, we should wait and see before we give our final judgment.

Something I applaud in this game is the fact that the educational parts aren’t forced upon the player. If you want to try your own strategy to finish this game, you are free to try. The game doesn’t stop you with annoying math puzzles you must solve before you can continue. This is how edutainment should be, since this way you teach players about something and they have fun. An example is that when you want to train your employees, you must finish the short test to gain a bonus with that employee. Don’t worry, you get the chance to read through the theory before you take the test. I was also happy that I could access it in negotiations since I could look up terms and theory of things I didn’t know.

Another big plus in this game is the handbook and wiki. In the handbook, you can find many pages with usual information about psychology and other usual topics that can aid you in solving the case. While I studied economics in high school, I don’t know a lot about psychology. And this way I don’t have to look up all the information.

Also, the wiki is quite handy to have nearby. When I forgot how to do something or how something worked in the UI or what something meant, my answer wasn’t too far away in the wiki.

This game also has a tutorial. The tutorial itself is quite long and holds your hand throughout the whole process, it’s highly recommended that you go through with the tutorial since it teaches you the game mechanics. The first time I played this game, didn’t end well. I tested my skills without following the tutorial.

Opinion of a teacher

As I said in the introduction of this article, I work in a school. But I also have some experience in teaching classes. This game would be great to use in an economics class. I wonder if the educational version of this game is different since you could use this game in two very different classes and it would be a shame that teachers didn’t use this game. I can imagine that teachers don’t use this game because, for example, an economics teacher doesn’t want that students have to bother with psychology in the economic classes.

This game isn’t for everybody. If you don’t enjoy mystery games or tycoon games, I would skip this game. If the videos from the developers interest you, give this game a try. This game is rather interesting.

There is a lot of replay value in this game. Since you can tackle the business side of things in some many ways, each playthrough is different from the last. So, no playthrough will be the same. Unless you do it on purpose of course.

Before I wrap up this article, I want to thank Doji Interactive for giving me a free copy of this game to test out. Thank you for putting this game under my attention. I have been playing this game here and there and I have been enjoying myself. When I wrote this article, a lifetime account costs 9,99 USD which is extremely cheap for the content you get in my opinion. Before there is confusion, this isn’t a paid article.

Conclusion

This game has a lot of potentials. When I have more time, I certainly will finish this game. This will most likely happen in my summer break. Most things I missed in this game like voice acting are things on the to-do list of the developer.

So, this game will only keep improving in the future and I can’t wait to see where it goes. If you are interested in mystery games and tycoon games, I would highly recommend checking the official website of this game since it’s a great game in my opinion and I can’t wait how this game is going to evolve.

Before I say goodbye, I should add something. The developers told me that in the coming months, there will be some updates and patches to the game. Another reason to get excited about the future of this game!

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog, but until then take care and have a great rest of your day!

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