Hello Detectives!

We've released Coffee Noir on September 30th and over the past 2 months we've been reading your posts and reviews, watching your gameplay videos and streams. It's been insanely satisfying for our team to see the story we've prepared unfold before your eyes. Now it's time to gather the feedback and think about making Coffee Noir even a better experience!

In today's post we'll be looking at the latest changes in Coffee Noir and the future that lays ahead. Here's a couple of things, mostly related to the improved main menu, that we're cooking up for you:

• Improved the quality of graphics and colors in all sections of the menu
  
• Introduced a more consistent graphical representation between all interface elements
  
• Introduced a more consistent arrangement of button groups and data to improve UX
  
• Refined functioning of lists and buttons to improve UX
  
• Fine-tuned variety of colors and types of fonts in order to improve the flow of information
  
• Added interactive elements highlights, buttons in particular, to speed up the interpretation of elements on the screen
  
• Implemented a more intuitive form of creating a new profile and saving
  
• Minor bug fixes

What other changes are you hoping to see in Coffee Noir? Make sure to let us know in the comments! In the meantime, take a look at the new main menu layout. Isn't it pretty?







Stay tuned for some more content updates and check out our social media channels!

Ever wondered who is responsible for the visual overhaul of the new edition of Coffee Noir? Meet Ola - our marvelous artist, who made numerous illustrations, animations and majority the UI visuals! We wonder how many cups of coffee she drank during this whole time? You can see an example of her fantastic work here.

See more artwork from Coffee Noir at Twitter, Facebook and Discord.

Hello Detectives! We have just updated the game build adding few improvements and fixing minor bugs:

• Changes in confirmation screen when new chapter is available. Now it differs way more from the next week confirmation screen. The consequences of moving to the next chapter of the story are much more highlighted.
  
• It is now possible to exit to the game menu during the tutorial. Previously if you wanted to exit the game while tutorial was on, you have to permanently skip it. Now, during the tutorial you can always display small pop-up game menu by hitting ESC, and go back to the title screen. After hitting "Continue" from the game title screen, the tutorial will be continued.
  
• Management section fix - occasionally the screen with employee tasks was freezing, forcing you to close this window and display it again. This bug shouldn't occur any more.
  
• We've added latest Visual C++ Redistributable to the installation package. Problem with creating a profile on Windows 7 should not occur.
  
• Minor fixes and improvements.
  
• Few typos and grammar corrects.

For this improvements and fixes you need to update your game on Steam app library.

To celebrate the game release, we've prepared a dev diary and gameplay walkthrough for you to learn more about the game and how to play it. Jump in and feel free to ask questions - if the team is not asleep, we'll be happy to answer them. ;)

You'll be able to find our stream on the store page for Coffee Noir, or via Broadcasts tab in our Community Center.

This is the day! Coffee Noir is now available for purchase.

We'd like to thank everyone who supported us during the game's development. Your support and excitement for Coffee Noir helped us so much!

We'd also like to thank the entire team, who's been working on the game! If it wasn't for this team of top detectives, we wouldn't be celebrating the release today.

Welcome to Neo-London, enjoy your stay, but prepare yourself for a hard to solve mystery!

Your office isn’t just for company management. There’s one device in there that will help you organise detective information you collect – the Investigation Board. It’s made of three sections: clues, characters and connections graph.



In the clues section, there’s a list of all clues collected at a given point that needs to be connected with other information gathered during your investigation. When you click on one of them, you’ll see the description with some highlighted details you should pay attention to. You can connect clues you think have something in common, and if you succeed – congratulations, you’ve got yourself a proper conclusion which automatically goes to the connection graph section, and you’re closer to forming the full graph of the events!



This section contains photos of all characters you’ve heard about or already met during the investigation. Each of them has a description of the person it depicts and the list of clues that are somehow connected to this character. It should help you organize information and understand the contents of the clues in a wider context.



The graph shows all connections between clues you’ve discovered, and also those you’ve connected with their conclusions. Significant plots are marked with certain colours to help you see how they’re all correlated and form an intricate story together. You’ll progress here each time when you discover new clues and also when you succeed in connecting connectable clues in the clues section. Check out your progress and the full picture here once in a while! As you can see, it’s a must-have for any modern, neo-noir detective! And of course in Coffee Noir you can afford to have it in your own office. Enjoy!

Say hello to us on Twitter, Facebook and Discord!

It's time for some demo update, right?

If you're wondering how Coffee Noir's gameplay feels - try out the new demo! It shortly shows the improved flow and other upgrades we've managed to prepare before the official launch. But remember - it's the mere beginning of the investigation case, so it might seem simple and cheerful - but we can promise that we've prepared quite a bumpy road for Arthur Oliver in the full version! Sorry, not sorry - the private detective life can't be too easy!

For now - Joseph invites you for a negotiations round!

What we've improved:
- The demo storyline is moved forward, Joseph van Haven is the first contractor and we present the sequence of actions here,
- The entire conversation scene in van Haven's office is refreshed graphics-wise,
- The flow and dialogue dynamics have been improved. Longer exchanges between characters take place automatically, the player doesn't have to click "continue" every time,
- Improved the mechanism of the decreasing employee motivation,
- The tutorial was shortened and remade,
- The appearance and operation of Investigation Board was changed,
- UI fixes, minor bugs etc.

Important thing: If you've started playing the previous version od the demo, we strongly advise to create a new profile in the main menu after the update and then start a new game !

Coffee Noir premieres on September 30th, that means Arthur Oliver will begin his investigation very soon!

Enter Neo-London to find out what this case means to him personally, what happened to Richard Kersey, the city's main coffee tycoon, what's the key to success as a coffee salesman; and much more!

If you're ready to delve into the dark secrets of the city - like into the aroma of the darkest cup of espresso - mark this date in your calendar!

PS We also want to thank you all for your continuous support during the game development!

Want to test different negotiation techniques on the business partners, but you're afraid that they might not be willing to cooperate with you afterwards? No worries, manual saves go you covered! It's like a time machine, but Arthur is not really aware, so you can save and reverse time as many as you want. No one's judging, if it's all for the good of the investigation, after all.

We’re on the way to the premiere… see you in September!

Coffee Noir has been through a much longer journey than we had initially planned. It started as a game to teach economics at universities, purely serious game with educational purpose. As it turned out it’s a really enjoyable tool, the team started thinking about making it a product for the general public.

We began to develop the detective storyline. Before, it was only a background, just some context to show the economics. It evolved into a rich noir crime visual novel that’s equal to the business part of the game, not just an addition.

The team also made a complete overhaul of the graphics. Most characters and all UI was redrawn. What you’ll see in September is a completely refreshed, more cohesive game. We show the updated graphics and content on our channels on a regular basis, so follow us in the upcoming weeks to see for yourself what we’re talking about! See Twitter, Facebook and Discord.