About This Game

☕ Leave the city behind. Open a cafe by the river.

Tired of the city grind, you move to a small town named after its river and settle into a run-down house. With patience, a little money and some help from the neighbours, it can become the coziest cafe in the valley - and it will look exactly the way you want. Grow the coffee yourself, learn every step of the craft, and play at your own pace: there are no deadlines.

🍵 From bean to cup, and further

• Grow it yourself. Plant coffee bushes, water them and harvest the cherries, then roast, grind and brew. Every bush gives only a limited number of harvests, so plan your plantation.

• More than black coffee. Espresso, latte and cappuccino with three kinds of milk, your own latte art, and a tea table with teas and add-ons. Learn the recipes as the town teaches them to you.

• Three machines, three levels. The roaster, the grinder and the coffee machine can be upgraded for bigger batches and quicker work; the top-level coffee machine brews two cups at once.

• Your own prices. Set the price of every drink: cheap makes guests happy, greedy makes them grumble and leave. Better coffee forgives a higher price.

• A cafe with real customers. Guests queue at the counter, order a cup to stay or to go, sit at your tables, order a second round, leave tips and judge you. Every weekday has its own rhythm of rush hours, and every night you get a summary with their reviews. Keep the tables and the floor clean - or buy a robot vacuum.

🎨 Make the cafe yours

Paint it, furnish it, rearrange it - then open the doors.

• Create your own owner. Pick a body, hair, clothes and accessories before you step into the dusty building.

• Julia paints for you. Pick designs for the walls, the floor (cell by cell or in 2x2 blocks), the door, the windows and a sign with your own name and a sticker, plan it all on a plan of the cafe, and Julia comes by with a brush. More than 60 ready-made designs - or draw your own pattern.

• Decorating mode. Close the cafe, press B and move tables, chairs, rugs, pictures, shelves, plants, the bed, Ostin's bed and the robot vacuum's dock - inside the cafe and on the street outside. Every guest still has to reach the counter and a chair, so the game checks that the cafe stays walkable.

• Furniture styles. Anastasia and Sergei drive over with a van and change the look of your furniture. Pick one of five styles: Cafe Classic, Mint Diner, Industrial Loft, Modern Minimal or Farmhouse Rustic.

• New furniture and decor. Anastasia builds extra tables and chairs to order, Julia sells paintings and little figurines, and the Saturday market sells curios.

🏡 A town that lives around you

Kate, Anastasia and Julia each live a real day: they open and close their doors, walk down the street, shop, call you, text you and drop in for a coffee - whether you are watching or not.

• Kate runs the little shop ALL IN: shelves of goods, shoppers with bags, a lunch corner with hot water for noodles. She sells beans, cups, seeds, equipment, pet food and the robot vacuum, and on her breaks walks over to your cafe for a cup. Once she trusts you she shares her notes on the rush hours of the week.

• Anastasia is the carpenter: planks and stone blocks, a workshop that grows with your donations, furniture to order, storage chests, a supply box in your cafe and a statue that fills the room with a warm glow.

• Julia is an artist and dancer who first shows up as a guest of your cafe, then invites you to her house by the park: easels, perfumes, her cat Nemo and a studio desk where you order paint jobs and buy paintings.

• Sergei the handyman repairs the chairs, tables, counter, floors, walls, kitchen, bedroom and the front of the house for money and materials. A shabby cafe scares guests away at the door.

• A helper for busy mornings. Hire an assistant who works shifts for an hourly wage.

• The park, the market and the busker. A side street leads to a park with a fountain, benches and a street musician. On Saturdays the fair sets up its stalls by the fountain.

• Weather and night. Rain, storms, wind and rainbows, a calendar with weekdays on your phone, light that follows the sun through the windows, fireflies at night, and music that changes with the time of day, the weather and the place.

🐈 Cats, dogs, birds and collections

• Meet Ostin and Nemo. Ostin is a stubborn ginger cat with a story of his own: pet him, buy him a proper bed and a bowl, watch him hitch a ride on the robot vacuum. Nemo is Julia's big white cat who runs the house.

• Strays and visiting dogs. Cats and dogs wander the streets, drink from the fountain and may stop by the cafe. Pigeons, sparrows, crows, squirrels and butterflies live in the town too.

• Collect them all. Eight collections to fill: pins, figurines, animals, butterflies, birds, drinks, weather and lost things from the bins.

🌳 Work, level up, play your way

• The street. Chop trees, break stones, plant saplings and till the soil with your axe, pickaxe, hoe and watering can.

• Level up. Earn reputation and spend skill points on a skill tree with four branches: Trade, Character, Customer Service and Neighbourhood. 39 Steam achievements are waiting, 11 of them hidden.

• Comfortable to play. Walk freely in any direction, English and Russian, three save slots, Steam Cloud, rebindable keys. Mouse and keyboard only for now.

🚧 Early Access

Caramel Creek is in Early Access. The core loop is playable and the town is already alive, but the game is still growing, and you will meet rough edges and unfinished corners. Your feedback will shape what we build next - see the Early Access section on this page for details.

💭 Not in the game yet

These are ideas we would like to explore. They are not in the game today, and nothing here is a promise: seasons; deeper friendships with the townsfolk; the mystery beneath the town; controller support.

💛 About Caramel Creek

Caramel Creek is a small, personal project about finding your place and building a home. Pixel art, a warm soundtrack and a quiet town by the river. Inspired by Stardew Valley and Twin Peaks.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Music: all music tracks were composed and synthesised procedurally by code written with the help of an AI assistant; the developer reviewed and tuned them. Sound effects are synthesized via procedural code written with the help of an AI assistant; a few effects are taken from a CC0 library.

Code: code reviews are regularly conducted with the help of an AI assistant.

Localization: the Russian translation was produced with AI assistance.