Barback Blues: A Valhalla Story ～鬱陶しき日々～
This is a VA-11 HALL-A fangame, we are not Sukeban Games nor affiliated with them.
In this world, where corporations reign supreme, and all human life is infected with nanomachines designed to oppress them; bartenders spend their workday chatting up ladies and spend their paychecks on useless shit.
But this is not about those people.
Ever wondered who's keeping the bar afloat? It ain't the bartender, that's for sure. While they're busy flirting with pink haired girls, one man must do what he can to keep the wheels of capitalism well greased and the booze flowing.
That man is the barback.
Experience life from the eyes of an average Glitch City denizen just trying to make ends meet, get down with the nitty-gritty side of bartending they don't show on TV.
And maybe, just maybe, see things from a different point of view.
Just another day in a bar without end
VA-11 HALL-A
Controls:
Advance text using a variety of intuitive controls, pause with Esc (can't do this during the intro cutscene though), where you can access the options menu and save/load (only available at specific parts of the game).
The rest of the controls are explained in-game; make sure you have some sort of mouse!
SETLIST - セットリスト:
-Intro: Meet Martin Riggs - Eric Clapton, Michael Kamen
-City Pop: Midnight Etoile - Michie Tomizawa
-Jazz Fusion: Midnight Rendezvous - Casiopea (1979 version)
-Hardcore Gangster Rap: HALCALISM Candy Hearts - HALCALI
-I Can't Believe It's Not Garoad™: Explorer - T-Square
-Cruisin' Rock: Road Buster - Phil Perry & David Garfield
-Welcome to VA-11 HALL-B: Waiting for the Night - Denki
-Ending: Something About Us - Daft Punk
Credits:
PeronJames - Direction, Writing
Player_Unknown08 (MHG) - Art
Auitys - Art
730 - Programming, Scripting
denki - BGM "Waiting for the Night"
Kooh - Main Menu design & Logo design help
Special Thanks:
The rest of the Cool Beans
kiririn51
Sophicsheep
Sukeban Games
COVID-19
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Played it today for the first time, really enjoyed it, having picked up VA-11 HALL-A on the PS Vita again after a break and then stumbling onto this fan game. Well done!
I know this a kind of an old game, but I just wanted to say thank you for all the hard work you put into this. I had A great time playing!
hi i cant leave a super long review bc the font on this page fucks with me but this was a great game. i ended it wanting more - the mini games were fun the dialogue felt so real. the people were interesting and i loved the tidbits of lore <333
Ok look i don't post a lot of reviews and if i do it a game i genuinely hate or love and this game right here i love it and it in my top 20 list since i like the bartender cleaning concept so goddamn much but this game fails to execute some elements that has been turned into a weird mash of love and rusty nails that try to give you tetanus every step of the way.
THE GOOD
The Art - Both background and the sprite work is pretty good it not eye bleeding bad but it also not AAA or top-tier indie pixel art but it mid-tier which does it job and i like overall good job Player_Unknown08 & Auitys.
The Music - i don't know who chose the music but give yourself the crown king because all of them are bangers in there own right and it worth to do multiple playthroughs of this game and a plus it good to leave this game on and just use this as background working or study music too
Gameplay (Good side) - So this is a 100% improvement to Glass Cleaner 2077 without a doubt with now not just cleaning but a rhythm style game that fits the lore and bring back my favorite gameplay mechanic cutting up lemons and listen to the characters whine about stuff for 10 mins straight (comes from PURGATORY play that game)
Ok before talking about the bad i know that Cool beans is a smell group of indie devs trying to have fun but i want to be clear i'm just giving out helpful feedback and make this concept as a whole work out in there favor
The Bad
The Story - Now i ain't telling this story is shit but it just not as good as PURGATORY or even Glass Cleaner 2077 the character are done well and spot on and i give the writer props but the narrative is all over the place and it a bit dull and boring when i find the lemon from PURGATORY returns in that game more rememberable then the whole story-line in that game then there a problem but hey the intro is fucking wicked and good try PeronJames but it could've been handle way better
The Gameplay (Bad side) - As better it is to Glass Cleaner 2077 it drags way too fucking long with it task/minigames and it could of gotten away with this since i understand it for story purposes but the story and gameplay doesn't even engages you enough to justify making you do the same thing over and over again for no reason but to build up money which was one of my ideas i try to suggest with the devs for this game and it was such a waste of a feature it should just be removed plain and simple
The ending - this shit pissed me off at my first playthrough when i realized that the game ended with you money getting drain by the goddamn fucking IRS and then get a free happy meal from a weeb lady and gave me the credit screen i felt like i wasted my time with this game there was no meaning to all that gameplay i just did besides the story was so forgettable that the only thing i remember is the goddamn lemon and the sick noir style intro that had me at my edge of my seat and now was just a waste of time
But i still like it a lot it a game concept that needed polishing but i reckon cool beans can do it but i got some suggestions that might make it better
The Suggestions
-Give money a purpose and make it into a proper ranking system like it a rhythm game or something since i think it builds on the lore and give players to grind for
-Dialogue Choices in middle of gameplay so the players can engage with the story and characters and not snooze half way through the game
but anyways i hope my review help you guys out and i hope cool beans can rise in the indie dev scene and plus sorry for my wack ass spelling im doing this shit half-asleep but i hope you keep making and kicking ass in there
PURGATORY and Glass Cleaner were actually sort of branch projects from this one, we were already making Barback Blues and just used each one as an excuse to accelerate development by making new minigames in the form of jam games (obviously glass cleaner ended up just like that in the main game, so it's basically like a piece of Barback Blues taken off of it and put out standalone).
the money thing is pretty intentional, i think of the part where it shows the final number before draining it as some sort of hi-score screen, but you can also see it's connected to exactly how Gil would feel. though tbh money was indeed more of a last minute addition, and it was going to be even more of an afterthought, but i made sure you can "compete" for hi-scores so to speak, so there's no random element and if you're faster than other people you can get a higher one by the end of the game (even if everyone does end up at $0 story-wise). my hi-score is $318.38 by the way.
dialogue choices was definitely something i, me personally wanted to do but it ended up not becoming anything since we just wanted to release the game. i actually wanted to integrate purgatory as a choice at the beginning (unlockable post-game choice) where you can choose to kill yourself and end up in the purgatory game, then after it ends the story continues as normal/restarts without the choice.
all in all the tediousness and emptiness of a shitty job is one of the main things about this game, so arguably it worked, but maybe it could've been made more engaging in some way. i don't think we're gonna update this game ever again though (besides from bug fixes or something).
"a weird mash of love and rusty nails that try to give you tetanus every step of the way" is the funniest and most accurate thing i've read about this game, moreso about its development process. reviews like this make it worth it, thank you. might not update this but we're gonna make bigger and better shit that's for sure.
Just came back on the page to see this monster text of explaining why it became this way it fucking sick to see dudes like you spend you time on this again i ain't bashing your project i merely and honestly dicksucking it as a homie and a player as a whole since i see you got a lot potential going on and i don't want to see it fall in the wrong hands of a shitty indie dev that got game guru with a AOL connection
But im not gonna write too much since i want you to see it and i would love to talk to you guys more
Green nigga#0934 here my discord and if you want i can show you off my work as well but again it your choice and i understand if you don't want to see it
so 730 i salute to cool beans and hope they shoot up to the goddamn fucking skies my guy
>this shit pissed me off at my first playthrough when i realized that the game ended with you money getting drain by the goddamn fucking IRS and then get a free happy meal from a weeb lady
lmao thanks for the laugh mate
Yeah it cool mate and good try to handle the story i know it must of been a heavy bitch to work on man but when my PURGATORY lemon dating sim?
Because you owe me a free game from draining all my money like i'm from Venezuela
bruh the games are free
don't tell me you've been paying for them
how do i do the lemon juice part?
You just gotta press Space a lot! You're done once the juice container thing gets reset but you can keep juicing for more money.
ok thanks
So, little problem I had: During the glass-cleaning section, space wouldn't do anything so I couldn't clean more than one glass.
Make sure you clean all the stains! Sometimes they aren't quite visible, but you'll know it's still dirty if the SPACE prompt hasn't popped up. Otherwise, that would be a strange bug.
I did! I made sure to dip the cup in all the colors multiple times just in case, but the Space prompt never came up. I had to reset the game for it to get working.
That's strange, I'll definitely look into it; thank you for the report.
"This is a fan game, we don't worry about litigation here."
Absolute 10/10 fan game.
Altisimo juego, muy bien ambientado, artisticamente on point y la musica le viene perfecto.
Bien ahi