A few months ago, I was lucky enough to review the full release of The Mermaid Mask, after falling in love with the demo earlier this year. That style of game has really resonated with me, and when the Panic Department reached out with something similar that they thought I would enjoy, I jumped at the chance. This is the demo for Tearoom of Terror, developed and published by Sundew Studios. This is a cozy-gothic narrative cooking mystery, and from the first moment I set eyes on it, I couldn’t wait to dive in.
The demo covers about 2 hours of gameplay where you’ll meet some of the main characters, get a feel for the gameplay, and get just enough of a hint of the story that I simply cannot wait for the full game to release.
You have inherited a tearoom from an aunt you didn’t know, and when you first arrive in the town, it’s clear that things are very mysterious as to what happened to your aunt. You have no formal cooking skills but decide that you will try your hand at running the shop anyway. The town is full of the usual subjects, politicians, rich widows, spoiled children, and clearly some killers mixed in. Your job is to serve the locals, figure out who deserves your help, who deserves to be sabotaged, and what happened to your dear departed Aunt.
With your first customer, you dive into the first tests of figuring out the kitchen in-game. If you look through the recipe boxes, you can get a basic idea of the basics of things like tartlets, scones, cakes, sandwiches, etc. I found the basics of learning the food recipe portion quite easy to pick up. Where I struggled was sorting out the blending of the teas requested. Knowing what constituted mildly spiced, or mildly floral or exactly what florals they wanted took a little trial and error. Luckily, if you are not right, you can change it and try again before serving. This part of the game reminded me of the game Coffee Talk. If you were a fan of the recipe portions, you’ll love this.
Thankfully, each recipe you discover will be saved in your recipe box to reference going forward. You will also be introduced to ‘special ingredients’ quite early in the game, and you will need to determine if you want to follow the customer requests to add these ingredients to other orders (and face the consequences) or leave them out. I am being purposely vague here, as even though this is just the demo, I don’t want to spoil any story components.
Over the 2 in-game days during the demo, there are 7 ways to die; I was informed that one of them is the ‘all-time greatest game death’ according to the email I received. I have not discovered that one yet in the 2 runs I played through.
The entire game is leading up to Halloween and the promise of a grand ball, perhaps 2 competing balls, but that is part of the story I didn’t get into too much. The days in-game were October 19-20.
Tearoom of Terror is rated M for Mature because of adult themes, drugs, alcohol, implied sexual content, violence, and characters asking you to harm each other.
The game is completely manmade, no AI here, and I love that they were clear about this upfront.
I loved the graphic style they chose. This feels like it would be almost paper cutouts brought to life. Gameplay is all simply point-and-click and can be played with a controller or keyboard and mouse. Other than the events in the tearoom, the demo showed you that there will be some events outside as well. I can’t wait to dive into the mysteries further.
There were a few very clever bits of writing that stood out in the demo, and I loved the delivery slip left on the door for a parcel I missed.
The game demo is wonderfully dark, and it captivated me from the start. My only disappointment was that it wasn’t longer. There is something to be said for a demo that leaves you wanting more like that. I can’t wait for the full game, and hopefully we’ll get a release date soon. The demo is currently available on Steam, and you should check it out.
Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.
**Special thanks to Sarah from Panic Department for the review code**
Leave a comment