The story goes that Fahmi was drinking a warm green tea latte one cold rainy night, looking out of his window, when an idea hit him. He felt serenely calm and warm and wondered, ‘Why isn’t there a game that makes me feel like this?’ So an idea began to, ahem, percolate in his mind. An idea about a game in which you serve warm drinks in a cafe late at night, and listen to people tell you their troubles and tales. People who happen to be succubi and orcs and werewolves and vampires, but people with problems just like ours. And lo, Coffee Talk was born.
A lot of love has built around the game in the year since it was released, and really, it’s not hard to see why. Coffee Talk is that warm, relaxing hug-of-a-drink Fahmi intended. Low-fi beats lounge along as beautiful pixel-drawn characters sit down to talk to you. There’s no stress, there’s no rush, there’s just you and them, words and lives, and some potent pops of wisdom along the way. It’s a perfect game to play during a hurried and cold, and often anxious, time of year such as this.
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But as if releasing one game wasn’t enough, Fahmi released another in 2020, a smaller one called What Comes After. (Funnily enough, this game was built on Project Heartbreak tech, the game Fahmi is working on now, and we talk a bit about this in the episode.) This is a game about a young lady at her lowest ebb in life and who, one day, drifts off on a train ride home only to wake and find herself in a spirit world. It’s from the spirits she meets that Vivi, our lady, rekindles a passion both for herself and the life she still lives. It’s a gently moving experience and there’s a really touching intention behind it, as you’ll discover.