Game of the Week: The warm, orienting rituals of Coffee Talk 2

Coffee is one of the world's great rituals, I guess. I'm sort of surprised when Voyager went off on its grand tour it didn't have a burr grinder or at least a packet of instant decaf packed away on it somewhere, or a few bags of tea if that's your thing.

I think the aspect that makes coffee particularly interesting to me, is that the ritual can expand or contract to fit the time you have for it. I follow people on TikTok who actually get angry about coffee made with an inferior grinder, who tamp and settle and do that funny thing where pins draw little shapes in the grain before it even gets near hot water. That always looks a lot like fun - and the videos are particularly good with the ASMR stuff inherent to coffee preparation. But take it the other way and there's a pleasant enough ritual to making instant, throwing in a scoop of the stuff, pouring in the water, and then watching as a lazy spinning nimbus forms on the top. Ten seconds of the day spent contemplating the vast structures of the cosmos in all their repeating glory. Again - Voyager missed a trick here.

It's this ritual side of things that makes coffee so well suited to games, and it's why I know that before long I will pick up Coffee Talk 2, our game of the week. Alexis felt the game wasn't quite as coherent as the first, but it sounds like it's still a fascinating thing, a return to spooky Seattle and its midnight coffee shops. Another kind, thoughtful game, that hopefully carries on the spirit of the series' late creator, Mohammad Fahmi.