The story is set within a bar in a futuristic dystopian city populated with a variety races, including cyborgs, robots, and talking animals. Taking place over the course of 19 days, each day acts as a vignette in which various characters visit the VA-11 Hall-A bar and discuss their concerns with the Bartender Jill and with each other.
VA-11 Hall-A is a drink mixing simulation and visual novel hybrid. Most of the experience consists of reading dialogue that is periodically broken up by a mini-game in which the player mixes various drinks using the ingredients in the bar: Adelhyde (sweet), Bronson Extract (bold), Powdered Delta (former rat poison), Flanergide (spicy), and Karmotrine (artificial alcohol).
You choose what to serve.
Each day starts in Jill's apartment, where the player can read the news or buy items with the money earned from working at the bar. Ensuring Jill stays happy at home, typically from buying items or paying the bills, will help her to focus at work, making her more attuned to client suggestions and thus better able to offer useful hints to the player. Like when someone asks for "something disgusting", a focused Jill will comment on how she finds "Promo" and "Manly" drinks gross.
VA-11 Hall-A takes a unique approach to player choice by replacing the dialogue options with drinks. The patrons don't always know what they want, or they'll kinda know what they want and ask for "something classy" or for a drink to be within a certain price range. It is then up to the player to interpret what the customers want and serve the correct drink or ignore their request. Mixing drinks correctly will usually lead to conversations that are more personal or sentimental, while serving the wrong drink will generally leave a customer unhappy, although, the wrong drink can still be the correct choice under the right circumstances. One particularly nasty client - Ingram McDougal, has a surprising backstory that is only revealed by serving him sweet drinks instead of the usual bitter beverage.
A book with all the recipes is available to the player at all times and there is no time limit on drink creation. So, if the player makes a mistake, they can reset the order and start again. Every drink can have a maximum of 20 ingredients in it, and by doubling a recipe, a regular drink can be turned into a large one. Drinks may need to be put on the rocks (ice added) or aged and then served by mixing (shaken less than a second) or blending (shaken for 5 seconds). For drinks where Karmotrine, the alcoholic component, is listed as "optional" you can add as much as you like or leave it out completely for a non-alcoholic beverage. The choice has repercussions, such as when you're serving an underage girl, and effects how quickly your patrons get drunk, leading to even more unique conversations.
VA-11 Hall-A is a great narrative experience. The dialogue is top-notch and has six endings, each influenced by the drinks served and what they lead the characters to say or do. The drink mixing system is elegantly simple, but that simplicity and opaqueness can make the game appear less interactive than it really is. It pays to be a little adventurous with one.
First posted to videogamegeek.com
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