Berlin is a wonderful city, amazing public transport, small town vibes with all of the amenities of a metropolis. The people there are undeniably German, no other nationality could pull off their dress sense.
I was in a random bar at two in the afternoon and a guy walked in dressed in a skintight sailor outfit and hat, just living his life and hanging out. The most shocking thing was he made it work, if he did the same thing in London he would be chased out with laughs; Berlin, it was effortless.
My biggest takeaway from Berlin – it is a clubbing city. I shared a pizza and beer with a random guy. He explained that he only did a half day on Friday, because he queued to get entry to his favourite clubs after that. He would spend hours chatting while waiting to get the tickets he wanted. Then he would go home, eat, maybe sleep, then start clubbing. The partying would go through to Saturday, he would return home, get a little rest and then party through to Sunday. I asked him if that ever got boring, and he laughed at the question. Clubbing was his life.
When I started playing Techno Banter it struck me as a game that could only be from a developer that came from Berlin such is its aesthetics.
The player takes on the role of Nil, a bouncer in an anthropomorphic world. In the opening he has made it out of the ghettoes and working towards a better life. After a freak event, he finds himself going back to their old job at a rundown night club. The owner wants to return the club to its former glory and that means making sure that the right clientele get accepted into it. The elements are both futuristic but also nostalgic – with much of the things being used not in our world but harking back when clubs were run by mob bosses and allowed for the rich elites to rub shoulders.
The visuals are simplistic – with a simple 3D environment to explore each day and night, and each character being 2D sprite placed in the environment. This does not make them any less effective though. The alleys are gloomy and oppressive, and the sound design is very impactful in recreating a few of the German night clubs I have visited. The smoky environment and throbbing music immediately took me back, all that was missing was the thin film of sweat permeating the environment.
The gameplay is simple, but entertaining. The bouncer moves through his day talking to people in the environment and picking up side-quests that expand stories of the characters. Then the player must vet the people trying to get into the club. This is done in Papers, Please style interrogation and observation, with an increasing list of criteria for not letting people in. Upon refusing a person entry it then becomes a battle of wits with the bouncer required to fire off a list of putdowns to reduce the enemy’s health bar. Each success levels up the player and they can unlock new pithy insights that can target different personality traits (emotional, rational etc). Likewise, at the end of the night, as long as the right people get in – it is possible to upgrade the nightclub to get improved clientele.
The writing is sharp, whether it is the snarky retorts, the actually touching side stories around the rival bouncer, the troubled cloak girl, or the drinks server there is a lot of care shown here. Sure, there is some melodrama, but it helps paint a picture of each of these characters without ever getting moribund. The game is not an RPG, however, it is possible to make Nil feel like your own through the responses you choose, and the tone the player chooses definitely adds flavour to all the text.
This isn’t particularly action packed and anyone who isn’t committed to what is essentially a text adventure will struggle with this. But anyone wanting to play a game that all but tastes of German club culture should give this unusual game a try.
Conclusion
Techno Banter is a wonderful little title with tons of Berlin charm. Part text adventure, part Papers, Please, and a handy dousing of EDM.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
