Developed by Rogueside, Best Served Cold is a murder mystery game set in an alternate 1920s. Taking place in the fictional city of Bukovie, you are a bartender turned detective who slings cocktails to loosen tongues. While mechanically simple, evocative writing and a strong cast of characters elevate the game above its straightforward gameplay.

Deputised by the local constabulary, you investigate various crimes from behind the bar at the last speakeasy in Bukovie. While you can develop a relationship with the detective, he could easily shut you down if you do not cooperate. Prohibition laws mean anyone who darkens your door is a criminal, although some hide far darker secrets than others.

While spending most of your time behind the Nightcap’s bar, you’ll learn about the broader nation of Tsara and its capital through careful world-building. The world is similar to our early 20th-century earth but different enough to pique my interest beyond the bar. The Nightcap is a melting pot, and the patrons will happily share their personal lives with a friendly bartender. They paint a picture of a world on the edge. Bukovie is a city in decline. War looms over the patrons as much as prohibition, and corruption runs rampant at every level of government.

“This casual queerness is refreshing to see in a noir story…”

But unlike our 1920s, the world is more evolved. Socially and politically, Best Served Cold’s setting is progressive. While xenophobia and sexism are both explored, queerness is treated matter-of-factly. Same sex relationships and non-binary expressions of gender are both featured, with neither raising any eyebrows. This casual queerness is refreshing to see in a noir story, which often does not feature these stories without it being part of a scandal. Meanwhile, a pseudo computer referred to as the STAC assists your investigations, and one case features an approximation of a mobile phone.

Mise en place

Speaking of cases, each of the five has the same primary gameplay loop. After a beautifully animated black-and-white cutscene depicting the crime, you start the investigation. Begin your day at the bar by selecting which patrons you want to speak to in what order. Once they approach the bar, you choose which drink to serve them, taking into account their specific tastes and alcohol tolerance. Some patrons are more pliable at a higher intoxication, while others will become guarded if they drink too much. Each drink also grants several action points with which you can question the customer, either directly or by showing them a piece of evidence you have already uncovered.

“There is implied finesse in selecting drinks that will improve the customer’s affection…”

Once you have exhausted the attendees for the evening, you ring the bell for last service and return home. Here, you use red string to connect potentially related clues to form new evidence. Then, you return to the bar to continue the process anew. Once you have solved the case, you can submit the case to your partner in law enforcement. Each case has a sixteen-day limit, and after you submit your findings, you can either continue to chat with customers or conclude the case. The difficulty of each case feels well-balanced, with some great twists and turns that add to the thrill of the solution. The middle few cases were highlights overall, with both the first and the final cases being let down by being too easy and obvious by comparison.

This gameplay loop remains mostly unchanged for Best Served Cold’s runtime. Although some later wrinkles include customers who open up if they’re in a bad mood or aren’t as inebriated, but these never came up enough to feel particularly relevant. There is implied finesse in selecting drinks that will improve the customer’s affection while getting them tipsy enough for questioning, but this largely boils down to comparing two numbers. Not so drunk they instantly head home, but drunk enough to answer your interrogation.

Shaken not stirred

Making drinks is dead simple but this isn’t a bartending sim. Mixing a cocktail involves pushing an icon along a path with various turns, outrunning another icon chasing after it. You’ll ruin the drink and the customer’s otherwise good vibes if the chasing icon catches up. Playing on a controller, this happened to me only once, deliberately, when it was necessary to continue the investigation. Because of this ease, consider it a pacing mechanism rather than a real mechanic. Instead, it gives you a moment to enjoy the charming sound design and animations of cocktail making. This sadly does become somewhat repetitive in the latter half of the game, especially once you’ve made every drink multiple times. However, your mileage may vary if using a mouse and keyboard.

Additionally, the clue-combining board is a source of particular disappointment. It is perfectly functional, but it does not feel like detective work. Only ‘correct’ connections reveal new information, with incorrect guesses greying out the combination. Initially, I carefully considered which evidence to connect, but I quickly changed tack. Because a lot of evidence overlaps, this meant I needed to connect the ‘correct’ two clues to find a new lead. It was quicker to connect every new detail to each existing piece of evidence until something stuck. This was frustrating because I often knew the implication, but the combination was occasionally elusive. Especially when clues overlapped, brute force became the go-to strategy. Sadly, this firmly does not fulfil the detective fantasy.

“Every case introduces new characters… These were the true stars of the experience.”

It’s ironic, then, that the reason I knew the implication was because of the strength of the writing. While mechanically Best Served Cold left me wanting more, the writing is absolutely the star of this package. Every customer you serve in the 15-hour runtime is dripping with character. While there are certainly murder mystery tropes present in Best Served Cold, it expertly balances genre trappings with subversions. Each patron had a well-defined character, and by the final case (which functions more like an epilogue), I was glad to hear about their plans for the future.

Every case introduces new characters with familiar faces returning throughout the game. These were the true stars of the experience, and even when they had little to say about the ongoing investigation I enjoyed seeing them again. You can grow to like these culprits enough that it’s sad to say goodbye.

Where everyone knows your name

Characters only have a few portraits that they cycle through, but matched with expressive writing, it was easy to become attached to the cast. Each character has an instant sense of self and a well-defined voice. Multiple lines throughout the game made me audibly laugh. I was as invested in the relationships between characters as the grisly murders I was interrogating them about. As the plot thickened, it was just as interesting to see rivalries, romances, and reunions from behind the bar.

One frustrating element of the writing, however, is continuity. Because of the nature of the way you show clues to customers, it is extremely easy to trigger nonsense dialogue. Characters do not remember the information you have told them. For example, if you provide evidence in an order where you exonerate someone, and then discuss a clue that implicates them, whoever you are speaking to does not retain any trigger or marker that changes the latter dialogue. This would be a massive source of scope creep in the writing department, but it stands out amongst the otherwise stellar writing.

Closing time

Break out the reading glasses. There is no voice acting in Best Served Cold. In terms of accessibility, there is a dyslexic font available and an auto-advancement option if you are a speed reader. However, I’d love to see an option to adjust this speed as the pace felt functionally impossible to read. A quick restart fixed the one bug during my playtime, which was a minor audio issue. The sound design and music seamlessly fade into the tapestry of the experience well and set the noir tone effectively. The art direction is also strong overall and the design of the drinks will give you a hankering for a cocktail.

Overall I enjoyed my time with Best Served Cold. A game that doesn’t ask too much of you mechanically, but instead lets you soak in the vibes of a 1920s speakeasy and get right to cracking cases and serving cold ones. While there isn’t a great incentive structure to avoid brute forcing, and some of the cases are on the easier side, I would be remiss not to recommend the Nightcap.

7.5

Good

Positive:

Great character writing and world building
Plenty of twists and turns
Strong artistic direction
Great 1920s noir vibes

Negative:

Mechanically simplistic
Brute forcing cases an easy way to advance
Somewhat repetitive

Best Served Cold is a digestif. A perfect palate cleanser to play after a larger more involved experience. Some elements don’t quite compliment one another, and there is certainly work here to improve the recipe. But these characters and world are strong enough to carry those shortcomings. While it isn’t a perfect cocktail, the writing and world elevate a mechanically simple experience into something narratively fulfilling. If you enjoy murder mysteries, and 1920s vibes, pull up a stool at the Nightcap — stay a while, and soak in the ambiance.