If you want to get me invested in a dialogue-heavy game, there's worse ways to do it than invoking Monkey Island's insult battles. Techno Banter, freshly launched on Steam and GOG from Berlin-based indie outfit Dexai Arts does all that and a bag of chips, riffing off the man-about-town adventuring of the Yakuza series, and channelling the weird, rough-edged universe of Bojack Horseman. Hell of a mix for a game about being a humble Berlin techno club doorman.
Techno Banter is a first-person RPG about Nill, a burly dog-headed guy, back working as the bouncer for the Green Door club after being fired from a cushy corporate security gig. Each night, he stumbles out of his shitty apartment to spend some time chatting with the locals on the streets of alt-universe Berlin before you begin your nightly battle of wills against a procession of would-be club patrons. Eye them up, assess their vibe, and let them through if they seem legit. Or try to turn them away, which initiates a multi-choice battle of banter.
For a game with no real combat (although you can throw the occasional punch if you've got the stats for it), there's a surprising amount going on with Techno Banter's battles. You've got to wear down surly clubbers' morale until they go somewhere else, usually by no-selling their verbal abuse or picking the perfect retort to their insult in timed dialogue challenges. Build up a combo of verbal hits and you can spend that energy on special attacks, either tailored to your opponent's personality type, or just hit them with a rapid-fire string of cutting remarks, most of which are pretty funny if you pick all the right options.
There's a couple light arcade minigames in there too, like dodging pointed stares or mashing buttons to maintain a steely gaze, but nothing too fancy. There's levelling and stats to give each of your verbal strengths a boost, and options to customize the club each night, find Nill new outfits, and tackle side-quests for your co-workers (like helping your bartender write a song in exchange for free drinks), before and after the night's shift. It all feels a bit Yakuza.
Having once worked as a night-shift cabbie ferrying the weirdest of people to and from pubs and clubs from dusk 'til dawn, it all feels weirdly authentic despite this being a satirical cartoon world where animal-people hang out with us regular humans like it's no big deal. There's something about the night that brings out the strangest and most memorable of people, and I'm already developing a fondness for some of the regulars here, wanting to see where their story threads go.
I've only played the first couple nights of Techno Banter, but I'm sure I'm going to see this one through to the end. Beyond the club scene comedy and drama, there's a growing secondary plot about a death cult with possible big-money corporate ties, a checkpointed upper city and political tensions brewing. I have very little idea where it's going with all of this, but I'm excited to find out. And you can now, too. Techno Banter is out now for £11.99/$14.39, and you don't even have to tip the doorman.
