I loved Coffee Talk. It was this cute pixelart visual novel where you, as a barista, made brews for different folk who came into your cafe. The endings you received were dependent on how well you made coffee. It was extremely relaxing, and its sequel was just as good, if not better.
The Creative Director of those two games, Mohammad Fahmi, sadly passed away in 2022 whilst in the middle of developing Afterlove EP, a game about grieving lost loves. The remaining team at Pikselnesia took it upon themselves to finish the project, and it was released on February 14th 2025.
So that’s the setup. A game about grief developed by a grieving team. Yeahhhh, this ain’t gonna be a fun time. This game is endured rather than enjoyed, but there’s definitely something compelling about what it has to say, something that maybe people need to hear.
Meet Rama. He’s a cool dude. The frontman of an up-and-coming indie band called Sigmund Feud, and in a relationship with a cute girl named Cinta, he has the world at his feet… until his life is turned upside down. Cinta dies suddenly, and Rama falls into a pit of despair.
A year later, Rama resolves to get the band back together and rebuild his life. Unfortunately, the world as he knows it has left him behind. His band is in turmoil and he is still plagued by the ghost of Cinta. Strangely, her voice lingers in his head and even talks to him.
Will he find the strength of will to reunite Sigmund Feud and take steps to move on with his life? Or is it doomed from the start?
The main gameplay feature of this visual novel is time management. I started Persona 5 once (I didn’t get very far) and it has this concept of being unable to do everything you want to do in a day. Afterlove EP lets you do two activities a day. Most of these you can choose at any time, like trying to rizz up a friend of a friend at a bookshop, busking at a coffee shop, or finding collectible memories in the game, but some are scheduled like band practice. You only have 30 days to do everything you want, so you need to decide carefully.
In my first playthrough, I thought Rama was a douche, so I played him like one. There are three possible romance options you can work towards, and I chose to be an asshat by spending most of my time with Regina, the hot model and ex-girlfriend of Rama’s best friend Adit. You see, Rama’s obsession with his dead girlfriend and his annoying habit of talking aloud to her disembodied voice makes him almost unlikable, so I leaned into it. This eventually led me to a bad ending which was actually pretty comforting. I believe there can be a good ending on that route, but I’ll get to that later.
Band practice brings in the second big mechanic. It’s a rhythm game! The game is pretty simple with a choice of four different buttons to press, but some of the cadences can be a little tricky. You can skip these sequences if that type of gameplay isn’t for you, but I didn’t because the songs were pretty dope.
Near the end of the month, I found myself devoid of interesting things to do in the world. I had come to the end of the romance track (Regina just kept telling me she was busy and she’d see me next month), and I’d found all of the collectible memories that triggered a Cinta and Rama cutscene. What was left was busking, which was dull, or talking to the other spurned romance options to make friends. I felt bad for not speaking to the other two for basically the whole month, so I just left it, but that also left Rama with some empty days.
The art direction is very pretty. It has this manga-like look to it, which is ultra-stylised. I wouldn’t say it’s a simple style because the backgrounds can be detailed, but everything is clear and uncluttered. Readability is important in visual novels, and Afterlove EP does a good job with clarity of fonts and speed of its auto scroll. Thankfully, for multiple playthroughs, you can fast forward through dialogue but, annoyingly, it’s very slow when dealing with Cinta’s dialogue. Even a mostly skipped playthrough will take upwards of three hours whilst a full unskipped run will take around five or six.
Indonesian indie band L’Alphalpha provides the perfect soundtrack for this game. They are the surrogates for Sigmund Feud, Rama’s band, and their songs provide the source material for the rhythm minigames. All of their songs are absolute bops. I probably wouldn’t be interested in seeing them live but they could make it onto my Spotify playlist.
I played Afterlove EP on PlayStation 5 and had a few issues with bugs. There were times where Cinta’s dialogue bugged out, and only a half-second played before skipping to the next line. There are times when you have to reply to text messages, and sometimes, the ability to reply wasn’t there, so I had to restart the day to reset it.
Although I’m not 100% sure, I think the Regina ending I received was incorrect, like some of the decision pathing had some issues. I said I reached the end of all of the interactions with Regina, and I said I found all of the collectibles. Everything else I did seemed supplementary, so I thought I’d at least get a normal ending, if not the best ending, but it wasn’t to be. It could be that I just messed up somewhere but I don’t think so. There was also a scene where I was talking to Regina and she was ruminating about telling Adit together that she and Rama were a thing… but I’d already had that conversation/argument with Adit. It was weird.
Worse still (for a trophy fiend like myself) is that some of the achievements are glitched, making the platinum trophy impossible to obtain at the time of writing. The trophies are for perfect scores on two of the rhythm games, and I’ve definitely done that. Heck, PSN Profiles said 0% of players had these trophies at the time of my completion, which is absurd.
Afterlove EP is an enigma. Its story is engaging, but the main character and his internal voice are annoying as hell. The visuals and soundtrack are great, but it isn’t immune to audio glitches. I found some of the story paths fascinating, but I’m pretty sure my ending was bugged. Plus, some trophies are currently unobtainable on PS5.
However, as a piece of art, this game delivers. Mirroring the grieving process, Afterlove EP is kind of messy. The journey this game takes you on is akin to grieving a loved one. It can be a struggle, but once you’re through, you’ll be a better person for it.
I’m glad I played the final game from Mohammad Fahmi, and the gaming world is going to miss him.
Afterlove EP is out now for all of the consoles and PC right now for around $20.
This sounds so cozy!!