The Cabernet demo provides a bite of something delicious

destructoid.com:

If you check my profile on any number of the dating sites I’m listed on, you’ll find I have some very specific criteria for my perfect match: non-smoker, no kids, vampire (demons and werewolves acceptable).

Gosh, I’m lonely.

So, it’s no surprise that Cabernet has attracted me to take a bite. It’s a unique narrative game set at the end of the 19th century where you get to play as a newly turned vampire trying to navigate high society. I know exactly where I’d navigate to.

In any case, Party for Introverts has released a demo alongside the Steam Visual Novel Fest, which gives me a chance to see if Cabernet has the bite I’m looking for.

You play as Liza, who has the good fortune of waking up dead in a spooky basement. She finds her way out of the depths and into the pleasant company of a bunch of bluebloods. After a quick wardrobe change, she learns that she’s a vampire. Rad, but it’s a lot to take in all at once. Rather than panic, she goes and mingles to learn about her new affliction through polite conversation.

The demo for Cabernet is teasingly short, but it lays out the basic concepts extremely well. Starting with your funeral, you’ve given points to put into four fields: Science, history, art, and literature. Having sufficient knowledge in any of these fields opens up dialogue options and other actions that affect how things progress. While proceeding through the game, you’ll gain experience. When you level up, you can put more points into these fields. Likewise, you can sit down with a good book, and at the cost of a chunk of a day, you can learn a bit more about those topics.

There’s also a good/evil dichotomy in the form of humanity and nihilism you get by either showing sympathy or just by being a prick. You also