Spill the Beans is a reverse detective visual novel that we covered last year during the 2024 Steam Next Fest. It’s a game where the world has “cracked open” and resulted in two sides: mystical and human. Your role is the thankless human who is overlooked and underappreciated. You’re also the villain of the tale.
Taking up work at a coffee shop called “The Familiar”, you find the perfect opportunity to further your station in life by stealing the secret recipe they’re known for. You need to get in, steal the recipe, frame someone else for the theft, and return to the human world.
It’s up to you to get to know the cast of characters that haunt the coffee shop and weasel your way into making others believe you when you ultimately point the finger at someone. I loved the demo when we played it, but as a bean person, I struggled with being the villain. Unfortunately, you can’t play from an angle of rainbows and sunshine.
Despite my discomfort at having to learn about these characters and choose who to frame, I remember having a great time and thinking the characters were well-rounded.
Spill the Beans is back on the radar with a Kickstarter campaign to help support their late-stage development phase. Along with this Kickstarter, they’ve dropped a new demo that you can try out that offers even more content with two new evidence routes to explore!
Watch the trailer for Spill the Beans!
By supporting the Kickstarter, you’ll earn rewards for every tier! Whether it’s the lowest tier that gives you wallpapers and emotes, or the larger tiers that let you appear as a background character or receive custom art commissions.
I like that they have a small pie chart that breaks down where your support on the Kickstarter will be focused, including the taxes and the fees that the platform takes. It certainly makes it easier to conceptualize what you’re supporting and how much effort goes into creating a game.
In addition to the rewards, you’ll be helping the funding reach stretch goals. Right now, there are only 3. The first is at the 15k mark for full funding, the next at 20k to add vignettes, and at 25k for additional assets. (Please note that these figures are for British Pounds. For USD, the number for full funding is more like $20k, and I’m bad at math, so I won’t be scaling every number.)
Through the Kickstarter page, we’ve been given a tentative timeframe to look forward to for Spill the Beans’ release: Q2 2027. It feels like a long time to wait, but it’s well worth it for this game to be as good as it can be.
If you’d like to support Skeletal Games in their Kickstarter campaign, they’d greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, you can head over to Steam and try out the newest Demo for Spill the Beans.
