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Paradise Café

Experiment

A browser remaster of Damatta's 1985 ZX Spectrum game, made as a surprise for childhood friends.

The Paradise Café title screen: a pink and violet neon sign over the café's tiled front at night, above the line “Uma noite em Lisboa. Tu decides.”

About the experiment

Paradise Café is a remaster of the 1985 ZX Spectrum game by Damatta, made as a surprise for childhood friends. It keeps the original's cast, situations and one-liners, and redraws them in modern pixel art: a neon-lit 1980s Lisbon with a little of the mood of an old loading screen.

One run is one night out. You walk the street, make quick decisions as people step out of doorways, and the café is where the night keeps coming back to. Uma noite em Lisboa. Tu decides.

Like the original, its humour is for grown-ups, kept cheeky rather than explicit. The game is in Portuguese, and its music and sound effects are synthesised live, with no recordings.

Credits

The original Paradise Café is by Damatta (1985). This remaster is an homage, in the title screen's own words: Homenagem a Damatta, 1985.

Screenshots

  • The hero walks a neon-lit 1980s Lisbon street, past lit windows under a full moon
  • The end of the night: “Amanheceu”, home with the sun, with the night's money and points