VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, to use its full name, is a narrative game about a futuristic bar "VA-11's Hall-A", known locally as Valhalla. You serve drinks and talk to customers, to learn their stories and piece together the daily struggle of life in the city where the powerless are kept in check by Nano machines. It's unusual not only for the themes and futuristic setting but the vastly branching plot that is determined by how well you remember (and deliver) customer preferences.

In a dystopian futuristic city ruled by criminals, those without power are kept in line by Nano machines placed inside their bodies to track their movements. For some small respite, many turn to drinking away their sorrows. You play Jill, a bartender, who prepares (real-life) cocktails from a selection of recipes. Depending on how each patron reacts to the drink you make them, you unlock more or less of their story and a different amount of money.

The challenge is deciding which cocktail is best suited to which customer, and whether you have the ingredients and methods you need to make them. Remembering each patron's favourite drink and giving them that, perhaps even instead of what they ordered, can lead to them opening up about their life and struggles in the city. However make a drink incorrectly and you get less money and they won't come back as frequently. Entire sections of the story can be missed by not keeping important clients happy, which removes several of the different endings.

The money you earn from selling drinks is used to buy items that can help you work more productively, and pay rent and bills, but there is never enough money to buy everything, forcing you to choose your priorities which further shapes the unfoldng story.

The result is a game which uses its unusual loop of making drinks, listening to customers, and earning money to enable you to explore the lived implications of poverty, oppression, greed and corruption in a new light, while still providing a humorous and experimental gameplay experience.