Paradise Café

About

Paradise Café is a 1985 ZX Spectrum simulator built around chaotic, player-driven choices. You wander a city street where random doors lead to unpredictable scenarios. Enter the Paradise Café to trade drugs, buy weapons, or spend cash on questionable interactions. A prostitute offers paid options with no money resulting in a violent penalty. Random encounters include an old lady you can attack for points, a thief you might shoot or be robbed by, and a cop who checks your wallet, lose it and it’s jail time. The game ends with a crude final screen. What stands out is its bold subject matter, blending drug deals, violence, and adult content in a way that defied norms for 1980s gaming. Released only in Portugal, it became the country’s most iconic ZX Spectrum title thanks to its notoriety. With no mercy for poor decisions and a focus on raw, controversial fun, it’s a relic of early sandbox experimentation that still sparks debate.

Storyline

The main character moves along a city street where random doors open, leading to different settings. One of them is the titular Paradise Café where our character can spend some time and drink, buy and sell drugs for profit or buy a pistol. Another one opens to reveal a prostitute that invites the character in and asks him to choose from a list of sexual acts. All acts are paid, if the player has no money, he will get r**** by a male character as a punishment. There are also three characters that show up randomly: An old lady shows up at random, if the player has a pistol, they can r*** her, which attributes 10 points to the final score. A thief shows up occasionally, sometimes he asks for a lighter but may also try to rob the player. If the player shoots him, he can avoid being robbed, otherwise he will lose everything including his wallet. A policeman shows up once in a while asking to the see the player's documents, if the player doesn't have his wallet, he will be sent to prison. The game over screen shows the player "pleasing" himself.