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Watch trailer on Steam ↗Death Before Decaf
Overdose Interactive · Published by Overdose Interactive · Official site ↗
10 achievements
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
Auto-combat roguelite. Your caffeine meter is the whole game — too little kills you, too much kills you faster. Three floors, one boss. 20 minutes. Don't crash.
Early AccessDJCTQ 10
£4.59
Lowest price we've ever recorded
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£4.59
Price history
5 Sept 2026Lowest: £4.59 · Highest: £4.598 Oct 2026
Action, Indie, Early Access · 2026 · More under £5 games
About this game
[h1]Auto-combat roguelite. Your caffeine is the resource. Too much is also fatal.[/h1]
DEATH BEFORE DECAF is a 20–35 minute roguelite where combat runs itself and everything else is your problem.
That "everything else" is one thing: your caffeine meter.
Coffee items drop as you fight. Every item tempts you to drink more. Every drink risks pushing you over the edge. The optimal play state is always the edge of disaster.
Every 60–90 seconds you level up: choose 1 of 3 upgrades. No aiming — combat is automatic. All skill lives in caffeine management and build decisions:
You are Mira Volta — a fired barista fighting her way up a corporate tower in a city that has run on coffee instead of sleep for sixty years. The enemies are made of espresso and bad workplace decisions. The final boss called a mandatory meeting. You are not on the agenda.
Every environment is hand-illustrated in dark café-gothic style — bold flat cartoon illustration, clean ink outlines, amber espresso light against cold blue. Mira's portrait changes as the run wears on. She looks ready when she enters. She looks different when she doesn't make it out.
Wishlisting is the correct choice. Your doctor disagrees. Trust yourself.
DEATH BEFORE DECAF is a 20–35 minute roguelite where combat runs itself and everything else is your problem.
That "everything else" is one thing: your caffeine meter.
The caffeine system — the whole game
Coffee items drop as you fight. Every item tempts you to drink more. Every drink risks pushing you over the edge. The optimal play state is always the edge of disaster.
- Crash (0–20%): Slow, weak, vision tunneling. You are losing.
- The Drag (21–49%): Functional but fading. Drink something.
- The Zone (50–80%): Peak performance. Move faster, hit harder. This is where runs are won.
- The Jitter (81–99%): Massive damage output, expensive mistakes.
- Overdose (100%): Six seconds of god-mode. Then a crash that ends runs.
Every 60–90 seconds you level up: choose 1 of 3 upgrades. No aiming — combat is automatic. All skill lives in caffeine management and build decisions:
- Which coffee items to drink and when
- Which upgrades to stack
- Whether that espresso shot is worth the overdose risk right now
Three floors. One very bad day.
You are Mira Volta — a fired barista fighting her way up a corporate tower in a city that has run on coffee instead of sleep for sixty years. The enemies are made of espresso and bad workplace decisions. The final boss called a mandatory meeting. You are not on the agenda.
- Floor 1 — The Extraction Level: Where the city's caffeine supply used to be made. Now it makes enemies. Compacted steamed milk with espresso cores. There are a lot of them.
- Floor 2 — The Break Room: The espresso machine became a god. The walls are wet. Temperature: slightly too warm.
- Floor 3 — The Executive Suite: Cold. Clean. The managers who ran this floor pushed espresso theory past its limits and didn't come back.
A hand-illustrated world that runs on caffeine and bad decisions.
Every environment is hand-illustrated in dark café-gothic style — bold flat cartoon illustration, clean ink outlines, amber espresso light against cold blue. Mira's portrait changes as the run wears on. She looks ready when she enters. She looks different when she doesn't make it out.
Early Access — What's in right now
- Full 20–35 minute roguelite core loop
- 3 biomes with distinct enemy sets and environmental hazards
- 5 character builds with unique caffeine metabolism profiles
- 50+ upgrades across weapons, caffeine passives, and stat modifiers
- Loot with affixes, a stash, and loadouts that carry between runs
- A full skill tree: ~30 nodes, 5 build-defining keystones, free respec — grounds earned in runs convert to XP
- The Director boss fight (3 caffeine-mechanic phases)
- Full death variety — overdose, crash, and the classic HP-zero defenestration
Planned for 1.0
- 2 additional bosses
- Endless mode (post-20-minute survival gauntlet)
- Daily run challenges
- Expanded enemy roster per biome
- Full localization (EN, DE, PT-BR, KO, JP)
Wishlisting is the correct choice. Your doctor disagrees. Trust yourself.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
Minimum:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5-4460 / AMD FX-6300
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 460 (OpenGL 3.3+)
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- Additional Notes: 4 GB RAM · 500 MB Storage
Recommended
Recommended:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8700 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 580
Supported Languages
English*
*languages with full audio support
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
The Tree Grows
We have been quiet. We have not been idle. v0.3 "Tree" is live. It is the biggest structural change since EA launched — not a patch, not a polish pass. A full skill tree. Four branches. Keystones that change the rules, not just the numbers. Free respec between runs. Death Before Decaf is now a build-crafting game. Everything before this was a prototype. This is the game. --- The Skill Tree: Four branches. GUILD — Mastery doctrine. Damage scales with investment. Every node costs something; every hit proves it was worth it. The Guild measures lethality in output-per-second and nothing else. ROASTED — Overdose is not a condition to avoid. The Roasted faction treats the Crash as a resource. Nodes here shift how caffeine behaves at the edge. Soren knew this. The notes are in the back. DECAF — Running low is not failure. Nodes here scale with scarcity: falling below threshold unlocks modifiers that make the last few sips the most dangerous. The Collective has been operating on empty for years. They are very fast. CORE — Foundational modifications that do not belong to one philosophy. Including one that rewrites how the meter works entirely. Keystones (build-defining nodes) Each branch contains keystones — deep nodes that change the rules, not just the numbers. Double Pull (Guild) — Weapons fire twice per trigger. Caffeine cost doubles. Decaf Protocol (Core) — Caffeine locked at 50%. Overdose and Crash disabled. In exchange: permanent +40% damage, +30% speed. Soren's Grace (Roasted) — The Crash no longer kills. Instead it triggers a reset: caffeine snaps to 50%, Overdose bonuses fully active. Repeatable. The Last Drop (Decaf) — Below 20% caffeine: abilities cost nothing, double damage. Above 20%: everything costs more. The Extraction Mandate (Guild, deep) — No passive regeneration. Every kill restores caffeine. Only the kill. Also in v0.3 Rank-fill rings — nodes display as rings that fill as you invest. Your progress is visible. Free respec — reset your tree completely bet...Read full article on Community Announcements (hello)Patch NotesOfficial
v0.3 "Tree"
NEW A full skill tree: ~30 nodes across 4 rings, 5 build-defining keystones. Grounds earned per run now convert to XP — spend it however you brew. Free respec, anytime: try any build without losing progress. CHANGED Meta-progression now carries across runs. Your v0.2 saves migrate automatically to the new tree. FIXED Stash sort no longer resets on extract.Read full article on Community Announcements (hello)Patch NotesOfficial
Death Before Decaf — v0.2 "First Drop
Death Before Decaf — v0.2 "First Drop" Release date: 2026-06-08 · Steam EA branch What's new Loot drops + affixes — the actual roguelite layer The Undergrinds now drop gear when enemies die. 25 distinct affixes across four rarities power them. Equip up to 5 items per run; affixes stack into raw stat budget. Build identity finally matters. 14 Common affixes — bread-and-butter modifiers (Coarse Grind, Thick Foam, Light Roast, Steam Pressure…). Each rolls a single stat boost. 6 Rare affixes — Pressurized, Cracked Filter, Audit-Proof, Resilient Foam, Concentrate Residue, Pressurized Reserve. Roll with two stats. 5 Epic affixes — Dead Man's Espresso, Cryo Drip, Blackout Roast, Iron Filter, Siphon Protocol. Three-stat rolls, run-defining. Legendary tier lit up — multi-affix drops with unique modifiers, reserved for elites and bosses. All affixes drop on every slot — Tamper, Pitcher, Pull, Armor, Utility. The painted sprite a procedural item shows is mapped semantically per (slot, affix) — Cracked Filter on a tamper actually looks cracked, Foam affixes on a pitcher show the foam pitcher, Pressurized affixes show the reinforced one. Stash + Loadout UI Stash modal (TAB in-run, or Break Room) — full painted sprites per drop, rarity-colored cards, slot tabs, affix-derived description text. Every item shows its actual stat contribution. HUD loadout strip — 5-slot row above the weapon strip. Shows equipped item painted sprites with rarity-colored borders. Pickup toast — top-left when you grab a drop. Big enough to read mid-fight, 6-second display, painted icon, rarity color, TAB-to-equip hint. Achievement toast — same size as pickup toast for visual symmetry on the right side. Achievement icons — the real ones, not placeholders The comic-style achievement art that was generated months ago is finally shipped: 10 registered achievements now ship with their proper painted icons in-game and on Steam. Rarity palette — consistent across every screen Loot rarity colors now match across...Read full article on Community Announcements (hello)Patch NotesOfficial
v0.1.1 — Brand New Art, Smoother Runs
The Art Refresh Update We rebuilt the entire visual layer of Death Before Decaf. New Mira. New Director. New weapons. New office props. New caffeine gauge. Plus a stack of fixes you've asked for. NEW ART Mira — fully repainted from idle to attack to her victory pose. The Director — boss got the same treatment, all three phases. 30 new office obstacles — desks, plants, cabinets, vending machines, lamps. Each biome now has its own set, with proper size variation so a plant doesn't look like a conference table. All 5 starter weapons repainted — Espresso Pistol, Latte Launcher, Cold Brew Cannon, Macchiato Mortar, Decaf Shotgun. 7 pickup items freshly drawn — coffee cup, cold brew bottle, energy drink, IV drip, health kit, black-market espresso, double-shot. Victory screen — defeated Director and triumphant Mira side-by-side. NEW HUD Brand new caffeine gauge with a moving needle and color-coded zones. You can finally read it. Live damage multiplier readout — see at a glance whether your caffeine level is helping or hurting your DPS. Bigger, cleaner level + XP bar up top. Portrait swaps states cleanly — combat, low health, overdose, defeated, victory all read instantly. FIXES Director kill no longer freezes the game when a level-up triggers at the same time. Pause-menu "Leave Run" and victory-screen "Break Room" no longer crash with a viewport error. Mira and enemies now face the direction they're moving. Item pickups no longer spawn as giant 500-pixel coffee cups blocking the screen. Enemy HP bars clear instantly on kill instead of lingering as a red sliver. Energy Drink pickup shows the correct icon on the loadout screen. XP bar caps display at 100% instead of overflowing past the screen. Foam Golems, Macchiato Mages, The Shot, Decaf Specters — no more weird color tints. Their lib art shows as intended. UNDER THE HOOD Trimmed 268 lines of dead code from the HUD path. Stripped the legacy AnimatedSprite2D fallback on 6 enemy scenes — EnemySprite4 is now the only renderer....Read full article on Community Announcements (hello)
