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180 people found this review helpful
22 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 1.4 hrs on record (1.2 hrs at review time)
Posted: 3 May, 2019 @ 6:53pm
Updated: 12 May, 2019 @ 4:05am

Edit: This review applies to the single player experience only. Your mileage may vary if you actually have friends (hot seat or direct connect only).

Imagine a novel. Each chapter takes around 30 minutes to read, is told from the same perspective, involves the same group of six friends, and starts and finishes at the same point in time, each time. The story is told entirely through a series of mostly identical set-piece interactions. Each interaction has illustrations.

Every new chapter includes a few small things that are different. Maybe the main character is interacting a bit more with one friend and a bit less with another friend, but either way much of the dialogue doesn't change regardless. There is no discernible character development.

Now, imagine that after reading a couple of chapters you're starting to get a better idea of who everyone is and their interests. You, the reader, have occasional opportunities to pick one out of two dialogue options and you now have a fair idea of which of the two is the correct choice.

Say a character likes chickens and you have the opportunity to chose an option that gives them a chicken for their birthday. Turns out that the chicken you picked for them is actually a shape shifting changeling that goes on to eat half the guests at the birthday party, putting something of a downer on everyone's evening. (-1 smarts / -2 fun)

How many chapters do you think you would get through before tossing the whole book in and starting something more interesting?

Multiply 30 minutes by the number of chapters you're likely to read before getting bored. This is the amount of game play you can expect to get out of this game.

I made it through three.
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14 Comments
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AngoraFish 11 Oct, 2019 @ 1:45pm 
I think the correct genre is "reverse engineer the underlying Excel spreadsheet". If I went into the game expecting something else that would be the fault of the game's landing page.
Lasnight 11 Oct, 2019 @ 12:54pm 
Youre essentially not wrong in what you said, but I believe you may have gone into this game expecting something else than it was ever intended to be.

Youre right, there isnt much actual story to the game, pretty much no character development, etc. but this isnt a story driven game, that was never the idea. You wouldnt fault something like Tetris or Pacman for lackluster storytelling, and I feel this game (despite being a visual novel, which usually are indeed more narrative focused) falls more into that category as well.

As for the stat problem, if youve played the game a few times, it becomes pretty easy to guess which answers are likely influenced by which stats, even with events you dont know or remember, so if you balance your stats well enough that isnt an issue, nor is it impossible to recover from a bad result.

I can confirm that, yes, this game is a lot more fun when played with friends, but then there arent many things where that isnt the case.
Menabugs 2 Sep, 2019 @ 1:09pm 
I agree with your review. I made it an hour in even though I was bored after one play through. I also played single player and since it's not solely a multiplayer game, I would think there would more to do but it was basically just a short visual novel.
AngoraFish 4 Jun, 2019 @ 2:47pm 
Fair enough, thanks for the explanation. I shall have another play around.
rutheroo 4 Jun, 2019 @ 9:29am 
Not speculating, though I think you've misunderstood me.
You have two options at any point: One might be a smart option, and one might be a bold option. Say, "breed a new super chicken, best gift ever!" or "gift a chicken? pfsh, gift a cockatrice, WAY cooler!"

If you're more smart than you are bold, breeding a super chicken is the "correct" answer. If you're more bold than you are smart, gifting a cockatrice is the "correct" answer.

It's not about repeating things until you guess the correct answer for a particular event (it would be a *terrible* grind of a game if this were the case, because there are hundreds of events), because the wording of the choices will give you a hint what *kind* of choice it is you're making. There is never a predetermined "correct" choice for a route, it is literally solely based on *your* stats in each turn.
AngoraFish 30 May, 2019 @ 3:44pm 
I am unclear why having insufficient stats in an area to pass some completely invisible and obscure stat check would result in you being penalised by taking a further deduction on that already inadequate stat for taking what would otherwise be the 'correct' choice. That's just perverse. Is that really a thing or are you just speculating?

Regardless, either way, it's frustrating and simply rewards repeating events until you've reverse-engineered the underlying algorithms, which seems the opposite of fun to me.
rutheroo 30 May, 2019 @ 7:36am 
The "correct" answers aren't determined per route (ie. "give this character a chicken" *won't* always result in "the chicken eats everyone at the party"), it's determined by your stats. That's why you get the "Not so [smart/charming/creative]" popup when you do get a bad choice. It still might not be the game for you, which is fine! But the mechanics don't work in the particular way you're getting frustrated with them for, which might make future playthroughs more forgiving if you do go back to it.
AngoraFish 28 May, 2019 @ 3:28pm 
Actually, I've let myself get distracted by another comments on individually repeating dialogue choices, which misses the point.

The game could be a stat builder, like Princess Maker, or a story game like Hatoful Boyfriend, but in the end it's neither. The characters go nowhere and the stats are impenetrable other than through trial and error and memorisation.

The only practical way to win the game is by seeing the same dialogue choice come back and remembering the correct choice from the last time.

All that the game is left with is individual set piece jokes that the devs think are far more clever than they actually are.

Obviously, however, get 4 friends in a room with a six pack of beer and some stupidly silly dialogue to criticise, and yeah, you've got yourself a half decent party game.
AngoraFish 28 May, 2019 @ 2:56pm 
The game describes itself as suitable for 1-4 players. Perhaps if it described itself as suitable for 2-4 players your criticism would be fair.

And I did try to achieve a specific outcome, getting lots of repeated events and counter intuitive results along the way. According to some comments this was the wrong way to play since I increased my chances of repetition.

Out of interest, how many hours of boredom do you think one would normally expect to endure before getting to the good stuff?
Squidgepeep 28 May, 2019 @ 10:20am 
You've played 1.3 hours of the single player mode.... trust me, you really haven't experienced much of the game, and definitely not enough to write a good review on the content. I've played through it countless time both with and without people and there is an insane amount of content. The fun isn't just in playing through a story of the same six characters either, it's in trying to achieve certain outcomes, figuring out the puzzles that will get you to certain endings, finding new characters and paths, and one of the most important things - competing and playing with other people. It is a competitive dating sim, so writing a review purely about the single player mode is perhaps a flaw to begin with.