Recent reviews by Bartelmy

What if every quest was a fetch quest? What if combat were a fetch quest? What if life itself were a fetch quest?

I didn't enjoy this game as much as the main games, but I didn't expect to. I was fairly warned by the store page that it was more about the experience and less about gameplay, which is why I waited until it was reduced to 84p. At that price, it was worth it for me.

It is to my sincere regret that I can only play this game for the first time once.

In gameplay terms, it's a lot like the book Cain's Jawbone - you're putting together the narrative by figuring out who said what when. There are also a few other mechanics which couldn't work in a book. It's easier than Cain's Jawbone because of the interface, and because it wasn't written in the 1930s by the maniac who invented cryptic crosswords.

This was one of the first mobile games I ever played. It was way too good to be a mobile game. I'm glad it got ported.

There was a lot about this game that I liked. It was, overall, a cute, quirky, fun game that was quite quick to finish. But, there was also something about it that bothered me, and it took me a while to put my finger on what it was.



First, I need to describe the game. You - a player-insert character with a fully customisable name and appearance - are spending the summer in Verona, California, with your cousin. Yes, this is a Romeo + Juliet reference. You haven't had much dating experience, so this is going to be your hot girl/guy/enby summer. Also, some humans in this world can turn into weapons and you can date them.

Basically, this is a romantic visual novel/dungeon crawler. Like I said, it's quite fun to play. But...none of the datable characters really appealed to me. They were all very 'meh.' I don't care about them, I don't particularly want my character to date them, I don't think they're cute. This is entirely a matter of taste, and someone else might feel very differently.



This does, however, lead me to the other problem which is, this game doesn't really care what you, the player, thinks. Despite positing the main character as being a self-insert, the game assigns them opinions and character traits. Don't want the dagger to kiss you? Tough, she's going to, and your characters reactions will range from 'happy' to 'super happy.' Don't particularly care if the talwar breaks up with you? No, you're wrong, you're heartbroken and your only dialogue choices will reflect that. Want a platonic relationship with the estoc? You don't have to agree to sleep with him, but the game still insists on treating him as a potential romantic partner which is, quite frankly, incredibly surreal placed next to the plot regarding an unwanted admirer. Oh that guy's creepy persistence is a problem but this guy is fine?



Now, I don't have a problem with playing a character who is an actual character. Tbh, I kind of miss it. Most of the games I've been playing recently are self-inserts. But if you're going to give me an actual character to play, don't pretend they're me. Let them just be who they are. Otherwise, I'm just going to feel the incongruity of having words put in my mouth when none of the dialogue choices are things I'd actually want to say.

I got this game in the Pride Humble Bundle, along with several others, so it worked out as costing £1.67. I played it for 13.8 hours, and I can't really say I wouldn't recommend it, especially at that price. What you get out of it will depend on how closely your opinions align with the developers. Someone whose taste or personality is more similar to the lead character probably won't feel the dissonance that I felt.

This game does have a few things to recommend it, but the flaws outweigh the positives.

Firstly, this is not a complete game. Everything about the game mentions 6 love interests, but you can only actually play through 3 routes (and the first chapter of a fourth). While, yes, the store page mentions that 3 routes are incomplete and 'coming soon', that's dwarfed by everything screaming "SIX ROUTES". Don't show me six routes and then tell me I can only play three. Show me three routes and then, surprise, now there's four! That's good news. Showing me six routes (but actually only three!) is bad news. Not least because at least two of them are not expected until 2022.

The other big problem is that the game is, for want of a better word, janky. It's janky. If you uninstall and reinstall - for example, because it's randomly thrown a glitch - your save files get deleted. I mentioned this on the discord chat for the game, and immediately got a "she's just one dev, she's doing her best!". I don't care. I shared not because I thought anything could be done, but because if something happens that makes a player think "this game isn't fun any more" then a dev should know about that. Sure, maybe the dev will decide not to act on that information. There are lots of good reasons someone might decide that. But coming at me trying to convince me to feel sympathy and give the game another chance out of the goodness of my heart....no. Why should I? I'm playing the game to have fun, not to do the dev a favour. I don't care what behind the scenes thing causes errors to happen or makes them hard to fix. Those things aren't my problem. As a player, I play if it's fun and stop playing if it's not.

The other excuse I got was "some games are saved to the steam cloud but this one isn't". Okay, and? I don't know exactly how the behind the scenes stuff works, but I'm pretty sure Steam doesn't just make that decision by itself. That is something that dev has some level of control over. There might be good reasons to avoid it, but acting as if it can't be helped at all is just disingenuous.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that the dev has some fixes in place for things like save files being deleted. There are passwords you can enter in game to completely unlock two routes, so you don't need to replay content you've already played or grind in the "mini game" to unlock them again. The dev will also offer to create special save files to put back things you've lost, like gold and things you've unlocked in the "mini game". Those things aren't good enough when the problem shouldn't be happening in the first place ("but it's a new release and it's only one dev!" stfu, it came out two years ago and, again, I am not playing as a favour to the dev. If something makes the game stop being fun, I'm not going to keep playing no matter how much whining you do). Also, the fact that the dev has all those things in place tells me that she knows it's an ongoing problem. That reminds me. The actual first response I got to my feedback was a fake nicey-nicey "oh you should have asked here [on discord] before doing anything, I could have helped! Can't fix it now!". Really? You think every single player is going to ask the dev on discord before doing something as simple as uninstalling or reinstalling? Or is this just a case of ♥♥♥♥ the people who don't think to do that? Plus, fixing it - as I worked out myself - was as simple as restoring the game from the recycling bin, then copying the save files and completed fashion files to my desktop before uninstalling and reinstalling again and copying just those files back over. No one else thought of that before going straight to "have this fake save file with extra stuff on it!"?

The main reason I don't like the "here, have a fake save file with stuff unlocked!" is that it reframes the problems with the game as me-problems. They're not me-problems. The game is lacking basic functionality. These problems should not arise in the first place. Making individual save files for all the people who bother to get on Discord and tell you about it strikes me as inefficient. Not least because it leaves everyone who doesn't use the Discord or who don't want to share their experience out in the cold. At the very least acknowledge that I am giving you feedback - whether you intend to act on it or not - instead of acting like I'm making a complaint and must be bribed to shut up. I don't want a bribe. Ideally, what I want is to hear "We're working on fixing that issue" followed by "here's how to restore your save file from the recycle bin". Hearing "Oh no poor you uwu here's the exact steps you should have psychically divined to prevent this happening, can I offer you a fake save-file with loads of stuff unlocked but none of the stuff you spent time working on?".

Steam says this is too long, so I'm going to see if I can put the rest in the comments. If not, it will be on my blog.

This game has the same gameplay as Monster Prom and Second Term (and the Yawhg), so if you enjoyed those, you will enjoy this. This game does add some quality of life features over Monster Prom, though. Firstly, in this game, a bar and drinks takes the place of Valerie and the item shop. While Valerie's location and stock were random, Juan's bar is a scheduled event and you can unlock a permanent menu. Basically, you won't need to rely on luck to get the thing you need for a specific plotline. Secondly, the game's gallery keeps track of which events and outcomes you've seen, so if you decide to try for the achievements linked to seeing all of those, it will be easier. For Monster Prom, I think I'd need to either reset my game and see every event and outcome again, or just act like I haven't seen any event or outcome before. I have no way of knowing which ones I've seen, beyond vaguely remembering which ones are familiar. I really hope they add that events/outcome list to Monster Prom. I only have 20-30 events left to view, but with no way of knowing which ones they are, getting them is much harder than it needs to be.

I don't like any of the new characters as much as Vera (I really love Vera), but what I do like is that they're not carbon-copies of characters in the first game. There are occasional similarities but they are all original characters (except the spicy red baby, and he's had some character growth).

Terry, are you out there?

I mastered minesweeper long ago. This is an exciting new challenge. If you like minesweeper. If you don't like minesweeper, you'll hate this, and even if you do, the learning curve is a little steep.

A respectful and beautifully illustrated take on the subject of suicide.

This game is just...really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful. Lots of support for child pornography, confusion over why gay rights or feminism are necessary, lots of outright disgust shown for women, the devs give themselves a personal shout-out from Jesus at the end....My full post is here [http://ryuninadeis.blogspot.com/2020/07/desire-is-♥♥♥♥♥♥-up.html], since Steam ran out of characters, but, in summary; do not buy this game and definitely do not buy it for £7.19 because it has barely three hours of terrible gameplay. Do not pay over £2 an hour to be exposed to this ♥♥♥♥.