A simple but innovative concept that delivers thanks to dedicated and continued effort and improvement, Tabletop Simulator is the first mainstream product to explore an unique class of customizable simulation in the field of board games. From a basic setup with a floating table and a background, it provides a physics engine capable of simulating intermediate to advanced tabletop dynamics - from solitaire card games to complex RPGs with hundreds of elements. With a lobby system, up to eight players can play virtually any board game imaginable (unless it involves needlessly complex physics or requires unsurmountable space) in multiplayer across the internet.

Tabletop Simulator thrives on one simple concept: To provide the tools necessary for people to be in control of whatever combination of objects that make up the game they want to play, in any way they so desire. The game has no "AI" in the traditional sense, in fact it has no rules or scripting at all. It is a large sandbox that allows you to spawn a table and a background as a foundation for a room, then populate it with you-name-it: Smaller boards for traditional games such as chess, a larger one for hour-long social games, a wide array of pieces, blocks, figurines, dice, markers, the list goes on and on. You can add custom objects easily: Custom 2D pictures can be directly incorporated as game objects on flat templates such as card backs and card holder cards, while more advanced designs allow you to incorporate any three-dimensional object you could possibly make.
With later updates, you can now also add custom tables (limited) and backgrounds.

Once the objects have been spawned into the world, you can interact with them in a variety of useful ways: For card games, an entire subsystem allowing decks to be shuffled, searched, dealt from and kept hidden in pre-placed player zones enables you to perform most standard actions with a breeze. All objects can be grabbed and moved, locked temporarily or permanently in place in any position on the ground or air, raised and lowered, flipped, rotated along every possible axis, thrown or flicked, joined together etc. A variety of miscellaneous actions help with clarification such as an arrow that each player can spawn at their cursor to make sure players are looking at the same thing, a ruler for measuring in-game distances at will, and so on. Hosts and promoted players can easily spawn, duplicate (by Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V none the less) and delete objects at will. And while the signature option to 'Flip The Table' is always present, it never takes longer than a simple Undo to return the entire room to its state a few seconds ago.

Apart from simply interacting with objects, the world itself, as well as any individual object, can be manipulated in gravity, looks, material, opacity and other behaviour - to be experienced for yourself as the variables to be changed here are very limitless.

The game world - that includes all progress - can be saved at any time, and a load will automatically restore everything just the way you left it. Aside from making long complicated games a breeze to pick up at a later time (hugely beneficial compared to many real-life board games) this is also the main (and only) way you can publish your creations at the Steam Workshop - you simply save everything you want in one file that is then published as a game mode - including all custom objects you include with it, in exactly the position you left every item, down to their names and physics settings.

Every single object or collection of objects - custom or not - can be saved separately as well. These go to a player's custom 'Chest' inventory, which is account bound. If the player has host permissions, he can spawn any object saved here (in addition to all the objects included with the base game, obviously) to the shared world. By storing frequently-used objects in chests, you can spawn them in any world and make your own hilarious crossover modes, custom player figurines or whatever, only limited by your creativity. This is also a much faster way of accessing certain objects you need rather than having to open a new mode entirely, which both resets everything and usually takes some time to load.
With a recent update, Tabletop Simulator now supports loading partial objects from gamemodes, and many experienced Workshop authors now store load-heavy objects (such as card decks) in the bags that are included with the base game so that they can be loaded on a per-use basis after the world itself has finished loading. Speaking of which, the game also provides a old-school (alarm) clock that beeps when you tap it (for time-keeping), recently an object-based Notepad for scattered variable-keeping (in addition to the external Notepad from Early Access), a simulated tablet(!) that can access webpages and e.g. provide you with custom music from YouTube or whatever.

Developer Updates and Steam Workshop
I've moved this section to the comments since I apparently reached some character limit for reviews (WTF). Please read it there.

There is no story. Period. It's a simulator and it does what a simulator should. Still a better story than Twilight many less serious simulators are awkwardly trying to tell.

The base tables and backgrounds are assets that serve mostly as foundation, and are not especially aesthetically appealing. However, your focus should be on the board itself, on which every object is as lifelike as you make them. All items from the base game are perfectly modelled and the Workshop provides loads of custom additions, good and bad alike. The game does suffer from performance issues thanks to its very realistic handling of each individual object, but this is negligible in all but the largest scenarios.

The objects have very smooth and lifelike sounds when connecting with each other or the board, reflecting their size, type and material which is of course also customizable to an extent.
There is no music. You can incorporate some with the Tablet object if you so desire. They added a fancy opening cutscene when you start the game but it feels awkward.

Tabletop Simulator is the overall go-to solution if you want to play any imaginable board game (with very few exceptions) with friends over the internet, in a perfect environment with full control over everything and several benefits compared to the real-life alternative. It is best suited for card games and traditional style turn-based board games, though it also supports lesser physics-based games quite well. You have to handle all the details yourself (just as you would in real life) as there is no script support. You'll have to pay for the simulator, but then you get to immerse yourself in a world of almost endless entertainment whenever you feel like it (and can convince some friends to join you).


Gameplay: 9/10
Story: N/A
Graphics: 8/10
Media: N/A

Overall: 9/10

Studio Élan (and former Studio Coattails) is a fusion of amazing writers and voice actors and other fantastic talents, producing unique quality works of magical worlds, endearing characters and wholesome romance, getting better and better with every iteration. Heart of the Woods immediately became one of my all-time favourite VNs, and I can safely say that Please Be Happy easily beats it. Can we also take a moment to appreciate that absoutely insane (at this time of writing, not counting this review) 99.3% positive reviews rating, quite possibly the highest I've ever seen on Steam and beating every other game in the all-time top charts!

In my opinion, great people have stood on each other's shoulders for a decade and refined storytelling & VN strengths to create increasingly better and more fluent, touching, wholesome titles with great characters and ambience, and this is just the beginning.

Mechanically a fairly simple VN engine with modern quality of life. Save slots sufficient for frequent use. It offers easy access to specific scenes for revisiting, full time travel logging for jumping backwards during scenes, runs as borderless fullscreen, shows OST titles as they play, customised voice settings for all characters and cute audio excerpts for menu buttons, unlockable extras for images/music and credits.

Furthermore, the menu is structured as navigating an open book complete with adequate bookmark text summaries for every new scene, completely fitting both the narrative and overall theme (though occasionally providing accidental spoilers if you happen to open the menu at the beginning of a scene).

Branching is mainly done through two major splits for the latter two chapters as well as a very minor subpath for each of these, governed by a very limited amount of choices throughout the entire game (about five in total). Other than that, there are three cute side stories to be unlocked parallel to the main plot, of which two are obtainable per playthrough. These are handled by a map system where you choose destinations during free time. However, this system feels disappointingly like an afterthought as it mostly makes it blindingly obvious where to go or contains weak filler, which is a shame considering its potential.

Please Be Happy is a heartwarming urban fairytale with casually interwoven fantasy elements, set in a modern society with a subpopulation of naturally integrated mythological, mostly human creatures, supplying a backstory to a fictional world closely resembling our own. I would love to see more stories taking place in this setting! This allows for various magic to aid the plot and for protagonists with more vivid backgrounds.

The characters are introduced in natural ways slowly uncovering their quirks, personality and flaws through a first person perspective, gradually progressing the story at a pace that manages to constantly add just a little more curiosity and warmth to the interactions to keep the reader going, elevating seemingly mundane conversations to meaningful levels of trying to decipher each character's actions and behaviour, throwing in vital drama and plot points at the right moments. The depth of the story from the onset shows that despite marketed as a yuri novel, it shines foremost as a wholesome slice-of-life "coming-of-age/new adult" (my research shows these terms are hotly contested) fantasy with romance sprinkled on top, with a lot of familial love in the mix as well.

Despite its mixed execution in terms of branching mechanics as mentioned earlier, it deserves great praise for its consistency across paths. Whereas most VNs resort to almost twisting reality based on player choices, decisions in Please Be Happy actually feel like they are only affecting what they should, and creating long-term consequences only through clear chains of causality. Though a bunch of minor cliffhangers are left unresolved, there are no apparent plot holes.

So how good is the story, then? It's so good that I'm getting moved multiple times in between subplots. It's so good that it makes me realize uncomfortably well how bad my own life is, yet provides a tiny message of positivity, care and hope. It's so good that I knew I would feel a hole in my heart when I inevitably finished it, delaying my final plays and taking breaks between scenes to make the experience last longer. It's quite good.

Super solid across the board. The use of predominantly bright colours adds to the overall theme of positivity, bringing the scenery to life both in the sprawling urban streets, the main interior buildings, and the hills, forests, parks and waterfront surrounding the city. The amount of backgrounds are largely unique.

The characters are beautifully drawn in high resolution with modern animation for natural speech, expressions, blinking and common poses. Every single character (with just one exception) is voiced and has multiple sprites to go with them.

Cutscene drawings mix up multiple different drawing styles by presumably a variety of different artists, which promotes diversity at the cost of some drawing consistency.

If story is the heart of the VN, then the audio is the soul. With beautifully composed OST by Sarah Mancuso synchronised with the plot beats and strong theme melodies for the protagonists, there's feeling in every step of the journey.

I really easily admire all of the talented voice actors in the industry, and this title just proves it further! Characters are powerfully brought to life; protagonists are provided with unique quirks in their manner of speech and accents, and even the occasional hiccups (intentional?) sound perfectly natural. Side characters all get plenty of love and having this completeness is just so important in bringing the whole world to life.

Finally, I must praise the main voice more - this is the first time I've encountered Dottovu and I'm already fanboying over here and tracking down more upcoming works. She not only adds to adorably tugging the heartstrings throughout the game, but plays an entire melody - namely, singing the icing on the cake, the ending theme, which you'll have the pleasure of hearing at least four times during playthroughs (unless you skip... but why would you?!) Like in classics such as the To The Moon series, I consider a powerful, reflective song an amazing finale to an already great story.

At first glance, Please Be Happy seems like your above average run-of-the-mill yuri romance novel, but don't be fooled! This is a potent all-time masterpiece with storytelling in focus, and I will without hesitation recommend it not just to people who enjoy yuri content, but to everyone that appreciates an amazing, wholesome, heartfelt fairytale, which also happens to have ladies falling in love and kissing (and nothing beyond that).

As previously mentioned, I believe this is only the beginning for great works to come for Studio Élan, and I will be stalwartly following them.

So get out there and immerse yourselves in the company of the lovely cast and the main character, who... is very pleasant... but for some reason, I'm having trouble recalling their name and appearance...
Oh well, another playthrough should probably fix that!!


Gameplay: N/A
Story: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Media: 10/10

Overall: 9/10