LOVECHOICE

It seems to me that the fact that you need to work on the relationship between lovers (especially after the candy-bouquet period ends and the first, blind love goes away), compromise and try to listen to each other – well, they know about all this and heard even by those who have never been in a relationship. Nevertheless, the authors of LoveChoice decided to give a visual educational program on this topic in the format of a very unusual and interesting visual novel – it’s only a pity that the conclusions they come to turned out to be somewhat one-sided.

Player cover
Scenes from married life
LoveChoice consists of three stories. The first available one, which is also the most relevant for us, is about how a guy and a girl involved in the development of video games met and met. Or rather, playing as a guy, we must do everything right in order to get to know each other first, and then so that we are not abandoned after three years. The conclusion of what exactly to do, as I said, turned out to be somewhat one-sided – exclusively to please the soulmate.

A game about love in a game about love.
And if you can’t argue with the fact that in the candy-bouquet period you really need to choose the right films and restaurants, studying the interests of the girl, listening to her, blowing dust particles from her and so on, then you have to put up with dirt in further relationships , which she breeds in the apartment, clean everything herself and be for her a silent pillow / vest, in which she cries with or without reason, hoping that you will only silently listen, calm and not annoy her with questions – with this I would argued. However, everyone has their own experience and their own way.

And what would you do in such a situation?
The second story looks a little more non-trivial. It is about how to keep love at a distance. The characters are a girl from a big city who loves listening to classical music and playing the piano since childhood, and a boy from the outback who loves to understand the mechanisms in his father’s workshop. Who is definitely not a couple, but it so happened that they began to study together, became friends. And some feelings even seemed to arise between them – especially after she taught him how to play the piano together.

Then, as usual, she returned to the big city to study music, then completely left the country to continue her studies and perform at concerts. But he stayed. However, they regularly corresponded and called back, and then they began to communicate on the Internet (it takes place at the beginning of the 2000s) – common interests were more or less preserved. But in the end, she decided not to return to her homeland – and our actions determine whether we can convince her to return.

The music connected them!
The third story is the most unusual. She is already talking about a husband and wife, where she suspects her husband of infidelity and begins a whole investigation. But in the end, everything ends unexpectedly in the best way for her. And the most touching thing is that in this story the heroes are recognized first, that is, the plot happily goes in cycles. If, of course, we did everything right.

Even visually, the third story is the most beautiful – but also the most unrealistic.
The heroines of all three plots in LoveChoice, in fact, do not need to do anything for this happy ending. The game, one gets the impression, was created by girls for girls, so that they would at least virtually fulfill their fantasies about a prince on a white horse who will always understand, forgive and clean up after you, then, shedding tears, they wrote about how cute it all is. If it was an ordinary dating sim, where a man exclusively courts and achieves, then there would be no questions. And here it seems to be a game that is trying to talk about more serious, vital things – about relationships. And in real life, everything is a little more complicated than the simple formula “I am a prince – you are a princess, and everything is for you!”.

But what about his feelings?
Love all ways and genres are submissive
However, we are not dealing with ethics and psychology of family life here, but we are evaluating the game. And from this point of view, LoveChoice really deserves praise. Firstly, the stories themselves, if we leave out the passivity of girls in these relationships, are well written – they are quite vital, relevant and touching, and the characters are recognizable and realistic. These are stories and people from our lives. They binge watch five episodes of Netflix and talk about Warcraft III in 2005, chat on Twitter and Instagram, listen to shared music, and want to make games about love. Well, they want to love themselves.

And they dream and grieve. By the way, there is an album with gradually unlocked art.
Secondly, there is a non-trivial gameplay for visual novels. For example, compared to most similar projects, where we basically click on the text and select actions / cues, LoveChoice has much more interactivity. While a girl writes something to you in the chat, you can click on her twitter, scroll through the feed, find out about tastes and the latest news in her life – very useful when preparing for a date.