Other Age

Author: Zeiva

Availability: Free, Online/Browser

Format: Dating Sim

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: Everyone

My Score: 3 out of 5

Found at: www.DeviantArt.com

Summary:

Other Age casts you as a princess in some kind of magical, far-away kingdom. It's your sixteenth birthday, and tradition dictates that it's now time for you to find a suitor. To help you with this, Chancellor Nitarou has created the Luv Luv Nitarou Deluxe!!!

Review:

First of all, let me say that the art in this game is absolutely gorgeous. It has a strong anime/manga influence, which may please some and repel others. Even so, the level of detail and quality is mind blowing; the characters and backgrounds are beautifully drawn, the title screen has little lights that gently float across it, and heck, even the buttons and the loading screen are cute! To top it off, the player avatar is animated, and some of the characters even blink! Truly, the art alone makes this game worth a play-through.

The writing itself is fair. Like My Cup of Tea, the author has based the game on characters from her other original works (In this case, her other games). The premise has a nice sense of fantasy to it, and there is also a bit of humor and occasional fourth-wall breaking. Where it begins to lose points is the English.

Go ahead and call me a Grammar Nazi; maybe I am. But, from early on I got the feeling that English is not Zeiva's first language. Oh, it's readable, don't worry about that; but little things like missing "the"s or s's, and words or phrases that just aren't quite right somehow, make it a bit awkward and disrupt the game's spell.

Also, while I appreciate the author's use of original characters, I feel it could be somehow handled better. If, like me, you play Other Age without first playing Zeiva's other games, then you'll spend much of the game barely knowing these characters at all. Since the format of this game doesn't really allow for relationship-building as much as the others, the suitors tend to remain nearly perfect strangers. There is an epilogue for each character that gives a nice sense of who they are, but personally, I think there needs to be a bit more build-up beforehand. You may disagree.

The one thing that truly sinks the game's score, though, is the game-play itself. All you need to know about the game-play can be summed up thusly: The game itself is free. The Strategy Guide costs money.

Other Age doesn't follow the typical Dating-Sim format; it's basically half personality quiz and half mini-game. This in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, my hatred of minigames aside. However, this game is - to borrow the phrase - Nintendo Hard. First, you must input a certain pattern of answers into the Luv Luv Nitarou Deluxe in order to get a certain suitor (and most of the combinations result in an individual that must be gotten rid of). Then, you must say the right things to persuade him to date you, and then choose a dating location out of 5 possible sites. Only 1 site will interest him, and you only have 2 chances to guess correctly. Finally, each dating site is a minigame, which of course must be won or you shall end in failure.

My main complaint is that most of the answers in this game are too unintuitive. I'm fairly certain that I've gotten the same character after feeding conflicting data into the machine on other playthroughs, and often it takes multiple playthroughs just to figure out what to say to a person and where to take them. Worse still, any single mistake made at any point will end the game and force you to start from the beginning. With few exceptions, the game is both unreasonable and unmerciful.

So what's the verdict, then? I think Other Age is both frustrating and somehow addictive. Its sense of beauty overrides the often frustrating gameplay. Frankly, I'm surprised that I didn't end up scoring it much higher, and once you play it, you may end up deciding that I've been too harsh in some of my judgements.

My Cup of Tea

AKA The Love Dating Sim for Girls

Author: Kathleen Lieu
Availability: Free, Online/Browser
Format: Dating Sim

Genre: Summer Romance
Rating: Everyone
My Score: 2.5 out of 5

Found At: http://www.nummyz.com/

Summary:

In My Cup of Tea, you play as 17 year old Sara Biea Affen. As the game itself states, "17 yr old Sara thinks she is silly and plain... Will Sara get a honey before the end of summer and the start of senior year? You have 30 days to help her!"

Review:

Let's start with the art: My Cup of Tea is supposedly drawn entirely with a mouse. Drawing with a mouse, a teacher once told me, is like drawing with a bar of soap. As such, the art in My Cup of Tea takes a hit. There's an unpolished, unprofessional look to it; however, it also possesses a certain charm and cuteness. Personally, I get a kick out of the chicken that appears when she sleeps. Also, bonus points for having the "sleeping Sarah" art change after certain amounts of days have gone by; it helps give the game a sense of motion, although admittedly, it's kind of odd to see Sarah thinking "Boys, Boys, Boys!" when in the process of working the lesbian option.

As for the writing: Apparently, the characters from the game are based on the author's own original stories. Given that many dating sims on the internet are simply built around seducing a popular Anime character (Naruto Dating Sim, I'm looking at you), it's refreshing to see such a high dose of originality. That said, there's a certain level of flatness to the characters; 3 out of the 4 suitors basically boil down to The Surfer, The Bisexual Guy, and The Lesbian Option. There are a few bits of trivia - a sister's name here, a favorite book there - but there's some substance lacking. I blame the sparseness of the dialogue, which brings us to...

The Game Play: My Cup of Tea has a simplicity to it, which is good for people new to the genre. Best of all - and I could kiss the author for this - NO MINIGAMES!!! Though, actually, that may not be *entirely* accurate; there are some points in the game where you can play dress-up. However, it's avoidable (you have to actively choose to do it), has no impact on game-play, and I actually find it an amusing diversion. So kudos for that.

While the game is simple, though, it also gets repetetive to the point of being frustrating. The dialogue is very sparse, and characters will repeat themselves several times, which makes it hard to peg exactly where you stand with this person. There's no real indicator for when the relationship is complete, so unless you know what numbers to watch for on the XP, you could quit too soon and miss that character's best ending.

Other frustrating bits are the gift system and the quizzes (called Impress so-and-so). Each suitor has a list of three gifts you can offer them, but they will only like two of them. This creates an unpleasant surprise when you finally earn enough for something expensive, only to have your gift rebuffed. As for the quizzes; there's a reason I prefer clickable multiple-choice options to having to type into a box. When you have to type and submit, too much can go wrong. I must have typed every possible permutation of the surfer's band name - with a The, without a The, spelled right, spelled wrong - and it never took. To this day, I still don't know what answer it wanted, or if it was just broken.

So, when all is said and done, I give My Cup of Tea a 2.5. Word on the net is that this is the author's first dating sim, and if that's true, it's a very good first attempt. However, I find it to be a mediocre game over all. It's a cute way to pass the time, but once you finish, you may or may not wish to replay; which is a shame, since replay value is what puts dating sims and other multi-ending games over the other genres. But even so, it's still worth checking out at least once. And who knows? You might just find that it's your cup of tea. ;)

Wonderland Days Sim Date

Author: Pacthesis

Availability: Free, Online/Browser
Format: Dating Sim

Genre: Fantasy / Literature
Rating: Everyone
My Score: 4 out of 5

Found At: http://www.newgrounds.com/

Summary:
In Wonderland Days Sim Date, You play as Alice, who may or may not be the original Alice of Wonderland fame. It's implied in one ending that the book by Lewis Carroll is a separate entity. Anyway, It's your birthday, and when your cute childhood friend goes to fetch your present, you end up following a rabbit down a hole and landing in Wonderland. It turns out the hole is a portal that only opens once a month, so you're basically stuck chilling in a beautiful setting surrounded by cute characters until the big dance at the end of the month. Oh woe is you. ;)

Review:
Of all the dating sims I've ever played, this is the best by a far cry. The art is clean and excellent by internet standards, and I'm in love with how Pacthesis handled the writing. Other than "You must find a date in x days", the game contains an overarching storyline of which each character holds a piece. One character will tell you more about what's going on and how you got there, but even he doesn't know everything about this little world.

The game deviates a lot from the book, which may strike you as either a good thing or a bad thing. The characters are given new back-stories and, in some cases such as the March Hare and the Tweedle twins, different genders. (The girls are only extras, by the way; there is no lesbian option.) Personalities are also tweaked according to the genre, but not, in my opinion, too far fetched. There's a lot less madness in this version of Wonderland, but it keeps a lovely sense of fantasy.

My biggest complaint about the game is the Gemini mini-game. Mini-games in general tend to drive me nuts. In this one, you have to dig through a pile of crap looking for a given object. It's not like those Eye-Spy games; you have to *MOVE* all the other items aside in order to uncover the quest object. It's tedious, frustrating, and thankfully not mandatory. It's basically a "job" game to give you 10 gold, but you can earn almost that same amount through Street Performing. Performing is also a minigame, but it's a lot less clicking and grumbling; you basically just choose which act to do for your audience and if you choose right, they tip you. The answers never change, so you can easily memorize the pattern to maximize your earnings.

In short, this is probably the best free, online example of the genre you can find. It adheres to the basic formula, but the writing keeps it from becoming tedious. The worst minigame is avoidable, and there are suprises to be had if you're willing to click around a bit. Also, it's really hard to lose this game. Even if you fail to court any of the Wonderland cast properly, you can still go to bed and wake up with a final chance at finding true love. Not a bad deal, all things considered!