Reviews from

in the past


"Could you really be so cruel?" said the VN.

Fuck off.

same energy as the time i wasted 1/3 of my time spent so far on this planet. don't feel afraid to tell someone "please stay the fuck out of my life" if you've got to, play this if you want to simulate what it's like to not end up saying that to someone.

Very cute and very well-written. I love the format. Simple and effective.

Sorry...but I'm too stone cold to enjoy this....

free text-based indie game that does that "you get asked the same question and your response is ignored each time" thing that every free text-based indie game does. i don't hate it but it genuinely felt like a waste of the 5 minutes i spent doing it. not to be rude but i have no earthly idea how this could affect anyone when it feels so vague and nothing. i get what it was trying to go for, but there wasn't nearly enough subversion or intrigue to succeed. i feel like i played a fakedeep buzzfeed quiz.


Personality quiz that quickly transforms into competent if somewhat pedestrian breakup writing. Seems like almost everybody gets "sweet but aloof" from the comments I've read?

worked for me.
kinda confused why it has all this hate on backloggd lol

I got "Sweet, But Aloof" but i probably should've got something related to the fact that i skipped through half the game, because i have no interest in having a computer game ridicule me for a fictional relationship.

Listen if I want to see someone suddenly and uncomfortably overshare their personal mishap and relationship issues, thereby making it everyone's problem, I'd just browse Twitter searches for an hour

Even if you want to be be charitable about what this is aiming, there's nothing to get. Ironically enough, the writer is doing the same thing that's supposedly the end of the fictional duo's relationship, by being super clingy to the other and not learning when to let go.

The aspect I most enjoy from Kotaro Uchikoshi's games like 999, VLR etc is that they are branching narrative VNs where starting to understand the very structure of the branching aspect of the story deepens your understanding of the mystery and enjoyment of the story as opposed to ruining it.

I remember Jon Ingold of Heaven's Vault fame saying in an interview that he did not make/write his games "for people who like those [story flowcharts]!" in reference to David Cage style diagrams which show exactly how to obtain the desired results and navigate the game exactly. On the one hand I get it, being transparent in your systems can risk ruining the mystique, letting the player see the man behind the curtain and even calls into question the dynamic between designer and player if you yourself are purposefully guiding the pace of the game so surgically. Heaven's Vault is entirely opaque in its branching and works beautifully in this respect and feels self contained when you end a playthrough.

On the other hand games like VLR invite the player, for good and for ill to jump between branches, getting new information from each run both as the player and diegetically as the "SHIFTER" who can jump between timelines. And I think this is just as valid an approach for an adventure game, though admittedly it does cause VLR to bite off more than it can chew narratively and ultimately most of its flaws.

The point is, peeling back the layers of how a game narrative works can sometimes ruin it, or it can deepen your enjoyment and insight into it as a piece of fiction. Answer these 10 questions is sort of in the middle. I think doing the quiz more than once and finding out they all work out to be essentially the same is trying to make a point that this relationship was obviously doomed from the beginning cause these two (though mainly the woman who administers the quiz) are very toxic and wrong for each other, as if you needed any more indication of this.

The reason Ive spent like 2/3rds of the review talking about uchikoshi and branching narratives is that I basically got nothing else out of this experience. Admittedly Ive never actually been in a serious relationship so maybe that's why but all I really got is that you should definitely leave relationships with people that actively make you miserable? Which I think I already knew Idk.

Harder to finish than Elden Ring

Yeah I just didn't get this at all. Feels too trapped by the quiz to do anything with the subject matter/narrative and this just really didn't click with what it was going for. Feels too brief and too held back to say anything actually impactful.

Dating sucks sometimes and sometimes ya fall in love with people who suck/make your life actively worse/are toxic as shit. Sometimes its best to just leave and do you instead of continuing to try pining for the attention of someone who clearly doesn't give the same energy back you give them.

Was bored and just reminded me of old wounds and I'm glad I'm not in that headspace anymore but this was incredibly nothing for me.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little emotional at this, but if this were actually a visual novel it'd probably be better

shawty b emotionally $tunted !! ;(++/

Way to blow your whole gimmick within 3 clicks. Good thing I have real things to feel bad about instead of this.

If I wanted to get blamed for shit I didn't do then I would have just called my ex instead of playing this.

And yes like everyone else, I got sweet but aloof

The person who made this definitely listens to Slaughter Beach, Dog. Got Sweet, But Aloof, and also got weirdly emotional by the mention of a deck of cards. Them feelings be weird.

Ouch.
That hit extremely hard

The choice to be just text lets you, the player fill in the blanks. I see all my failed relationships in the game, the slow breakdown of a relationship that should have ended sooner.

That was great

YOU GOT: Sweet, But Aloof.

You're thoughtful. You write poetry for your partner, and buy them gifts when the heat gets to be too much. But your self-consciousness can get in the way sometimes; you're too embarrassed to share your poetry, and you go a long time without saying "I love you" out of fear that they won't say it back. Learn to open up. Learn to be vulnerable with another person. Otherwise, how will you ever really love them?

this person has 'world peace' as one of their tinder interests

Sometimes, I think I liked the tokens of your love more than I liked loving you.

I could make a joke, but I don't think it's worth it. This is just kind of embarrassing; it feels like a joke—a bad one, but a joke nonetheless. It has this fake-ness that makes it come off like the creator is mocking something, but I think it's just the illusion of trying to be meaningful or a "did it make you think?" type thing.

DFW new sincerity headahhhhh
idk this is kind of just the opening to firewatch but worse also this isn’t how fights between ppl work really like the last time my bf yelled at me was bc I’m anorexic and he called me stupid for that and the last time I yelled at him was bc I accused him of acting how he did four years ago and kind of backsliding but idk today we played two hours of tetris effect while listening to book of mormon soundtrack so like idk bro it’s not that serious come on now

mi spiace ma un'avventura testuale è molto di più di questo


I feel like I bought a used game at Gamestop and loaded into somebody else's file at the part of the game where the s/o dumps you. Might've been better if it were framed like an actual buzzfeed quiz up until q9 or 10, and used your responses to create a "personalized" story about the relationship instead of going gung-ho into the messy bitterness at the start.

I really liked this.
Felt a little trapped by the format and "quiz" idea but was pretty emotional and hit close to home with some parts. As someone who has been in toxic/abusive relationships, it felt pretty emotionally honest but, like most emotionally honest pieces of media, it was a bit undeveloped and lacked some finality a more fleshed-out piece might have.
Should've had a content warning though as, clearly from other reviews of this game, it has had a negative mental impact on others and that should always be avoided if possible.

This was surprisingly unpleasant and uncomfortable. If I had played/read this 15 years ago, I probably would have been really upset by it.

So glad I'm married, dating suuuuuuuucks

is this some type of single person story that i'm too married to understand

(nice enough, but didn't grab me)