(v0.6.1)
I like this game's premise. And granted, it's very early in development.
But do far it's mostly a mess, in both story and execution.
You've got some of the worse elements of bad sandbox games- e.g. an 'open world' that consists of a lot of click-heavy nested navigation, with no quick travel and no way to know where the actual interactions are; a time system with empty timeslots where there's either nothing to do, or no way to know what you could be doing; money and stats that have to be ground up to access the game's events (with the added annoyance that those stats continually degrade if not regularly increased; not only is there a grind, but the grind never stops).
Story-wise, it's hard to tell if there really is one. You apparently cheated on your girlfriend once with her bestie, and got caught. This is covered in the space of a conversation on the plane (where she also mentions that she and her friend have made up) and then never really brought up again. As far as I can tell, not even when you talk to the best friend. And most story elements are that kind of barebones. You're moving into this house for... something something girlfriend's job. And you can't leave the house because.... something something girlfriend's boss says so (why? and how?). But her friends are also moving in (for the same reason?) and don't appear to be similarly restricted. There's no apparently no restrictions on the other girl who moves in either (which happens in a single conversation between you and your gf's bestie, where she says her friend needs a place, you suggest the spare room, she accepts without mentioning it to anyone else, and the new roommate is ringing the bell before you're done talking).
In terms of more technical stuff, the UI is nothing special; crude but not too unpleasant. The images and gifs aren't bad, but they are very small and the placement makes them feel like afterthoughts. And there's a few obvious bugs, as well as spots where it feels like content is missing.
Tl,dr: Nice concept, needs a lot of work. Particularly in making sure the narrative is coherent and the sandbox elements aren't tedious drudgery.
I like this game's premise. And granted, it's very early in development.
But do far it's mostly a mess, in both story and execution.
You've got some of the worse elements of bad sandbox games- e.g. an 'open world' that consists of a lot of click-heavy nested navigation, with no quick travel and no way to know where the actual interactions are; a time system with empty timeslots where there's either nothing to do, or no way to know what you could be doing; money and stats that have to be ground up to access the game's events (with the added annoyance that those stats continually degrade if not regularly increased; not only is there a grind, but the grind never stops).
Story-wise, it's hard to tell if there really is one. You apparently cheated on your girlfriend once with her bestie, and got caught. This is covered in the space of a conversation on the plane (where she also mentions that she and her friend have made up) and then never really brought up again. As far as I can tell, not even when you talk to the best friend. And most story elements are that kind of barebones. You're moving into this house for... something something girlfriend's job. And you can't leave the house because.... something something girlfriend's boss says so (why? and how?). But her friends are also moving in (for the same reason?) and don't appear to be similarly restricted. There's no apparently no restrictions on the other girl who moves in either (which happens in a single conversation between you and your gf's bestie, where she says her friend needs a place, you suggest the spare room, she accepts without mentioning it to anyone else, and the new roommate is ringing the bell before you're done talking).
In terms of more technical stuff, the UI is nothing special; crude but not too unpleasant. The images and gifs aren't bad, but they are very small and the placement makes them feel like afterthoughts. And there's a few obvious bugs, as well as spots where it feels like content is missing.
Tl,dr: Nice concept, needs a lot of work. Particularly in making sure the narrative is coherent and the sandbox elements aren't tedious drudgery.