<- Back To Masterpost

my candy love (F/M, free*, browser)

• overall: C-. enjoyment: D-.
• my candy love is an old web dating sim (now with two sequels!) about a high school girl dealing with the trials and tribulations of coming into age via saying exactly ten words a day and playing a lot of brick breaker. its a cute game, and id recommend it in any other circumstance, but it is notoriously impossible to play due to the extremely low amount of activity points given out. im still at it. im suffering.
• plot: B. youre just a girl at school. you make some friends, deal with a bully, and hang out with the boys you like. its typical slice of life, but every episode has a self-contained story that is at the least well-conceived and interesting, if not always executed well.
• characters: C. the designs are cute, at least. but to be frank, most of the datable characters are... boring. id rather be hanging out with the minor characters. even the boy im particularly drawn to, castiel, is just kind of stereotypical. his rival, nathaniel, is kind of awful in every way, despite being the pristine one. kentin, another early boy, was better before his glo-up and thats all there is to say on the topic. there are other boys introduced later that might be better, and i normally wouldnt write a review for a game i hadnt finished, but... well get to that. what the game does do really well, however, is give screen time to characters other than the datable boys. you can spend time and even get images with characters you cant get together with, and it never really feels like the main boys are more important than your friends.
• writing: D. i want to like this. but to be perfectly honest... the dialogue is weird. it frequently feels totally bizarre for a bunch of high-schoolers, and the stories (at least, the early ones) arent very well thought out. its not offensively bad, or anything, but its just not really compelling, or at times even competent. it is also absolutely impossible to please castiel and im angry.
• routes: if i ever finish the fucking game ill let you know
• gameplay: F. honestly, id be prepared to compliment the gameplay. its not just VN, it integrates the gameplay into the website well, and the exploration, object hunting, and minigames are neat. but. the game is virtually unplayable. spending 2 action points to interact and only getting 20 a day means you get 10 lines of dialogue at a time, some of which will be "...". it doesnt matter how good the game is if you cant actually play it. sorry, but this is trash.
• art: C. sometimes its pretty cute, but its often a bit wonky -- and when it is, youll notice. the shading seems a bit overdone frequently but some characters look cute. its animated, which is a plus, but the animations lag the site. the site design in general is very well done, however, which brings it back up.

https://www.mycandylove.com/