by redle » Tue, 16Feb02 08:56
I can't really rate the game as a whole. After I asked a round of questions and they were asking questions of me, the connection timed out or had some sort of internal error. All I could do was reload, and this took me back to the beginning of the game. Each page was having some delays in loading throughout, and I wasn't really willing to go through it again to likely die part way through again. Maybe when the game is finished, and certainly if it is downloadable, I'll give it another go.
Technical issues aside, the images were looking good. As for actual gameplay, it is a bit more rote memorization/bookkeeping of information than what I prefer. The start of the game is basically a ton of facts thrown at us about a bunch of different girls. It's a bit of an overwhelming and dry start to the game.
As for the interface of asking questions of the girls, since it is pair-matching, I think it would be nice if it was formatted that way to make convenient for the player. What I mean is, currently I'm shown a girl. Maybe it's one I'm less interested in, or forgot her facts. Well, I blindly pick any of the answers for no good reason, because I have nothing else I can do. Now, the next girl shows up. Her, I am interested in (and possibly do know everything about her). So I think, "Oh, the one that best fits her... oh shoot... it's the one I randomly used on someone I don't care about." If, instead, I could see the 8 girls and 8 questions, and then pick both the girl and the question, I could match the ones I felt good about. The girls I'm not going for, or don't care about that round then get the leftover options, instead of stealing the options I later find I need. (obviously another option would be to remove the no-repeats requirement)
Also, would be nice to have an indication of which questions had been used.
Anyway, not to be discouraging... these types of games tend to build as you get deeper in, and I wasn't able to get to that point. Also, as I mentioned, the type is lower on my list of preferred games than other types (but we all have different favorites). The game still showed promise with what I saw.