Lovingly Evil

Though I loved the concept of Lovingly Evil, it ultimately fell short for me in its design and writing. Starting with the positives, the character creator was really cool and I loved all the fun customization choices. I really wish your player at least appeared in the corner and had some basic animations. I also liked the art and soundtrack, and some jokes made me laugh. But, ultimately, the game feels more like a series of lore dumps rather than a story or even conversations. The characters mainly all just talk at you or have you play their (dull) minigames. I couldn't really tell when I was actually *romancing* a character and when I was just idly flirting/joking with them because there aren't really any indications that you're on a character's route (e.g., points total, flirty UI buttons, etc.) that dating sims usually have. It also didn't help that all of the romance options were very cliched and one-dimensional. I also didn't really like the time management part of the game. Since the game is already super short (I finished one run with minigames on in 2 hours), I didn't understand why I was being discouraged from being able to talk to all of the characters in depth. If the purpose was to make it feel more like a real-life con, then it would've made more sense to have large or small group scenes/conversations so you could get a sense of multiple characters at once. Without that, it didn't really feel cohesive or like a real convention. With more action/story, character depth, and intentional, tight dialogue, Lovingly Evil could've been a great game. It's not a bad game by any means, but I can't recommend it- especially at the regular price.