Tinder-ing a thing

Date Everything! was not only the doomed approach of my student days, but also the game-made dream of all dating sim fans. Many believed that the genre had already been played out, given that games such as Hatoful Boyfriend, in which we get high school pigeons to flirt, and I Love You, Colonel Sanders!, which lets us hook up with the white-haired KFC mascot, offer pretty much everything that love-struck creativity has to offer. But far from it!

For their debut game, the developers at Sassy Chap Games answered the question of what else could potentially be dated with “everything.” This explains the name and concept of Date Everything!, which was released a good two months ago and lets us do just that: date everything. Through a pair of magic glasses that our protagonist receives at the beginning, all the objects in the house suddenly come to life.

In true The Beauty and the Beast, we can finally fall in love with the candlestick, the tea set, or the grandfather clock without it seeming strange... or maybe it does, if you think about it. After all, objectophilia is a real condition. Perhaps the game will help a few sufferers with their diagnosis. Meanwhile, every dating sim player should know that this is exactly what you shouldn't do, because in the end, it's all about getting to know a digital character better so you can wrap them around your finger.

And with over 100 potential partners, there are more than enough of them. In keeping with the nature of the object, they all have different personalities and – what is particularly important to me – appropriate names: Abel the table is stable and supportive... just like a table. Barry Styles, on the other hand, is a makeup case and a mixture of cool and extravagant. Here are a few more names where you can guess which piece of furniture they refer to: Betty, Wyndolyn, Telly, Shelley, Sinclaire, and I, Ronaldini.

Discovering our potential dates is probably what makes Date Everything! so appealing. Since I haven't played it and am not a fan of the genre, I can't say much about the actual gameplay at this point. However, what I've seen in videos looks very high quality. The art style and design of the personified objects are charming and varied, the dialogues seem to be well written, and the English dubbing features a cast of top-notch voices, many of whom we are likely to recognize from other games.

As is usual for a visual novel, the main job of the accompanying score is to provide pleasant background music for the lengthy dialogues and offer a little variety now and then. Suffice it to say: the soundtrack to Date Everything!, does just that, coming in at a very generous 152 tracks to give each of our dates their own theme. Despite an average length of 2 minutes per track, that quickly adds up.

If we are to believe mobygames , the music was composed by a variety of people. The site lists Garrett Williamson, Adam Barrett Berry, Ray Chase, Max Mittelman, John Michael Tatum, Stephen Hemstritch-Johnston (aka FearofDark), Chipper Hammond, and Joshua Taipale as composers, but Chase, Mittelman, and Tatum are voice actors. I can't say whether they let their musical creativity run wild or just served as idea givers for their characters' motifs. So this information should be treated with caution.

I don't know any of the “real” composers, and even the internet only spits out a few bits of info regarding video games: Garrett Williamson worked on Omega Strikers and PUBG Mobile, Adam Barrett Berry is a two-time Emmy winner for his work in film and television, Stephen Hemstritch-Johnston writes chiptune/electronic music, Chipper Hammond has two smaller indie games under his belt with Turbo Overkill and Questmaster and Joshua Taipale is a guitarist who wrote for Glass Heart and Glass Heart: Retold.

In other words, a group of up-and-coming game composers and an established film professional have come together here, which adds up to a mediocre result – at least for me. Because regardless of whether they are big names or newcomers, this is background music for a visual novel... and there's not much you can do with that. The music makers do their best to make the characters' themes as different/appropriate as possible:

On Schedule (Timothy’s Theme), the theme of the stuffy and overly punctual cat alarm clock Timothy, is accompanied by a continuous ticking sound, while the music for the relaxed big guy Koa (Between the Cushions (Koa’s Theme)) invites you to relax with the ukulele. The accompaniment for Door Dorian (wonderful pun) Who Goes There? (Dorian’s Theme) sounds wary and is perfectly complemented by knocking and the sound of creaking doors.

In addition to these “obvious” accompaniments, there are also pieces that break the mold, ranging from lo-fi beats (Night Theme) to hip-hop (CRap Battle – Beat 1) to hard rock ( (Wasted Soul of Dire Destiny (Shadowlord’s Theme)). With God of Fork (Dishy Boss Battle) a little action has even crept in, Miserere Mei, Fedus (Friar Errol’s Theme) comes straight from church, Crapper’s Delight (Jean Loo’s Theme) from 90s street culture, and which pop icon inspired Bubblebath Pop (Bathsheba’s Theme) should become clear after the first few notes.

Overall, the score basically offers what we would expect from a visual novel like Murder by Numbers and the like, only expanded to include a large array of character-related themes. This makes the score both disjointed and cohesive, and more suited to fans of the genre or the game. I recognize the creativity that went into the project, but unfortunately I am neither.

By the way, if you want to see a little something on the subject in moving form, feel free to check out episode 3 of Wohngameinschaft, which I produced together with fellow students several years ago. It's in German, though.