Interactive movies never took the big flight we all expected – and let’s be true. Interactive movies work better when watching them alone or with a spouse/friend. I don’t want a whole movie theater ruining ‘my’ experience. That’s why I loved choose-your-own-ending books (except for the extra page-turning). Luckily Wales Interactive developed another one! This time it’s a Rom-Com, which is my guilty pleasure (alright, maybe not that guilty)… Time for Five Dates!
I already did two other types of games, namely Late Shift (about a robbery) and The Complex (About a bio-virus gone wrong); Wales Interactive also developed the Sound Horror game Maid of Sker. So I knew where I was ‘walking’ into. And I do love myself some Rom-Com’s. Luckily it’s the holiday season, and Netflix developed many new sequels to some of my favorite Christmas Rom-Com’s. Five Dates is an interactive rom-com about the unpredictable world of digital dating. With five potential female matches, Vinny explores whether compatibility, chemistry, and connection are still possible in a world where a physical touch is no longer an option.
Five Dates – Vinny!
So, I became Vinny, a millennial from London, who joins a dating app for the first time while living in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. With five potential female matches, Vinny must pluck up the courage to video date with wildly different personalities, starring Mandip Gill (Hollyoaks, Cuckoo, Doctors, The Good Karma Hospital en Casualty) and Georgia Hirst (Vikings & Ravers). I’m happily married and met my wife over ten years ago (of which one year married), so I’m not familiar with Tinder and all the other online dating apps. I think this actually worked to my advantage since Vinny was new to this concept as well.
As with all these types of games, the viewer’s choices will define Vinny’s interactions with each date and their interest in seeing him again. Amidst a branching, multi-directional chain of conversation topics and deep-dive questions, Vinny is faced with digital game dates, awkward scenarios, and unexpected truths. Your choices and your interactions will either strengthen or weaken your relationship with your data throughout the game. The relationship scores are calculated from the start right through to the very end and will affect certain scenarios and have consequences in the concluding scenes.
Options, options, options
Five Dates offers you five dates, all-female (sorry, no inclusive options here), and a wingman in the form of Callum. Callum is Vinny’s best friend, and their relationship perfectly describes the whole lockdown situation for people between 20 and 30. Although the title states five dates, Vinny has to choose three potential dates (you have to pay for a premium plan to gain full access, which Vinny does not do), after which he can embark on his journey of finding love. Let’s do a quick rundown of the dates!
- Maya – Spanish senorita, with love for wine and culture. Teaches languages to different students and lives in Londen. A real free spirit, who loves weed, booze and is very extravert in everything.
- Shaina – Front-line nurse of Indian descent, lives with her parents, and has minimal downtime. Gamer and passionate about job and family.
- Grace – Careertiger working in corporate law, looking for the real deal; has been hurt a few times.
- Paige – Influencer & model, but also a teen mom who hid her baby from her followers.
- Saffron – Artsy type, very spiritual and careful around others. Suffers from the occasional panic attack due to past experiences and anxiety.
I completed three full routes (Grace, Paige, and Saffron) and went towards the second dates with all of them. Each route takes about an hour to complete when you know what you’re doing. But you can tank a date pretty easily. If you don’t read into the ladies you are talking with and don’t pay attention to certain signals or their socials, you’ll find yourself out of love (and luck). Luckily Callum is there to help you! He even snagged a little video date for himself (which you can only find a little bit about on the Paige route).
Content
With a total of 700+ scenes, there is enough here to explore, and completing all the routes takes about 5-6 hours. But before you see ‘everything’ the game has to offer, you are looking at 10-12 hours. I personally was satisfied with the routes I took since I found said girls the most interesting; the other two were less compatible with my own viewpoints. This is probably why I took more than one run with this game. Five Dates delivers not only a Rom-Com, but it also makes you think about your own standards, views on life, etc. This only hit me after completing the second run, which pushed me into completing another one.
Conclusion
The only real problem I had with Five Dates was the exploration date; since it’s written around the whole Covid experience, it’s a real time-set game, which only makes sense around and near said crisis. And sure, some people might argue that it should have been more inclusive. I enjoyed my time with Five Dates probably much more than I should. Although I’m curious about what happened to Callums’ video date – Wales Interactive, give us an after-Corona-sequel, oke?
