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App Army Assemble: Purrfect Date - A graphic novel worth sinking your claws into?

Paws and reflect

App Army Assemble: Purrfect Date - A graphic novel worth sinking your claws into?
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iOS
| Purrfect Date

Ever wanted to get down and dirty with cats? By that I mean, ever wanted to befriend and potentially date them?

We asked our elite App Army that very question and someone them have some very definite opinions on the matter. But, will Purrfect Date be meowgnificent? Or will it leave them feline a bit rough?

Theresa Kresleyu

Purrfect Date is unusual game in own genre. Fans of visual novels should definitely play it. However, there are drawbacks: firstly, there is almost no black comedy in the game. Black and comedy go separately. Secondly, there are some unsuccessful game design decisions such as the lack of the ability to rewind already seen text, which complicates the replaying the game - a mandatory attribute of any visual novel game!

The game is very good for fans of the genre, but if you get annoyed when you see a lot of text just skip this game.

Paul Manchester (iPhone SE, iOS 11)

I have played some bad games and this is one of them. Having tried a few interactive novels (and to be fair they are not my favourite genre) I found this absurdly dull. The humour is very limited and the story even more so. The presentation is poor and I have seen better made Flash games.

I would insert a cat pun here to summarise but I fear it would out shine anything contained in the game.

Roman Valerio (iPad Air, iOS 11.2.5)

Being a die-hard fan of the text-based games and not really a big lover of feline critters, I expected this mouser-dating sim game extraordinaire to be a downright catastrophe (pun intended), but it turned out to be ultimate purrfection instead.

The story coupled with eye-catching visuals grabbed my attention from the very first lines and I am absolutely stoked to eventually unravel the mystery of this cat island. The game is distinguished by a plethora of ameowsingly clever cat-related puns, cool sound effects and music, wonderful pencil art, and a ton of content judging by the sheer number of alternative endings.

From a performance standpoint everything seems to be well polished and the only two shortcomings worth mentioning are ginormous app size and absence of localization for another markets, thus a strong command of the English language is an absolute prerequisite to plunge into this pussy-rich narrative. This is paws down one of the best (if not the best) text-based adventure game that I had the pleasure to experience on iOS platform so far.

Steve Clarke

Purrfect Date is an odd mash up of a dating simulator and visual novel which despite being a fan of the latter just wasn't for me. The emphasis here is on the novel, both in terms of how unusual the games premise and plot are, and the amount of reading required to get anywhere. Brevity is not the order of the day in Purrfect Date unfortunately. Constantly tapping through reams and reams of dialogue soon became a chore and the prospect of having to start over again after a game over screen was dread-inducing.

I enjoyed the dark humour and the tongue-in-cheek set up, such as autopsying a dead bird as a first date, but for me it just took too long to reach the pay offs. I'd struggle to recommend Purrfect Date but I wouldn't dissuade anyone interested in it from trying it either, it's pawssible you'll think it's clawsome.

Will Jameson (iPhone X)

I have to admit I started playing Purrfect Date, with not much of an idea what I was getting myself into. Sure, I've been aware of dating sim games for a while, but I always found the whole idea a little sad. So the idea of dating a cat on a mysterious island seemed an interesting way of changing things up.

Sadly, the game lost a half point right from the get-go by not supporting iPhone X full screen. I hope they update this in the future.

This is far more of a visual novel than I was expecting and it was probably a good 10 minutes before I had the opportunity to make a choice (short of selecting my first character). One thing that is worth noting though is that on subsequent play throughs this long introduction is massively shortened - and there WILL be subsequent play throughs if you enjoy this.

The game is part dating sim and part investigation into a scientific conspiracy that has echoes of 'Lost'. You have six characters to choose from and on each play through you can pursue different leads and follow up on things that you found previously.

It's this gradual addition of different lines of inquiry, as well as the seeing how each of your characters meet their furry end, that keeps me coming back for more. I have currently played through three characters, romanced a sphinx cat called Snooty Booty, discovered a cat that is possibly being held hostage and experimented on, and I'm currently chasing up leads on whether this is all some vast conspiracy.

I won't spoil too much, but there is definitely more here than what you might be expecting. Would I recommend this? Not to everyone, no. But if you're looking for something a little bit different with a little bit of mystery, lots of cats, and some slightly amusing dating then have at it!

Ed Davis

This was a game that I just couldn't engage with. I've played a few games like this and, whilst others feel more engaging, this one simply didn't. I didn't really enjoy the storyline and it felt quite slow and tedious to get anywhere.

The art is nice and is well drawn, but for me that's really as far as the game is going to go. There is a lot to read so might suit someone who enjoys a game like that.

Mark Abukoff

Purrfect Date is not so much a game as it is a simple, juvenile story. The dialogue comes in very short, annoying bursts that read as if they've been auto-translated from another language. This is one of the few actual bright spots to this game as it jogged my mind with occasional very strange (in context) words or phrases.

Quite frankly, going back into the game is something I'm not prepared to do. I think that the game is probably very good for either juveniles or the very very young at heart. It reminded me of something that might turn up on a cartoon channel and that I would have watched for a few minutes out of pure fascination at the concept, then turned away and not come back to.

I'm not saying it's a bad game and that others won't like it, I'm sure there's an audience for it, but aside from appreciating one cat named Fluffy-Butt, I won't be returning to that island.

And yes, because I can't do this without at least one pun, I was forced to triple my caffeine intake while playing, in order to prevent myself from slipping into a Cat-atonic state.

Chanandler

I'm not sure what to say about this game. On the one hand I like cats and even have a real one of my very own, also in my younger days I enjoyed dating - but, they should never be brought together. In fact I'm pretty sure it's against the law in most places. How to play pretty much sums the weirdness of this game up. It's just plain wrong on so many levels!

So apart from the dubious subject matter, the game looks OK, though there isn't a huge variety in visuals. There's a lot of reading to do which I found a bit tiresome after a while, mainly because the story seemed aimed a pre-teens with remarks like "This is your backpack, you can put everything in it".

The music also ground on my nerves after a while so that was turned off. Anyway, this was not for me. I soon deleted it from my iPhone to get back that 2.1 GB space, and is definitely a 'left swipe'.

Quincy Jones (iPhone 8 Plus)

There was way too much dialogue going on and since it seems like it's been translated it easily became more of a pain trying to make sense out of it.

This was the hardest I've ever struggled to keep playing a game I didn't make it past the first chapter. I was honestly falling asleep. Nothing appealed to me here, so I congratulate any of you who had the stomach to stay until the end.

Oksana Ryan (iPad Pro)

This isn't so much an interactive novel as a graphic novel with the odd choice thrown in. As a fan of this genre I thought there was a definite lack of options, and sometimes, on the rare occasion when I was given a choice, I was told my energy was low and steered in another direction.

I found this really annoying as the whole idea of this type of game is to forge your own path, but it was clear the player wasn't really in charge. On the whole, the general appearance of the game was good, the story line very slow, and I turned off the monotonous music.

I was really disappointed as the description of the game promised an intriguing story but I wasn't interested enough to see it to its conclusion.

Martin Meier

There's a lot of text you have to work through before you get to the main game, and sometimes less is a little more.

Admittedly, I was confused at first: a cat-dating simulator? How the heck is that supposed to work? When the real game starts, you understand quickly what it's all about. It was interesting to meet all the different cat personalities and the story was interesting, but it didn't connect to me very well.

The story starts with several branches that come together eventually, and it takes some time to figure out what is happening, because there's a large part of mystery in it. The graphics are OK and appropriate for this type of game.

I think there are some people who might really like this game, and I still enjoyed running around the island and doing all kinds of stuff, but sadly it wasn't really my thing.

Adrian Claudiu Nicu

This game felt like both a waste of time and storage to me. I tried my best to give it the benefit of the doubt and play "just a little more", but it didn't manage to grow on me at all.

There's too much introduction and after bearing through it the text didn't catch my interest completely at any point - if I'd get a text message, usually the text message would be more interesting than the game and I'd just switch to that and abandon the game.

I'm sorry, but there are better interactive novels or graphic novels out there, I can't recommend this one. Sorry kittens... I'll switch to dogs for now.

Emily Sowden
Emily Sowden
Emily is Pocket Gamer's News Editor and writes about all kinds of game-related things. She needs coffee to function and begrudgingly loves her Switch more than she lets on.