Everlove: Rose is a romantic narrative game from the Silicon Sisters who have been determined to develop games “by women, for women”, certainly a welcome sentiment in a male-centric games industry. You might think: women feature quite prominently in video games these days, like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider or female Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series. But as CEOÂ Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch explains, the enjoyment that women get out of playing games is far more complex than the visceral satisfaction that most men get from playing shooting games, even from a female’s “perspective”. That’s obviously not to say this rule applies to absolutely all women or all men, but is a general rule and it should be plain to see that there is a lack of games that cater to that subset of female gamers, a game that Everlove: Rose aims to fill part of.
As the subtitle of the game suggests, you assume the persona of Rose as she deals with some deep seeded psychological issues with her therapist. Her therapist, Dr. Alys, suggests hypnotic therapy which allows Rose to live out a past life to try and see if she can solve her present-day issues by exploring relationships. The past life that Rose is thrust into is in the medieval era, a life she is instantly caught up in, not least of all thanks to the appearance of love interests. And although the medieval era is foreign to Rose and the player, Rose does like to come up with some present-day quips that will keep you feeling at home.
The game plays itself out like an interactive book with chapters which you can play and revisit if you wish. The game sits pretty at a size of about 40Mb, which is quite small for a game with such a long story, but is helped by the fact that the entire game is expressed purely in picture stills. Rose interacts with other characters in the game through a conversation prompt which gives you multiple responses you can make to the person you’re speaking to. The choices you make in conversation more often than not have repercussions for your relationship with that person, and can influence the way that character perceives you the next time they see you. This emphasis on conversation makes the ability to replay chapters is almost crucial to the way you play Everlove as it allows you to skip back and forth and see if something plays out differently had you chosen an alternative conversation choice.
Within each chapter, you can also skip back to the previous screen with the back button, and you’ll be doing this a lot as all you need is to touch the screen anywhere to progress to the next screen. Beyond the chapters themselves, you have the level select screen which allows you to survey where you are up to in the game as well as the various skills and stats you have accumulated over the game. Rose has characteristics which are contributed to by how you respond to situations in the game; these are split into Romance, Will, Wisdom and Responsibility. Additional to this, you have hearts which are awarded when you pique one of your love interests’ fancy; the high the number of hearts for that love interest, the more they like you. This is when the replaying of chapters comes in handy in case you missed getting hearts or a specific characteristic you wanted, you can replay that chapter to get what you want from it or to see what the other outcomes of the conversation are.
There are also two mini-games that you will come across over the course of the game. The first is a plant collecting game; as Rose’s past occupation is healer, she must spend a fair amount of time collecting various plants to make into potions and salves. In this plant collecting mini-game, you will also come across some paper fragments. Once you have collected a certain number of paper fragments, you enter the second mini-game which is a puzzle game where you assemble the paper fragments to reveal a plot point. I personally found these mini-games incredibly tedious, particularly hunting for tiny flowers on the screen (even on a Note II this was a little difficult) though the game does give you the option of skipping forward and completing the collection/puzzle and still have the desired result. That said, if you enjoy puzzles and that sort of thing, these mini-games will have you in a fit of joy.
The large bulk of the game functions well enough, however, it is the story which is the main star of the show. There’s obviously been a lot of effort put into the story that you play through in this game as it is incredibly nuanced. This is accentuated by the fact that there are 4 love interests to keep track of and they all have varying motives and different focusses. As you progress, each is character begins to reveal more and more of their motive and personal demons, and the game will force you (temporarily) to choose one love interest to pursue most intently. I say temporarily as the game doesn’t strictly end when you complete the storyline once, but I’ll leave that to you to further explore.
While I appreciated the story of Everlove Rose, I feel that I was unable to fully appreciate the nuances of the romance because as a man, I couldn’t exactly relate to Rose. That’s not so much an excuse as a concession as I feel that if you are even slightly a romantic and a female, you will be in a better position to understand Rose’s moments of ‘weakness’. Furthermore, with relation to the 4 love interests, it almost felt like they were *too* stereotypical, to the point where each of their motives appeared to be so deeply engrained in their personality that it became painfully obvious that they could not be deviated from that course of action. That said, there were still a fair amount of surprises if you aren’t expecting it, which really is a testament to how the writers of the story still managed to have 4 different characters with intertwining stories and still keep their individual motives hidden for the most part.
And as to the question of whether this is “women’s porn”, I can safely say that it does not remotely resemble the raunchiness that is rife in 50 Shades of Grey. Everlove is a much more emotional journey, developing Rose’s relationships with the characters around her and finding romance within all the conflict and hardships.
While the game is generally well made, there are a few niggling issues which do hold it back. Several times during the game when a character was supposed to be on screen, you would instead be greeted by a white background which would usually also occlude the story text and any conversation options. Another disappointment which should be obvious from the screenshots in this review is the fact that the game only outputs in 4:3 resolution and not the full 16:9 widescreen.
As a romantic game, Everlove: Rose has everything you want; a fantasy setting, 4 hunky, mysterious men and a twisting story that will keep you playing to see what happens. While I don’t think I got the full experience from the game, I can appreciate that to the right audience, Everlove: Rose is a welcome change in the games industry and a win for romantic novel readers who have been pining for an interactive way to consume their stories. Hopefully this is the start of something great for the Silicon Sisters. Romantics, eat your hearts out.
Everlove: Rose is available now from the Google Play for $3.99 for the full version, or a free version is available if you wish to get a feel for the game first.
Game: Everlove: Rose
Price: $3.99
Game: Everlove: Rose (free)
Price: Free
