I can't say I've ever looked at any one of the inanimate objects in my apartment and thought about taking it for dinner and a movie, but Date Everything suddenly has me questioning my limited worldview by asking: What if a record player was actually a gorgeous 1920s flapper?
I've been pretty stoked for this game for a while. I'm a sucker for a quirky dating sim, which this very much is, and Date Everything boasts [[link]] a pretty stellar voice cast from the likes of Felicia Day to Johnny Yong Bosch.
Its release is just around the corner now, but developer Sassy Chap Games has very kindly put out a demo so I can finally see which appliances are hot and which are… bizarre Duke Nukem parodies springing forth from an unassuming microwave.
Switching between the real world and the dateable objects world happens through a pair of handy-dandy glasses—which, yes, it seems you can also date—turning my freezer into a big cuddly foodie and my bed into a very flirtatious woman.
Date Everything really isn't exaggerating with its name, either. Putting on the glasses highlights all the different household doodads I can chat up, and it's a lot. Curtains, hampers, recipe books, blankets, magnifying glasses, freaking window panes. The entire house is a smorgasbord of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes.
They're all complete with vaguely punny names—the window is called Wyndolyn, and the coffee machine, Kopi, takes her name from the Indonesian word for coffee—and designs that really do compliment each one's inanimate appearance. Betty the bed is draped in puffy, comforting looking duvets while door Dorian dons a necklace full of keys and a white shirt with some classic doorway paneling.
I started taking a weird pleasure in trying to guess each object's appearance and personality before shooting my glasses' love beams at them to awaken them. I got almost every single one wrong, mind, but Sassy Chap has pretty accurately nailed how each thing would probably act if it was a real person.
It's mostly brief introductions to each character in the demo, but they all have [[link]] plenty to say. The dialogue does admittedly veer into cringe quite regularly but, you know, in that weird endearing sort of way. There's a little bit of fourth-wall breaking and a nice range of dialogue options I can return back with—standard stuff, like peppy positivity or some more passive-aggressive sass—and for the most part, I was interested in getting to know each person/object a little bit more.
Thankfully, I won't have to wait too long for that. Date Everything launches on June 17 (just a week away!) and you can wishlist the game now, or give its demo a little peep. The first day is fixed on who you meet, but the second demo day opens up a good chunk of the house to meet whoever you desire.