Reviews by NMCannon

I’m here because of BlerdyOtome! She featured Speakeasy and its Kickstarter, I became a Backer, and damn, I wish Open Late Games a very pleasant All The Money Forever. Speakeasy knocked me out like a good drink.

What drew me to Speakeasy initially was how it resembled my beloved Lovestruck’s Speakeasy Tonight and how the developers wanted to celebrate female sexuality. Daring to give women what they want is quite the brave thing to do during our current times. Diving into the game, I was not disappointed. The Art Deco art influences are everywhere from the UI to the photographed backgrounds. I’m listening to the music as I type this review. Cameo photographs of celebrities of yore are portraits for minor characters. I tremble to think what Open Late Games could do with a bigger budget because they used their Kickstarter haul so well.

Let’s get down to brass tax: the characters and their stories. I played the Happy and Speakeasy Ends and had an amazing time. Every route the spoiled, selfish Cora West grows up, but depending on who she’s with, it’s via different method. Even when I was frustrated with her self-centeredness, I applauded that she continued to choose to improve, to be independent, to find a place in the world that suited her. I felt refreshed by a character who wanted to change, instead of change being forced on them by narrative structure and dictates. Very well-done coming-of-age stories here.

As the stories unfold, Harlowe’s Speakeasy becomes a quixotic character too—a cage can transform to a shelter from patriarchal norms; a monied legacy becomes an obligation tied around the neck. Or vice versa, depending on your choices! The Speakeasy Ends foreground characters giving into excess. No societal dictates can stop these people from giving into their worst impulses. When there are no rules within the walls of the club, what limits will the individual set for themselves? Will they keep to their rules? The mind spins.

Speaking of worst impulses, the routes get dark, and I appreciated so much that Open Late Games did not pull punches. I cannot count the number of games, books, and gamebooks I’ve read that advertise “dark romance” but at the last second let characters off the hook. Here, characters rage, bleed, and make love in full color. Literally, the CGs are gorgeous. The sex scenes are divine, and I adored that characters had other partners besides Cora. They are fully realized people outside of her! Stuff goes on with them when she’s not on their route! Another reviewer noted queerness is baked into the narrative on a cellular level. Both “queerness” as in same-sex attraction and gender nonconformity and “queerness” as the intentional bucking of societal norms. Very cool!

Open Late Games must be one of the most professional, punctual, and polite game developers. They’ve dealt with multiple crises. Unity threw indies under the bus, and they switched to Ren’py engine post-launch. AI slop invaded stock photo sites, and they did their best to establish human provenance on over 100+ photographs. The MC customization stretch goal wasn’t reached on Kickstarter, but they really wanted racial diversity for Cora. They did a hard stare at their budget and squeezed out some minimal skin tone re-coloring. These are no small struggles, and each time Open Late Games made sure to communicate to Backers and act as logically and quickly as possible. There were no long radio silences, blame games, and fraught Internet fights. The cherry on top is Speakeasy came out faster than any other Kickstarter VN I’ve encountered. These people are insanely good at both the art and the administrative aspects of visual novels.

If you like female-centric dating sims with a real guts, put a record on and take a swing at Speakeasy!

After enjoying Never Date Werewolves, I decided to play other titles in the Heart's Choice app, and Melissa Scott's A Player's Heart caught my eye because lesbians.

In this world a step in the past away from ours, Tristendesande is a pulsing, cultural powerhouse of art, and the theaters are the gems in that crown. The player character has dreamed of the Opera, an all-women performance company, all her life. When she arrives, you choose a specialty: do you want to be a deva (play woman roles), a dragon (play male roles), or an artifex (a theater technician). I was surprised and pleased when, after meeting various characters and getting your bearings at the Opera, there was a time skip. Seven years later, the player character is in the prime of her skill, and the story gets down to the real business of balancing art's ability to challenge the hegemony and the practical necessity of not getting shut down by said hegemony.

Each and every love interest dazzled me. There's the big, butch Myrr, with her steadfast loyalty, purity of feeling, and quiet, devastating artifex art. The femme deva Celeine and the player character exchange glittering banter and have a homoerotic sword duel (which left me quite flustered!!!!). Lady Jasquillyn Isalis defies aristocratic convention to put stars in your eyes, with beauty, social savvy, and graceful wit. Since I stayed with the Opera, I saw little of the androgynous Mervelles, but her daring nature, political passion, and sensual dance impressed me all the same.

Perhaps because of the length of this game, it felt like there really was enough time to get to know each of the love interests individually before deciding who to date. In other titles, I feel rushed, like there's a sense that if I fail to flirt immediately, I will not have any hope of arriving at a HEA with them. Not here. Scott took her time describing each character and filling in the world. The imagery of the theater is especially fantastical and vivid. I don't know much about theater myself, but my partner does, and I feel comfortable saying she will be impressed when she comes around to playing.

If I had one quibble, it would be that there didn't seem a realistic way to not be political. Perhaps that's intentional: burying one's head in the sand is a surefire way to get screwed by the hegemony. However, the story was framed like there was a way to be neutral and survive. I'm curious to play again and see what happens if my character is very political or aggressively oblivious.

A Player's Heart is an engaging, addictive read. I found myself eagerly awaiting for the two hour cool off period to end. If you're a fan of historical lesbian romances, definitely download Heart's Choice and click play!