Save the Date

by Chris Cornell

Dating Sim
2013

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Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(10)
4 star:
(14)
3 star:
(4)
2 star:
(3)
1 star:
(1)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 32
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- Rastagong, February 8, 2024

- civilstat (Maine, USA), July 10, 2023

- Jan Strach, May 22, 2023

- WillFlame, April 24, 2023

- Deka, December 2, 2022

- Malasana, September 24, 2021

- OverThinking, June 26, 2021

- Minidoc, March 19, 2021

- autumnc, September 13, 2020

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- antperson, February 27, 2020

- Case, January 26, 2020

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
This game changed my life - my favorite IF of all time, November 25, 2019
by Pace (Tacoma, WA)

I've played hundreds of IF games, but the only one I can honestly say has changed my life is Save the Date. This game has empowered me and helped me live a more intentional life.

It's much more than it appears on the surface, and that's all I can say without spoilers. Play it blind. Play it now.

(Spoiler - click to show)Every time I play a game or watch a movie and I don't like the ending, I think of Save the Date, and I choose my own version of the story. I no longer treat the creator's version as the only authoritative one.

This new perspective has spilled over and empowered me in other subtle ways as well, helping me live a more intentional life, to be the co-creator of my own life-game instead of just the protagonist.

It's one thing to understand Death of the Author in an intellectual way. It's entirely another to be the player who kills the author by your own hand.

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Is this real or is it a game? What's the difference?, May 21, 2019
by deathbytroggles (Minneapolis, MN)

Dating simulators are inherently unsatisfying, in part due to the nature of choose-your-own-adventures. It's hard for the author to tell any kind of cohesive narrative as choices are often so disparate that the endings all require the reader to rewrite the protagonist in their heads to fit that particular branch. And even if one accepts that the player character is a cipher for your personal choices, this only works for one playthrough (assuming you like any of the choices). After that, one is tempted to just read the other branches for completionist sake, which devolves into tedium.

Add all of the above problems onto a dating simulator is even more problematic, as in real life, successful dates are so much more complex than decisions; my wife was drawn to me because of my looks, my sense of humor, and that I accidentally had sunscreen showing on my face when we first met. While I had some agency in all of that, I honestly wasn't trying that hard. I just was who I was. So dating simulators have a difficult time with immersion even for a second. It all just feels like playing with dolls without the ability to use my imagination.

Chris Cornell definitely gets this. Save The Date explores these themes over what makes a story immersive and satisfying. The player is tempted to play this like any dating simulator and constantly struggles against the author who pushes back.

I want to like this more than I did. Given how thoughtful Cornell is about the theme and style of the game, I wish the writing was more lush. There's a lot of stilted dialogue and a lot of clicking past short sentences, which is one of the primary problems with actual dating simulators. But mostly I was annoyed by the ending, as I found it ultimately negating my experience playing the game rather than enriching it.

Others have felt differently, so play it if you enjoy metafiction.

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- dgtziea, April 1, 2018

- doodlelogic, July 17, 2017

- EJ, February 21, 2017

- PVince81 (Germany), May 8, 2016

- corvidia, April 5, 2016

- E. W. B., March 2, 2016

- verityvirtue (London), January 27, 2016

- Onirim (Argentina), December 24, 2015

- Indigo9182, May 31, 2015

- hoopla, March 3, 2015

- Trif (Germany), November 30, 2014


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