My Girlfriend's An Evil Bitch

My Girlfriend's An Evil Bitch is, first and foremost, a wilderness survival management simulator. I realize this genre appeals to some people, but it felt poorly planned and executed here. For reference, I played release 13.

The thing is, you don't know what this game will be the first time you play. I was sure I could take my time and explore my house, maybe see a bit of what's on the street, and then take my car to the airport on time. Every turn after 3:00 PM, the game will nag you with the same piece of text after every command. It got annoying fast as I repeatedly tried to fight my way there, and you will end up seeing it a lot, because there's no way you're getting everything done before the survival aspect. Especially if you're taking time to prepare.

I bought everything from the pawn shop, because I thought I'd be able to find more to sell. I couldn't, not even the diamond ring and violin I found in my house safe, which I thought would be worth a good amount. There's a bookstore with hint books, and a general store, too. Once you pass a certain point, you can't come back for any of this, and it's up to you to do the wilderness survival portion using just what you got to prepare.

Once you crash into the wilderness, it's up to you to get rescued. I opted to use the radio I bought from the pawn shop. The thing is, no matter what you do, you don't feel like you're making progress. I staked out a hollowed-out old tree to bide my time, but even after I cleaned it up with some nice wooden flooring and stones to keep the bugs away, staying there didn't seem to do anything different. I had to make my fire outside, and while I had more than enough material to burn and ways to light it, it didn't do much (heat doesn't matter). It made smoke that the game said could help someone find me, but that didn't go anywhere. Repairing the radio was a bit more complex than I expected, but I hooked it up to a speaker, had the fire burning and making smoke, and got a notice saying I was ready to go. I decided to wait it out until help arrived, rationing out what meager food I had... and died before anything really happened.

The hunger and thirst mechanics are maddening. You have a limited amount of food, so that's constantly working against you. For thirst, you have a stream to drink from, but you can also buy a canteen from the general store and fill it up. If you don't? You have to run back and forth between your shelter and the river to drink, which also lowers your hunger and thirst meters massively with how much time it takes. I guess what I'm supposed to do now is start over, solve all the puzzles again while the game repeatedly shouts at me to go to the airport, spare myself an excess purchase (maybe the matches) to find the general store and buy the canteen, and then gamble for another chance at survival? I'd probably just die of hunger again, even though I picked up all the food I saw on my first run.

One important aspect to note: it does seem like there's a lot you can do here. The hints detail a bit of content that I didn't come across, but it seems equally as frustrating as what I did see, so I'm not enthused to play more. Maybe if you're willing to give this one a lot of replays to find a solution, it'd be worth it? As it stands, I really didn't enjoy it.