I have a terrible admission to make. When I first got a Nintendo DS, early on in its lifespan, I picked up a game called “Sprung”. It was a glorified Choose Your Own Adventure store, but I liked it (though I was never able to complete it). That was my main foray into “dating sims”, a genre that’s very popular in Japan and enjoys a cult status here.
It was with some surprise that I realised that “Utopioneer Games”, best known for their “Hack This Game” series (as well as “Code Breaker”), is also the developer of “Spanish 101”, “German 101”, and “Vocabulary Builder”, had produced a dating sim and that it had a couple of really out there features for the genre. And that’s when I discovered that it was not at all what it pretended to be. I only got more intrigued the further I delved into it.
“Call Me” takes your answers to questions asked of you by the girls you’re trying to woo, and builds them into a personality test profile. It’s an interesting idea: use the game to get people to do something that perhaps they wouldn’t do otherwise. Further, there’s a training element of the game, where it actually offers lessons in helping you in dating situations, ones that treat the subject matter seriously and don’t (from a casual skimming of them at least) encourage you to act like a selfish jerk. It’s definitely not going to be for everyone, but it’s an interesting download and I recommend it on that basis. I won’t have to tell you whether it’s worth 80 Microsoft Points at the end of the trial or not, you’ll answer that for yourself, but it’s just so “out there” that it’s worth experiencing.
Here’s what the developer (Utopioneer Games) has to say about the game:
“”Call Me” teaches you to read and adapt to different personalities. Using simulated conversation, “Call Me” will also give you a snapshot of your own personality.”
Writings of Mass Deduction 