What up y'all? I'm Penn, a Black-Asian genderqueer freelance pop culture critic, and this is my column, Queerly Nerdy, where I critique queer geekiness in comic books, anime, video games, and more. This month, we're talking Date Everything!
Created by Sassy Chap Games and released on Nintendo Switch, Steam, Xbox, and Playstation, Date Everything! is a sandbox dating sim that lets you use a pair of magical glasses to turn objects in your house into human form and form relationships with them.
The premise is this: after getting laid off from your online customer service job, you receive a mysterious package in the mail containing spectacles known as Daveviators. When you put them on, a pink-haired cutie instructs you to use the glasses to bring objects in your house to life and add some fun to your life.
Initially, it was the character designs that drew me to this game more than anything else. I saw a trailer that showed Keyes, the piano, and the fan Fantina and I absolutely loved them, especially as a Black queer gamer.
Black characters in video games have an infamous reputation for having the same three hairstyles or stereotypical character designs, if they are even in the game at all. Yet, there are several Black characters in this game with unique designs, such as the cute, fat Phoenicia (your smartphone) and the regal-looking Bathsheba (your bathtub).
Other character designs caught my eye because of the objects that inspired them — like Lux, the light switch who resembles an angel fashionista, or the desk-inspired Dasha, a muscled woman in a leather jacket who speaks with a European accent. Since there are over 100 datable characters, you have a lot of options to choose from as far as relationships go.
Besides their designs, there were other aspects of the characters that I appreciated, such as branching narratives, content warnings, and full voice acting. Most dating sims require the player to read a lot and imagine what a character sounds like in their head, so hearing certain lines fully voice-acted by voice actors such as Felicia Day, Dante Basco, and Zeno Robinson brought me a lot of joy.
When it comes to the characters' branching narratives, I must admit that it took me a little while to realize that they existed. Since there are so many characters to find and you're limited to five conversations a day, I recommend that you find as many characters as you want first. Then, devote three conversations to deepening your relationships and two for finding more characters. This method allowed me to appreciate moments like the drama between the washer and dryer or the sexual tension between you and the breaker box Volt.
As far as the content warnings, they are done through a feature known as Content Aware, in which the spectacles (known as Skylar Specs) pop up and tell you if a character will be dealing with uncomfortable or triggering content that you can skip. You can toggle Content Aware mode on and off, and there are no consequences for skipping content. Instead, you can advance to one of three endings automatically: Love, Friendship, or Hate.
On a related note, I also appreciated that there were non-sexual and non-romance dialogue options for the characters. As a bi demi-sexual person who is unable to explore my orientation like most people have, this game is giving me a safe way to do. I can choose how I would respond to certain situations or people without publicly risking anything, something that other LGBTQ gamers have done. If nothing else, I hope this game helps others do what I have been doing.
If there is any flaw to this game, it is the lack of a clear path to follow to progress. This is part of the "sandbox" element of the game, where the game lets you freely explore the house and interact with whatever object you want to for that day until your phone needs to be recharged through sleep. On the one hand, this gives the player the freedom to choose what to do for that day. On the other, it can be hard to know what to do if you are unsure of how to find certain characters. There is a feature in the game called "Roomers" that gives you hints about where to find certain characters and I ended up treating this as the dating sim equivalent of a JRPG subquest list to move forward in the game.
Another minor flaw is how the Switch version of game makes you use the left joystick to move around and the right joystick to rotate the camera in order to change the direction you are going in. This is partly due to personal preference; I like using the directional pad to move around and the L and R buttons to rotate the camera. Having to use the joysticks isn't a game breaking flaw, but it can feel awkward at times.
All in all, Date Everything! has a lot of options and a lot of fun, especially when it comes to replayability. While you can try and find all 100 characters in one playthrough, you are not required to since there is a New Game Plus feature that allows you to carry over your progress. I can definitely see myself sticking with this game for a while.
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