Serial Dater by ColeSlaughter
In this game, just like in real life, dating is HELL.
You've sold your soul to the Devil for one last shot at love. Armed with supernatural date-seeking powers and a ticket to the biggest speed-dating event of the year, you're BOUND to find love!
However, the Devil has his own plans, and purposefully flooded the dating pool with dozens of serial killers! You must use your newfound powers to determine as quickly as possible whether or not your potential suitor wants to date you or stab you in the back. However, the more you use your powers, the more difficult they will become to use, so don't rely on one for too long!
Powers:
Mind-Reading: As your date speaks, listen to what they're REALLY saying in their thoughts. If even one line of text sounds murder-y to you, hit that PASS button!
Seduction: Type out flirt words to magically woo your suitor into confessing their deepest darkest secret. Each date has one specific word that is their Achilles' heel. Type away until you find it, and figure out if their secret is benign or ominous...
X-Ray Vision: Click on the swirls that appear on the suitor's body. Reveal all of the green tokens without clicking any of the red ones in order to discover what the suitor is currently carrying on them. You may find anything ranging from a spare stick of deodorant to a list of future victims...
You should be able to find all the information you need by using any one power at a time. The moment you think it's safe to say "yes", click DATE! However, if you discover anything suspicious, hit PASS! You'll lose points saying "no" to innocent suitors, but at least you'll still be alive!
Programmer: Jared Slawski (ColeSlaughter)
3D Environment Modeling: Stephen Rudd (ruddgasm)
2D Character Artwork: Andrew Rudd (ruddiculous)
Ratings
| Overall | 127th | 3.924⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 243th | 3.617⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 76th | 3.883⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 774th | 3.075⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 57th | 4.442⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 43th | 4.092⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 66th | 4.053⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 54🗳️ | 81🗨️ |
Graphics are nice, gameplay is simple but effective. It is funny to see what some of them can say or think. A cute entry. Well done guys :)
From the moment I came across this game I knew I had to give it a play and see what it was all about. For starters, I don't think I will ever be able to see devil as anything other than 'Momma' after that. I was able to survive in both of my playthroughs and thoroughly enjoyed it!
The presentation was superb and the randomly generated dates really made the game look varied, and proved just how much appearances could be deceiving. The sound design was also on point and I really liked the effect the jazzy music got with the clock ticking down sound effect.
I really like how the different methods you could use to detect if someone was a serial killer or not got harder and more convoluted as you played, from the dots when using the eye power-up starting to move and increasing in dot counts, to the mouth one making you have to type more and more words that appeared on screen. A really nice difficulty curve overall!
On [behalf of our team](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames) I have to say that this was a really great entry and I really enjoyed every minute I was hoping not to pick a wrong date and be back-stabbed by surprise. Now... if only I could appeal to momma devil... :smiling_imp::whale:
- One of the most innovative games i've come across
- Highly polished, the graphics, music, and gameplay fits well together
- great balance of intrigue and difficulty, and the sacrifices really are sacrifices forcing me to think twice before using powers
Could be improved
- Hard to tell how many people I had to date to "win"?
- All of these people look equally sketchy, you should add some angelic looking fellas to throw people off
- Would be amazing if there's a text to speech function
@kambing Thanks for the feedback! I agree that nice-looking folks would definitely add to the challenge. Unfortunately our random character generator as-is probably wouldn't be keen on intentionally making normal people even if we fed it the assets. :P Also, since we were hurting for time, we made the game a simple "high score" game, where you either get killed or last 3 minutes. Would have liked to show your final score at the end, but it fell through the cracks. I 100% support the addition of the text to speech function though, that is a fabulous idea.
I really liked how your senses got worse as you used your power too, it was a neat way of making the game subtly harder as it continued without breaking the overall mood/theme of the game.
It would be cool if there was more deductive work that just waiting to get a bad indicator, but creating a system that intricate probably would have taken more time than you had. That guy who said he was going to make me pay though, and then had a 20 dollar note rolled up in his pocket, that guy was definitely a serial killer, but for some reason I lost points when I passed him :)
Great job!
Nice work on this kind of effort in order to provide not only different experiences for different playthroughs, but also the graphics variety. I am sure that was a lot work that _sacrificed_ many hours of work.
Outstanding job guys!
As a side note it is kind of funny that you get a score from just not picking a serial killer :laughing:
I managed to get the devil as a candidate, am I luck? lol
I didn't find any bugs, so good job on that.
I found "eye" to be the least useful, I'm not sure how I can know if someone is a killer based on the daily use items it shows me..
I like how you made it so overusing power makes them harder, as opposed to just using a cooldown. it's really smart, overall very well done!
Looks like there was some confusion as to what does and doesn't qualify a date as a "serial killer." In case you're curious, the way players are supposed to discover it is through using their supernatural powers. Hearing their thoughts, seducing a confession, or finding something in their pockets will all lead you to a clue that points to their innocence/guiltiness.
We tried to make the "serial killer" hints as obvious as possible (liking the smell of blood, keeping a list of victims in their pockets, etc.). The other innocent dates are intentionally weird, but sometimes you gotta sacrifice your standards when you're desperate for love! ;)
Again, thanks for playing! And congrats, you were on the lucky side of the 5% roll that spawns the devil as a potential suitor. Hope you enjoy your date with Momma! :smiling_imp:
The charadesign is amazing, discovering each new date was great, and I surprised myself being sadly disappointed when discovering a knife in the pocket of someone I was interested in :/
Would love a bit more polish in the main menu, intro and transitions, but that's not a big deal!
The music and graphics are great too :D ! (the characters are soooo creep :') !)
I guess I would just have liked to have another victory panel !