This was an unexpectedly pleasant little experience. Great aesthetic, fun take on the theme. My clicking finger got a little tired on the X number through, but overall I really enjoyed this.

This was a really good, I enjoyed the progression of unlocking letters and restarting. Good work!

That was adorable. It's a very sympathetic take on social anxiety. If you had more time, I would have liked to build on successful conversations in repeats. Great game!

I can't get started. I go throufh game but can't add letters, ui confusing

WOW! super cool concept. I would have never thought of this

Super innovative! Always cool to see obscure mechanics that affect the narrative!

@anne-ogborn Thanks for playing, and sorry it was confusing.

For anyone who finds themselves stuck - it costs hearts to buy letters, so if you're unable to unlock any letters, it might be because you haven't earned any hearts. Try replaying and exploring other conversation options.

Oh i am sooo boring!
love these mechanics on dating sims ... there must be a game to go beyond Florence one day =)


one could say that this is a more puzzly version of florence

I loved it, it's a soothing experience.

Wow, one of the best so far. Love the idea and great execution!

Hey, thanks for the how to play hint, I came back and tried it again, and loved it! I said 'oh, god, this is painful' out loud at one point - really felt the whole tongue tied on a date thing.

Cool game but huuu.... I didn't get the patience to check every route XD even after getting all the letters I never get to the end X) pretty confusing. I think a reminder on what you already tryed, like a colored indicator, would be nice since there's a lot of route and that's a compliment for such a little but well made game ;) .

Games with dialog options are my weakness, so I enjoyed unlocking different routes :)
Graphics and dialogs are cute. Lovely game!

I really loved it ! It's a calm refreshing game and the graphics are really cute ^^ Plus, that's a very original take on the theme :)

What a clever concept ! Congrats !

This was a very sweet game. Nice graphics, novel mechanic and cute story. I enjoyed playing it.

I normally don't like dating sims, but this was fun to play. I liked the puzzle aspect of it - I think it would be nice to have options to get to beat the game without getting all the letters by being creative somehow, but it wasn't too difficult to get more hearts by choosing different options and remembering the letters you need to in order to say certain things. Good job! I think some music or sound effects could elevate this game.

This was a cute game!

Very good concept. Flawlessly executed.

There were just the right number of choices. Not so many that it was overwhelming.

Really well done!!

A very interesting take on the theme :) The only thing that bothers me a little is the very slow start. But I think I just didn't pick my first letters in a strategic way. Really liked it so far, I will dig it more later!

pollishhedddd

That was so cute! :sob:

I loved it! The idea was great, new branches of dialogue every replay kept it fresh, the graphics were stylish and on point- I wouldn't take away a thing.

It kind of has me wanting to see a more expansive version where you could type out words yourself, but that would be quite the monster on its own. I really like what was done here, though, because it conveyed that feeling of nervousness and social ineptitude that I know I've felt before.

The only thing I wish there had been was some audio. Text blips as the characters display and some music would be nice.

Regardless, I adored playing it, thanks for making it!

Marvelous work!

Wow, what a cute game! I love the concept, and being rewarded for exploring alternate dialogue options each time is a really nice touch.

Heartwarming game, the graphics are really cute and to the point, the concept is a really nice way to explore a dialogue tree, I could only wish for a nice music to go with it, otherwise an excellent entry, congratulations!

Such a sweet game and clever concept! I've been interested in word/letter-based game mechanics, and this is a great example of one. I can imagine the effort it took to plan the dialogue so that the player can gradually uncover new letters and have the entire alphabet at their disposal towards the end. Fantastic work! I've also been hearing about Ink but had no idea it was possible to make something like this using it - I should check it out. Thanks again for making this little gem; I'm looking forward to your future work!

This was very cute ^^ glad to have played it

Even if the scope is small, This is basically perfectly executed, well done !
Really damn cute.

cute graphics and very simple. I love it.

i like it when I play something and get stuck keep playing it, this was fun, sweet and charming!

A flawless execution of an incredible idea. I want more!

OMG, best game ever xDD. I love it

I think this is the best game on this LD I've played. The mechanic is so simple and powerful and gives a refreshing twist on the old "visual novel" genre, and it uses the theme perfectly, and the art if great and it has deep cute mood, so basically checks all the boxes for me!

The only problem I had is the repeated clicking to advance dialogue, I feel like maybe space bar would have been better for that.

@xlomid and anyone else who's interested in how the game script works: I wrote a quick post about [using Ink to write the branching dialogue](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/nothing-to-say/$175106).

Also as a general note, it's really making my week to get so many nice comments. I appreciate everyone trying the game and sharing their thoughts. :blue_heart:

this is my favourite ld game so far! the graphics are super cute and the dialogue is so fun! the mechanic is so smart and a great usage of the theme, and you're always short that one letter! the best game i've played this ld, great work!

I seriously enjoyed that, I wish there was audio/music though. even just chirps to mimic her speaking. It's such a lovely little game to play and revisiting different branches after unlocking certain words feels so nice. its super well written too! Deffo has potential to be something more like using the talking points over multiple dates.

Well done folks!

wow guys, congratulations! this game is just perfect. concise, unbearably cute, and with such an entertaining mechanic! A great script as well. It's perfect. It was so pleasant and relaxing to play this tonight! Thank you... :)

Really nicely done. Love it. Fun to explore a single conversation over multiple attempts as you "find your words", heh.
Bit of a Groundhog Day (movie) vibe.
Looks great and well written.
Sound would have really finished this out, added to the immersive quality.

Cute game, one of the best theme interpretations I've seen too.
All I'd really ask for is a fast forward button.

Well that was fun and cute and clever and all sorts of things. I guess the only complaint I have is that it gets a bit repetitive, so it would be nice to be able to skip through conversations a bit faster. But that's barely a complaint, overall it was great.

Definitely a clever game, it was a little maddening to have to play it over and over and over - i ended up just clicking through the dialogue after a while because i'd read it soo often to get past it to get back to the new thing or path i unlocked by buying certain letters. I guess my only critique would be to figure out how to keep the conversation going but allow buying letter mid game to unlock the paths so its more of a dialogue puzzle then just a brute force kind of thing.

Adorable!

Wow. You two really nailed the theme and it was a very real experience.
Best game I played so far, real neat take on the dating sim genre!
The girl is indeed a cute girl! So lovely and caring <3

This was wonderful! I saw a handful of takes on the theme that were about being able to speak, but this one was by far the sweetest!! <3 amazing concept and art, and writing! Thank you :D

Love your graphics style.

Very nice! Really enjoyed it. Great job!

Great game, I didn't feel punished when I had to start over and the art style/ mechanic reminds me of Florence on the App Store, great job!

Oh my gosh this is so good! I didn't expect to get nearly as engrossed in the game as I ended up being

I liked this more than I thought I would. It's such a unique idea and the small facial expression changes are great. Thanks for this!

Such a cute game with a great interpretation of the theme, really well done, I absolutely love the art!

What a lovely game, the art is super cute! The mechanic is pretty neat and well executed. Bravo!

This is such a neat mechanic (and so realistic too xD) But I felt a bit like I hadn't properly finished the game but I tried all combinations and it seemed like there was nothing else to do. Anyway, it's adorable. I do miss some sfx though!

Charming, cute, ingenious. A great game! The idea itself is just amazing. I love how you made a puzzle game with dialogue base game. I never saw this it in any game, it is so unique. Congrats and thanks for your game. 5* perfect!

@mateusboga Thank you for the feedback, that's really helpful.

I'm curious if you were able to tell Zoe that you think she's great - that's intended to be the end, but maybe it wasn't clear enough. (I still included an option to restart at that point, because I thought people might still want to go through and try other dialogue options.) On the other hand, if you didn't even get the option to tell her your feelings, that could be because it's only available if Zoe says she's having fun - you have to be interesting enough in the current conversation to see it.

Both of those are things I was worried could be unclear, so I'm curious if one was the issue. But either way, I'm sorry it wasn't as satisfying an ending as it could have been.

The idea is soooo coooool, I love this so much! Zoe and the main character are so adorable! I'm in love with Zoe, she's so nice! The design of the dialogues are so smart. Perfect game! Cute and have a lot of fun! (I think it's better to have a short animation or some narrative after confession of love lol)

Interesting game. What caught my attention the most was the drawing. Very beautiful! Music was sorely missed. SFX too. Could have a little to give a soul.
I think it was hard work creating all the avenues for the dialogues.

Congratulations!

This is our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/soundscapes

Clever wordplay for a word game starting with nothing to say. My wife appreciates this lesson in communication. There weren't too many choices, well done!

Heh, that was cute. Clever design too and fits with the theme. Very nice entry.

Good work.

Here's your well deserved high scores. Great take and execution on the theme. Me and my girlfriend played together and both got invested all too heavily, scared of making the bad choice of words :)

The only thing I think you could have improved (apart from the lack of any audio, I had to do the same sacrifice ah ah!) is the UI. Like showing which line can lead to a piece of dialogue the player has to see yet! Also, I wasn't quite sure if I had a "good ending" at some point (but I guess I have).

Otherwise, your game is really smart! The core idea is very interesting, the story is heartwarming and the art is just lovely! Great job!

Very cool! It's a very interesting idea and a great way to make navigating a (relatively short) dialog tree multiple times... it feels like Groundhog Day, in a grid way :)

Best game ever! Played with my LD team and we were thrilled with the concept and execution!

This is the first game on LD45 I rated 5 stars in all categories, its perfect in all ways! <3

Oh wow this is so fantastic! Such a novel take on the theme, and it captures that helpless of awkward first dates so well!

I'm in love with the art style and how minimal and clear the UI is -- the pink speech bubbles to indicated points is such a nice touch! This was a a very sweet little game, and a real treat to play :) Thanks for making it!

What a cute story!!!
and it was so lovely for u to have such a warm concept.To help such a boy to win his girl's heart is a delightful experience!

That is such a nice little story! I like how you interpreted the theme. The UI and the art is so simple and so clean. Even though the dialogues kept repeating, it feels good to be able to explore more of the dialogues within those. Some audio would have made this game so better!

AMAZING CUTE STORY ! I love it ! Character, story, dialogs, mechanics ... All is so beautiful ! Congratulations ! :clap:


( If I can add one thing, this game could also be awesome on a mobile version ! ;-) )

@t-bo Thank you!

A mobile app is definitely out of scope, but for what’s it worth, the game should be playable in a mobile browser just fine. :slight_smile:

Well, that was pretty interesting! I liked the puzzle aspect of the gameplay the most, but I guess it's also a kind of memory game? Nice, clean and polished graphics. Some sound/music would've really improved the atmosphere but oh well, can't have it all in a 3 day jam!

Thank you, for taking me back to some good memories! Love this game! more than anything

Very fun game loop!

Excellent game I just wish there was a more clear indication of the game being over.

Awesome game. I love it =)

@celia14 Yes I did get that, but I only assumed it was the ending because he no longer said he "would keep trying" at the end, but I guess it felt too fast and that's why I wanted more xD

I love a lot despite the slightly repetitive side

Really Great! Thank you for this game, enjoyed it a lot, and I'm definitely gonna name my future dog Pumpkin! <3

Really super game! A lot of fun!

It was a hard game for me, whose native language was not English. It will be fun to understand the contents of the game. I don't know the meaning of the alphabet. I'm sorry.

I think that this game came closest to the conception of "start with nothing" on this LD.

Very cute game ! I had a lot of fun doing it, the art is very nice, I liked the monochromatic choice, dialogs are cute, I missed a bit some sounds but I gess you missed time.

Cute game.Good job to all of you.

its such a lovely game!

This was fantastic! Unlocking letters is such a clever way to handle being tongue-tied. :)

Does the "small talk isn't your thing" only appear when you didn't get any heart on that try, so that you'd get 1 heart anyways? :0 When I had just a few letters missing, nothing seemed to generate new hearts even though I went through newly unlocked menu options, so I got this message many times in a row.

I tried to get all the possible responses (Pumpkin! ♥) and I loved the reaction to the picnic. The mechanic was relatively simple but it was somewhat addictive and I wanted to unlock the "I want to tell you something" option, so I kept on playing until I did. :)
I wish there was a speedup/skip button, but since clicking moved it to the next line automatically and the dialogue was quite short, it wasn't a big problem. I really like that she had different expressions and the talking animation, it helped a lot with making the scene interesting, a static image might have become boring after a few rounds, but this was just fine.
It'd be nice to have a sound effect when a new heart was given! But since the text box changed color, too, it was obvious enough and it felt very rewarding!

this game was super cute and the art is so dang great, i'm jealous and impressed. best dating sim I've played, i'd love to see you guys expand on this it's so dang good.

I rate this "wholesome feels UwU"/10

Cute Piece. Calming Monochromatic Colors, Loads of replay to unlock branching dialogs. This Ink scripting language is quite Interesting; I wonder what engine you are pairing the Ink Scripts with? I've checked out the 'prequel' Flash game Nod that was made in Flixel, btw. Suggestion: I wonder if you have thought of making a Dating Sim + Duolingo Cross-over?

Looking forward to your future work! :dizzy:

@acronaut There’s no additional game engine, the game code is all javascript manipulating HTML elements. (Not sure if you saw my [blog post](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/nothing-to-say/$175106) about using Ink, but there’s a little snippet of the game/Ink integration in it.)

I love the Duolingo idea, that would be so cute! And thank you.

Cute game and well designed. It was very frustrating at the beginning when I couldn't do anything but sit quietly and stare at her as she did all the talking :)

Great idea and well put together for the progression. The simplistic art was perfect. Great entry.

Loved this game a lot! It's super cute, and also really captures that tongue tied part of dating so well ^ ^

This is really clever! I had fun with it! I was surprised that once you finally reach your goal, the game just keeps looping, though. Unless I _didn't_ actually reach the goal? Not sure what happened there.

@philomory Thanks! And sorry it wasn't super clear - even after you reach the end, I left the option to restart in case people want to explore other dialogue options. In the post-jam version I'll make it more clear that you won and can choose to replay if you want to.

Great interpretation of the theme and cute art. Nice dialogue. I'll have to try Ink some time.

And it's nice to see another lightweight game using just JavaScript and DOM elements.

I like the idea and such a superb realization of this puzzle. Nice work!

I really like the dialogue. It keeps hinting at other parts of the tree, that make you want to keep unlocking new letters just to see what each branch has. It was a nice relaxing game to play and I really enjoyed it. I wonder how this system to could be expanded into more of a puzzle game....

Oh. My. Gosh. This game is so cute! :3 ME really like, Zoe is also cute. I love that you have built so many different dialogue threads and it feels like no answer is the wrong answer what I first thought. But any answer I give can lead in a different but positive direction. Cool!

Haha, good take on the theme, nothing to say is the only thing he can actually say. Gj on that xD
I like how everything is intertwined and comes out the way it needs to be, I was curious each time what will she say next, and trying to remember the letters I needed!
Though, any kind of music would have played out very well, but even without it, its great shy date simulator with an innovative use of theme

loved this concept~!

That's a clever interpretation of the theme and it turned out really cute. Great job!

### :blush: :flushed: :blush: :flushed:

Wish this worked in real life too :joy: :joy:

Great job, really unique entry, was great to play something that was a lot different. Fantastic work

I love it I love it!!!! I want more!!! I want to play a whole giant game like this!! Thank u for the cuteness and the wonderful writing!!

Clever, and well done!

This is very lovely, wow! So sweet, I could recognize the real live dialogues and situations. Actually, I was also very shy some time ago. I could not speak with people, until I met this review https://hookupmasters.com/adult-dating-sites/nostringsattached-review/ about sex apps and adult dating platforms. I joined the site NoStringsAttached and could open my mind with expressive and sexy-minded partners. Sexting was very hot by the way, and I like when somebody is watching me by the webcam. Like the one site says 'It's okay, you can touch yourself" :)