81) Five Dates (2020)

The year 2020, with all of the absolute insanity that led up to and occurred during it, will likely stand as one of the most fascinating times in modern history. I truly do not envy those who have to study everything that occurred during this incredibly strange year. However, one of the things that will likely help to show just how bizarre the world was is to look at the media that arose from it, and Five Dates, developed by Wales Interactive, does a fairly good job of capturing one aspect of the insanity. Set during the height of lockdown, Five Dates puts us in the shoes of Vinny, a young man who downloads a dating app in an attempt to find human connection and possibly even love from the comfort of his home.

Five Dates is billed as an interactive rom-com, and our first task is to set up Vinny's profile. This gives us a handful of options that I'm not entirely positive have any real impact outside of giving us a direction in which to roleplay. Afterwards, we get to chat with our best mate Callum, who acts as our sounding board before and after each date. Almost immediately we're hit with five matches on our profile, of which we can only send date requests to three of them. This presents both the namesake of the game and forces us to choose between our eligible ladies. Given only a photo and very basic information, we must decide which three to proceed with while the other two are taken off the table. In this way, the game automatically sets itself up for a bit of replay value, which is always appreciated.

After selecting our three to go forward, we then get to go on virtual, webcam focused dates with them. This gives us a chance to get to know them and our choices determine how well we get along with them. Each of the girls has bits of information that they hint toward while still keeping an air of mystery to them, and each girl responds differently to how we interact with them. For instance, some girls prefer a bluntly honest approach while others may prefer a bit more tact. At the end of our first round of dates, we choose two of the three girls to invite on a second date, meaning we now have to choose one to not move forward, giving us a bit more replay value.

The second date with each girl is a game date, in which we get to know them better playing a game either from the app or otherwise. These take the form of general icebreaker games designed to get to know one another better, and once again how the girls respond to our answers varies by girl. We can always tell how well we're doing by checking to see how much the girls like us, which is presented in a fairly straightforward percentage system. After the second date, we select one girl to advance with, asking the single lady on an unprecedented third date.

How well you do on the third date all comes down to how well you've done previously and, once again, the options you choose. Each girl will be different, and you can absolutely blow it at the finish line. The third date acts as our final stage, with the ending we get being determined by which girl we stuck with and how well we courted her. While I certainly applaud the game for its multiple endings, it does come off as feeling very gamified, and the idea that "winning" results in getting to be in a relationship with a woman is more than a bit reductive. Still, I can hardly fault a dating game for being focused on going on dates, so perhaps I'm being a bit pedantic in this regard.

Five Dates is a relatively short experience with a surprising amount of replay value. While it's easy to pick the girl you like best and get the good ending with her, it's worth exploring the other girls and trying various routes in order to experience each possible option. I have to give major kudos to the team behind it, especially the cast of actors and actresses who all turn in pretty good performances. Oddly, I feel the actor for Vinny is possibly the weakest in the bunch, but considering he had to record the most scenes with an untold number of options leading up to each choice, I'm willing to give it a pass, especially as I could hardly call his performance bad. Five Dates isn't going to be for everyone, and it doesn't do much to stand out within the genre, but the novelty of playing a game set during the pandemic about a deeply human need to connect with others is enough for to recommend considering it at the very least.