Game Review: Validate Vol. 1

If you’re looking for a narrative story about drama, baby mamas, and fluid sexuality, this is it!

I must admit, it’s a long time coming to play this game. It’s been in my inbox since 2022. Then I met Dani at the Game Developers Conference in March 2023. Where she told me, she sent the game to my inbox. I apologized and told her I’d get on it. Then life happened and now I’m reviewing the game two years later. But I’m glad she thought to send it to me and that we met. Two Chicago girlies!

Validate is a game about various people dating. The character’s stories are in your hand. It’s a decision based simulation. There are four simulations. Emhari, Isabelle, Inaya, and Malik. Malik is the first character’s story I went through. He is a Ghanaian guy named Malik who is learning to be a better father, person, and partner.

We start with him so in love with the mother of his child that he can’t even think straight. Well, that doesn’t really pan out and he starts dating other people.

Malik is a manager at “Bopeyes’’ trying to get into music, and his BM (baby’s mama) career is already flourishing. He’s dreaming about the day he can quit. He does a few side gigs here and there is an opportunity for him to blow up.

It goes through the daring questions of, was my upbringing was a hindrance to me, my ambitions, and my dating life.

He questions everything happening to him and it opens up a different world to him. Malik is looking to have a personal glow up as a father, rapper, and over all human being. This game gives you the choice to ruin his life and be the ultimate f-boy. Or help him develop.

I also played Inaya’s story. They’re an “Instglam” influencer chef. Inaya is interesting because her friend describes her as an edge-lord and I think it’s a good description. They try to fight the patriarchy and government in every way. By doing little things like not turning on the AC. I could never. But they’re a bit inspiring.

I don’t want to give away too much but I will say, Yolanda, in the middle of the photo above, continues to be done dirty and I don’t like that! Like, girl, stand up for yourself.

Isabelle has the longest intro in the game. I get why but I was like, ok so we’re just going to be introduced to the whole Brady Bunch!

All of the characters date each other and the story is fluid. Remember watching movies and shows that started in the middle of the story? Then went back and showed how each character came to end up in the same place together. This game does that and I think it’s really cool. Plus it has a good amount of replayability as each character has four to five endings. There are good endings, bad endings, rare endings 1, and rare endings 2.

This game has up to three volumes. I’m impressed they can get so many dating situations to compile into three volumes with about four characters in each volume. And that’s not including the people they date. Some people are exclusively for dating. Like Rocky. Rocky meets with Isabelle and Malik but isn’t a playable character.

The Lofi music is quite pleasant. I find myself opening up the game and just letting it play while I accomplish other tasks. My favorite track is the opening theme song. The score in between the chapters is a cute uplifting one. This is misleading because some of the chapters are dark.

I enjoyed the simple click-through method that is used in Validate. It’s nice there’s an autoplay so there’s no need to constantly keep clicking forward or use the enter key.

The cutout graphics and geometrical shapes of the background are a nice touch. There are separate animations to convey emotions. This helps pull me into the story. And sometimes I start to guess which emotion the character will feel after a decision. And then content warnings on the screens are a nice touch.

This game is absolutely messy — well, the narrative. I played in a few Discords and the gasps and agreenace with decisions and statements were intense. Especially when talking about same sex dating. There’s a scene where Rocky says something about going missing because he’s going home with a straight man. This promoted a discussion in the server. Validate may be a bit on the nose and a bit cringe, but it does tell the truth and portray peoples’ dating life.

Validate is currently out on Steam for (MSRP) $14.99. Plus, there’s a free demo..

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