Love at Elevation

This game can be kind of tedious to play. Three main problems in my opinion. 1. Limited roleplaying options. If you're not a hippy you're not going to have a good time because all the options are hippy options. Like if you think traditional 'medicine' is not only dumb but dangerous and unethical and that it should be illegal, well, your character will still have a positive attitude toward it. Don't think meditation is helpful or worthwhile? Too bad, your character will still meditate? Not a yuppie? Too bad, you will still fetishize foreign cultures without understanding them because your character is a hippy. 2. The romance is tedious and annoying. There is unnecessary drama. I had no interest in maintaining more than one relationship at once but the game still keeps pushing romantic options on you at every turn and keeps making you reaffirm that you're committed to the relationship. At some point it just gets insulting when you're asked 10 times in a row whether you want to break up or cheat on your current partner. 3. No matter what choice you make, the game criticizes you about it. Despite railroading you into relationships you don't want and not letting you cut ties with your ex.

The good thing about this game was that each datable character had an interesting and distinct personality. The main issue was that the conflict was forced and didn't make sense. E.g.: [list] [*]"you feel like you should have intervened with in these arguing homeless people" no, I really don't. [*]"you should have stopped to help this woman" no, I shouldn't have. The police were already dealing with her. [*]"you feel it's premature to meet Ray's friends" why would that be premature? It's not intimate at all. [*]"it says something about you that you 'let yourself be chatted up' while on a date" except that me and Kaysha literally just had a completely casual, platonic, very brief conversation and didn't even exchange contact info. [/list] There was a lot of unnecessary conflict over meeting Kaysha in general, bringing her up over and over, despite that I expressed no interest in her and she clearly wasn't a threat to my relationship with Ray. The author forced my character to not like Ray's friends, despite that they were perfectly fine (the options when he asked me about them were either pretend to like them or confess that I don't like them). The author forced my character to be mad at Ray for his cutting the date early after his call with his dad (all the options were either fake being happy or be angry). Generally there was a lot of overreacting to the most petty things and making up imaginary conflict over nothing. [list] [*]"Oh, no! He's looking at you like he wants to have sex! your prospect for long term relationship must not be good." [*]"Oh, no! you said this silly thing that he wasn't interested in! Did you just ruin EVERYTHING??" [*]"It's been 3 days without a date. Are you not meant to be?? Maybe you're breaking up!" [*]"Oh, no! Nothing particularly groundbreaking happened on your date! Is you relationship never going to get better??" [*]"You met a homeless person on the street. Are you one day going to become homeless?? Now you're so shaken that you don't want to talk to anyone!" [*]"He's sitting an inch too far away. Relationship crisis!" [*]"He didn't laugh that much!" [*]"His tone was neutral when he said this!" [*]"He didn't kiss you on the lips this one time!" [/list] None of those things indicated issues, but the narrator and character kept pretending that they did so there could be some imaginary "conflict". "I feel like you don't want to be with me," despite that I took every opportunity possible to go out with him and there was no reason he should have felt like I didn't want to be with him. "We have a lot to work out," the only disagreement we had at all was whether or not we should have had sex in the first 3 dates. [i]"'I care [about sex] plenty. Maybe that's why I don't jump into it.' You feel a little bad about lying.[/i] But only a little." How is that a lie? Another presumption on the author's part: that if you haven't had sex, it must be because you don't like the person rather than because you don't want to jump into it. "You know you and Ray need to talk," about what? We'd had no issues over anything. But fine: we talked and worked it out. Next time we met: "we didn't really talk," yes, we did. But okay, we talked again. We worked things out. Next time we met: "we need to talk". Seriously, why did we keep needing to talk about the same thing? We worked things out already. Move on, talk about other things, do other things. "[The restaurant] looks like the kind of place where people declare their love for each other. Yikes! No matter how warm you might feel for him, it's probably way too soon for that kind of thinking." Except that I had already declared by love for him before this, so this was just more forced conflict. Even after both my character and Ray established that we were dating, that we were boyfriends, etc., still on the next page "it's too soon to say you're dating. You don't know where you stand. There's more talking to be done." There really wasn't. Several times the author made the character say stupid ♥♥♥♥ that then led to arguments and awkward moments perfectly avoidable if the author didn't make the character such a fool. More forced conflict, but not even forced conflict from making choices. Forced conflict from the author forcing my character to make stupid choices. I simply chose to meet up with Ray; the author had the character make a retarded joke that Ray didn't think was funny; then "yikes! This isn't going well. Maybe you two won't work out." Finally at the end there were choices on how to "improve": be more assertive, be more trusting, be more romantic, be more open. My character was already all 4 of these, so no matter which I chose, the result was some stupid "hmm, you already are such-and-such so it's surprising you feel this way." Then maybe give more options, dufus.

On the surface, this game sounded like something I would enjoy. What I found was a script for a frustrated romance comedy. Have you heard that real pilots find MS Flight Simulator harder than real flying due to the lack of necessary feedback? THAT describes this game perfectly. Add in the forced drama scenes that happen no matter what you do, and you have the setting for real frustration. Wait for a sale if you are going to try this. NOT Reccommended

What ticked me off about this game was that I always had to choose between romance and sex. A trusted and successful relationship can lead to satifactory sex. They aren't neccessarily incompatible. But in so many choice situations, it always seemed to be carnal VS romance. And during one relationship with certain someone, I got broken up with because I didn't let him get to third base in previous two dates, and I didn't even get the option to explain that I'm strongly againt pre-marital sex. Also the relationship between you and ex seemed weird and pretty unclear. Why did I break up with him? What part of him I just coundn't handle anymore? Or simply: what kind person was he? And maybe it's just a (fictional) Boulder City thing, but this free spirit vibe coming from so many charactes just seemed very ugly and repulsive to me.

On the surface this sounded like the sort of game I really needed in my life right now, I appreciated that it was basically a choose-your-own-adventure type story based on romance and that it both lets you set your gender and your preferred romantic partners, but... wow could the story not be any less my thing! Your character, seemingly with little effect from your choices, is basically a big hipster who romanticizes Boulder, Colorado (of all places?), as well as bikes, climbing, coffee shops, and activism (but, like, in the short time I gave the game a try I didn't see anything too serious so I suspect more along the lines of "share Buzzfeed listicles about endangered birds on Facebook" activism than, y'know, actual activism?) which is all pretty unforuante since I'm a woke Midwest gay who hates the idea of moving West and isn't into physical activity or either coffee or tea, so it was just a bunch of choices one after another that had absolutely no appeal to me? Maybe it would've gotten better, but it definitely just got to the point where I wasn't enjoying myself at all, so it wasn't worth sticking through it to find out unfortunately. If you're a hipster that dreams of moving to a medium-sized desert city where you can get high at a coffee shop, then you'll probably have a better time with this game than I did, but this story just really wasn't for me!

The writing is like a hippie with a marijuana laced soy latte, but I still liked it. Come into this armed with your inner hipster as you navigate the beautiful fantasy land of Boulder, Colorado. Unlike other games from Choice Of, this game is riddled with a huge ass list of stats. I literally JUST finished my first playthrough after a fairly hefty 3 hours, so it will take me a looooong time to see the effects that the stats have. Also, you can supposedly have an open relationship in this Love Simulator 2018, but I could not find it in my heart to to cheat on Rea. I wanted to be the Coochie Captain of Colorado, but Rea didn't deserve that. 10/10 Waifus 8/10 Writing 11/10 Feels

I really wanted to like Love at Elevation. I adore many of the other games by Choice of Games, however this one just irked me and I felt as though I had to push myself to keep going at times. This is the first game from them that feels tedious. Frustrating. Just... couldn't finish it. This game appeals to a certain person, and I personally am not that person, but aside from that, it just irks me. I use irk as to be my feeling towards the very descriptive nature of the story. I feel like I am having Boulder, Colorado etched into the very fibers of my mind and memory, street by street. Athlete by coffee hippie. I get the way the book is trying to set everything up and really the overall basis of trying to find yourself after getting away from a toxic ex is appealing. To engulf yourself into your new surroundings - but there is an overly hippie vibe that gets thrust upon you even when you don't want to be that type of person entirely. Thus the story and the vibe begin to break down. It feels forced. I would recommend trying a different game by Choice of Games and Hosted Games - this just... really isn't worth the price and really worth your frustration.

I'm sorry to say that I couldn't enjoy this book. It did not offer enough different options for choices and even when it did, many times it didn't respect them. In stead of asking the reader "what do you think of X", it just assumed I was crazy about them, just because I was nice to them that one time and maybe wanted to have a good time. The book cannot just tell me how I feel about somebody, it doesn't work that way. The sex scene that I tried my hardest to get out of as fast as possible was described as the most romantic and passionate experience in my life. The writing was good, pleasant to read hadn't it been a choice game book.

Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 240: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (3/10) All right. We’ve had too much positivity. So congrats to [i]Love at Elevation[/i] for being my least favorite IF I’ve ever read by a landslide! You know, I’ve never felt skeeved or annoyed when reading in a video game, especially an IF romance. But there’s always a first time for everything! [i]Love at Elevation[/i] isn’t offensively bad (or maybe it is?), but it’s definitely not good. Usually, I can say “this isn’t for me,” but this isn’t for anyone. It feels like a visual novel that wanted to explore grounded realistic, adult romance, but ended up feeling like a weird blend of wellness retreat propaganda, awkward character writing, and sex-first relationships that never emotionally clicked. I wasn’t offended. I wasn’t charmed. I was just vaguely confused, mildly uncomfortable, and deeply uninvested. This game wants you to care about its characters, but it gives you so few reasons to. I also found the author’s tone to be incredibly jarring in its criticisms of the player. [b][h2]Pros:[/h2][/b] ✅ Technically sound writing. Grammar, punctuation, formatting is all clean. The prose itself isn’t terrible, and the pacing is readable. You can tell the author knows how to write; the issue lies more in what they wrote, not how they wrote it. ✅ Beautiful setting. The backdrop of mountain life in a Colorado town is nice. If you squint past the odd tone of the characters, there’s some cozy potential in the idea of small-town community, nature hikes, and fresh starts. It feels like it wants to be relaxing and grounded. ✅ Not a terrible short story concept. The core premise works as a short, one-off novella about a person moving to a beautiful town and navigating romance. It’s why I bought it! ✅ Decent sex scenes. If you’re here for the spice, it’s not bad. They’re not groundbreaking, but they’re competent and decently paced. The sexual writing is one of the only areas that feels consistently confident. [b][h2]Cons:[/h2][/b] 🟥 The romance options are bizarrely hard to like. I tried. I really did. But every love interest felt more like an awkward person I was being forced to tolerate than someone I actually wanted to get to know. Rae (I picked all female ROs) is described as intense, almost rude, which didn’t quite endear me to her. Kaysha is sweet but seemed very insistent on her work and was late to our dates. The ex is … a clingy ex. The “hippy healer” is a “doctor” of alternative medicine, which is a big turn off for me, sadly. Flawed characters can be great—but these aren’t “flawed and human,” they’re “flawed and grating.” Instead of building chemistry, the game keeps nudging me with a soft “But… don’t you still wanna have sex with them?” No, actually. I actually want to like them first. and instead of growing to love them, I felt like I was dragging my MC through a set of awkward therapy sessions with people I barely liked. ➡️ On our first date, the Hippy Healer is fifteen minutes late, with no explanations or apologies. You then catch them checking someone out? And the narrative tells us they slept with that person??? They know you know, and there’s no reason to call them out on that??? Hello??? Dawg, what am I doing. My date just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ someone else and pretended it didn’t happen. Worst first date in IF history. 🟥 Forced hippie-town lifestyle. Now listen, I don’t have anything against hippies; I’m just not one. But you will pick between fitness, wellness, or activism. (These three things are also not my interests lol.) You will hike, meditate, do yoga, and pretend to be into holistic medicine. You will love coffee and bookstores. A romance option is even someone studying alternative medicine. The game has no real room for skepticism, sarcasm, or being anything other than a crystal-waving 4/20 bro. If you’re not on board with pseudoscience or new-age vibes, your MC will still act like you are. Roleplaying options are extremely limited; your character is pre-written with one worldview, and it’s aggressively hippy-dippy. Your character will always have a positive attitude alternative medicine. Don't think meditation is helpful or worthwhile? Too bad, your character will still meditate. It’s one thing to be railroaded; it’s another to be railroaded in a contemporary romance genre with slightly controversial content. 🟥 The games take a strange attitude toward romance and sex. In fact, they are two seperate meters. It’s an interesting idea in theory—inclusive for asexual folks, and roleplay a friends-with-benefits scene. But for some reason, you are forced to choose between the two. Your flirting options are “I want to settle down with X” or “I want to jump their bones.” Well, what if I want to do both? It was hard to engage with the story when I didn’t care about the “romance” side of the romance. Sex and love don’t have to be synonymous—but they should at least feel related. What if the more I love someone, the more I want to have sex with them? This mechanic was too binary. 🟥 Just some really bizarre tone in dialogue and character reactions. This writing honestly made me feel judged and insulted. For example: “Kayshe accepts your decision. As you make dinner and talk, she keeps looking at you as if she thinks she’ll be able to talk you into sex later on. You’re not keen on that happening—or on Kaysha thinking it, either.
It’s making you uncomfortable, in fact, because you don’t feel it’s helping to rebuild the trust that you need to rebuild something after your misunderstanding. Maybe that will come later tonight, you hope. And if it doesn’t, then maybe prospects for you and Kaysha aren’t as rosy as you’d like to think.” I don’t love the idea of an RO “talking you into sex later on,” but that’s realistic to some people, I get that. But on a date with her, another RO comes to chat. I was perfectly polite and accepted her number as a friend. However, the narration says: “It says something about you that you let yourself be chatted up while on a date.” I did what now? 🟥 All romances follow the same structure. No matter who you choose, your dates hit the same beats: same activities, same friend drama, same emotional arc. There’s a recycled feeling to it all. It felt like relationship speedrunning, and not in a fun way. No matter who you’re with, the story plays out the same. The “rival” who tries to sabotage your relationship shows up regardless, with identical dialogue. Everyone’s problems start feeling interchangeable. It makes your choices feel cosmetic. 🟥 The Ex plotline was also … underwhelming. I had no idea why we broke up, why I would even get back together with them, and our first in-game interaction is them being clingy and aggressive. Yay for toxic exces, I guess. This game is weird, man. [hr] If you enjoyed this review, please check out my curator page to find more: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45814768-Verdict-Play-or-Pass/]Verdict: Play or Pass. [/url] Also, please leave a like and visit [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Indie_Gems]IndieGems[/url] and our YouTube channel for more reviews like this one. [/hr]