Love Lock

As someone who played particles of reality and the short but enjoyably dark lover's trophy; as well as the two sub-genres of dark romance folie fatale and s****** club both japanese but darkly amazing, I knew this would be my cup of tea. Although I only played the first 20 or so minutes first off love the options to choose gender and pronouns and as someone who doesn't mind an insert character without the cgs like lover's trophy which worked well this game does it similarly and caters to your character choices. I'll come back to edit pros and cons but for anyone who loves dark and macabre romance or has played particles of reality which had some very similar themes this is for you! Also want to say it feels really well put together and the mish-mash of playstyles makes for a fun and immersive time in a choose your own style dark romance. Props to the dev for another great dark romance game.

I’m not one to usually write a review for a game, and even though I’ve followed this game for years, was an initial patron of the creator, and have played this game for many hours (both in its beta form and now in its full release), I would still usually be hesitant to leave a review on a game. However, knowing the dev’s work ethic, the fact that she made this entire game alone, and knowing that she truly cares about her fans and fan base, I feel emboldened to add my voice to the others that are singing this game's praises. To start with the actual review, this game isn’t for everyone. It has a large amount of gore, violence, depictions of sexual assault, and various other controversial subjects that will turn quite a few people away; however, in many ways this heightens one of Lovelocks greatest strengths: its horror. The fear that something truly awful could happen to you if you make even a small mistake forces careful immersive decision making that keeps me on the edge of my seat when I play. This fear when combined with Lovelock’s hundreds of different meaningful choices, 10 distinct routes with well-thought out characters, and a huge amount of custom animated art creates a level of immersion I’ve scarcely seen in a visual novel. Despite this well executed horror, when it comes down to brass tax this is a bdsm game. It heavily focuses on power dynamics with individuals who are either obsessed with you or want to harm you in both lethal and sexual ways. For some of the characters ([spoiler] Damien and Sebastian as examples [/spoiler]), their obsession with you is the primary source of fear. This creates a level of unnerving tension where you are trying to convince your captors (through truth or lies) that you are playing along with their perversion to avoid their fragile sanity from snapping. Other characters ([spoiler] Walter and David for example [/spoiler]) are completely insane psychopaths, causing their routes to be pure adrenaline as you desperately try to escape what will be rape followed by certain death. Despite this, all characters are still open to manipulation which opens up a large number of mind games that I find eternally intriguing. Overall, the way this game handles sexual encounters creates organic (although at times intriguingly disturbing) romance scenarios that, when combined with the game's immersion, is truly something special. Now that I mentioned a bit about why I love this game, I do feel it is fair to mention a few cons so I am not just giving a completely biased gush about how great it is. I can only think of 2 cons about this game: route selection and player resistance. For route selection, it can be difficult to target specific characters and begin their route if someone is achievement hunting or choosing a character specifically for the fetishes that character caters to; however, this isn’t a big deal. There is a route map built into the game for those who don’t want to find characters organically but it can be slightly hard to read and I feel it would be better for there to be a menu that skips you to specific routes. As for player resistance, there are times when the main character is put into positions where they are unable to resist [spoiler] Rebecca [/spoiler] despite it being feasible to. This can hurt a bit of immersion due to your opponent not being tough canonically but the main character still being unwilling to risk a physical confrontation. This form of being captured is obviously added to give the player the opportunity to be brought into a cat and mouse dynamic where they are on the backfoot (something I find really enjoyable) and is just a small nitpick in the end. Overall, the creator has been working on this game by herself for 5 years, and it shows with the sheer quantity of the art and a whopping 343,000 words of tense story that more than justifies the $28.00 price tag. Although this is one of the creator’s first games, they’ve completely knocked it out of the park and I plan on observing the creator’s future products for more of their interesting twists on horror and sexual content. 9/10, would get kidnapped and molested again.

Dark! But that's what I'm here for~~!! This game is huge I don't think I've even made it even a fraction of the way through so far, we're really spoiled here with all the choices and paths to explore (though double edge sword I'm not sure how difficult, even with the provided choice charts, it will be to explore every possibility—but better that then few choices in my opinion) so I'll be whittling away at this game for a while—specially with the emotionally taxing subject matter. Love the minigames, QTE choices, and health/sanity/etc meters, for a game like this these things really add to the fear and tension. Though I also highly appreciate that they can be turned off, because sometimes you just want to be able to have full control and relax while playing your dark[spoiler], kinky, torture, and murder[/spoiler] horror game! While there are few minor typos and capitalization mistakes, it doesn't take away from the story or experience at all. I'm absolutely feral over [spoiler]the Stalker, especially the 'partner gets kidnapped alongside you' route[/spoiler], but I haven't even met all of the characters yet haha so who knows what my favorite part will be by the end. Something I've noticed after playing for a while, the protagonist is always the weaker, slower, and more helpless person in all situations. Always—now obviously there are many options to fight back and/or escape of course, but I'm speaking in general. For example [spoiler]in the park versus the stalker[/spoiler] even if you're successful in the fight or run mini-games you will still always get caught [spoiler](I think you trip or whatever, with the taxi being the only way I've found so far to successfully get away but I've only see the taxi option one time so far)[/spoiler]. Even beyond this one example this kind of 'no win you are helpless to whatever the character is doing to you' type situation is decently common (and if they have actual ways to successfully fight back/run away as well they're very difficult to trigger as a lot of things in the game require multiple VERY specific choices and paths). This doesn't bother me at all—this is the kind of protagonist I love to play—but I imagine others may prefer a less helpless, or at least more opportunities to become a less helpless, protagonist. (potential) Bugs I've encountered: [spoiler]- Adam's 'Stay?' option once he unlocks the cage is bugged, after a line of you considering that it may be better to stay you still run as if you had picked the 'Run?' option... unless this is determined by the sanity or something I'm not sure I'll try more possibilities.[/spoiler] [spoiler]- Walter loses an arm in his sprite (while doing option 1 and behaving) and in a CG (where he's pushing you down and his necklace swings, but it's only messed up in game not in the gallery - When you pick 'continue' while giving him the hj high love zero sanity I think)[/spoiler] [spoiler]- The 'Lonely' steam achievement says 'Alex' when I ~think~ it's supposed to say 'Adam', in game it's correct. Unless I've completely blanked out on who Alex is, though I feel like this achievement popped up relating to Adam.[/spoiler]

hi!! so this is gonna be a long review. i'm a yapper and i'm VERY passionate about games like these specifically. also, it's my first attempt at a Real Review, so be nice to me, okay? ( •ω•) PREFACE: i don't know if there's a one-word genre description for games like this, but it's a very 'if you know you know' kind of thing. when i say this game is 'like Boyfriend to Death', if you know what Boyfriend to Death is, you probably understand what i'm getting at, you know? okay, so with that being said: this is very much one of those games. they're relatively niche, so seeing a new one is always a nice surprise. the 'gore/torture-based VN' angle as a whole tends to be focused primarily on male protagonists and female victims. it's in this specific 'bottom'focused' subgenre where that can vary a lot--for example, this game (and its most close comparisons, Boyfriend to Death and The Price of Flesh) offer gender selection and/or pronouns selection and, uh, private bits selection, so you can be whatever victim you want to be! Think of this as a game geared more to the masochists rather than sadists. REVIEW PROPER: CONS: truthfully, i'm incredibly conflicted about this game. as a fan of darker VNs (think boyfriend to death, etc.), i've been watching this one on itch for a while--i remember playing the demo, even! but now that it's on steam and fully out, i have some criticisms. as another review said, there are some frankly egregious spelling and grammar errors--not just in one specific route but in *all* the routes. i usually give slack to solo devs for typos specifically because i know how hard it can be to check over everything, but it feels like every other sentence there's at least one misspelling or grammar error. it's ridiculous. there are some attempts at QOL inclusions that i very much appreciate, in particular the option to disable quick time events. however, there are two problems with this. one, it feels very much like a band-aid solution to the issue already there--that the QTEs are entirely too fast. i'm assuming that, when you're being interviewed by the police, the intention is to make it look like you're panicking and can't answer questions properly--but that's not how it comes across. it comes across more like the time limit got mistyped and the dev deleted a zero that was supposed to be in there, so instead of 10 seconds it's only on screen for 1 second. second problem with that: this is something i've encountered mostly in Olive's route, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's there in other routes that I haven't gotten to yet. if you DO disable QTEs (which i highly recommend!) sometimes it just... doesn't help? like, i keep getting Olive's dead end even if I click the 'win QTE' option almost every time, and it feels like a no-win situation. there's another con, too--one that kind of ties in to a 'pro' i mentioned below. it is *complicated* trying to get to specific characters. thankfully the dev was kind enough to put a route guide in the pause menu, but there are very few 'checkpoints' and it's incredibly easy to lose your spot because of the incredibly vague descriptors used for each choices. also, some characters only come in *way* at the end of the 'map', which means by the time you even get to their route you might not want to play through it in that sitting. i'm not sure how i would go about changing this; I don't think something like BTD's 'choosing which restaurant to go to determines your route' would work, because BTD has 3 characters compared to this one's, uh, way more than 3, but there has to be a better way. at the very least i would recommend implementing more 'checkpoints' so you don't lose your way in the route map. going back to the writing--god, i really hate dogging on this specifically, because I'm a writer too and I get how much it can suck sometimes--the gore just... doesn't hit for me like it does in the aforementioned VNs? it feels like it's too quick. in VNs like this, death CGs and bad endings are drawn out for a reason--because they're often more like 'rewards' rather than punishments for playing badly. the closest comparison I can think of is whatever the hell Dramatical Murder did with *its* bad ends that warranted a 45-minute compilation on Youtube, which was both *way* more detailed and *way* more gutwrenching. people often want to play VNs to 100% completion--including, or especially, the bad ends. if the process of doing that is made too annoying, whether intentionally or otherwise, and the 'rewards' aren't worth it, they're not going to see the point in continuing unless they're a different, far more stubborn kind of masochist. mildly related: PROS: SO much content. like, seriously, it's absurd. 10 or so characters (i'm not opening it back up to check lmao) each with at least five routes and accompanying CGs? most VNs only have 5 characters max. it's absolutely *insane*. and while not every character has as many endings as others might, there are still more than enough endings to keep you engaged for a while. speaking of the characters--there's such a variety! it's rare that i get to say it 'feels like there's someone for everyone', but the dev did kind of achieve it this time! everyone is a different flavor of psycho, and the sheer amount of characters allows some of them to overlap in some areas while being completely different in others. one of TPOF's strengths is how distinct its three (four-ish) routes are, but that also means that if only one, or none of their archetypes particularly appeal to you, the game might not be worth it. Love Lock having so many characters lets it cast a WAY wider net! my only genuine criticism here is one i have for a lot of games i play, so don't take it personally--but i wish there were more POC in the game. only one route seems to be a variant of someone that isn't either white or slightly-tanned, and that's a bit of a letdown. finally: again, i really do love the 'adjustable bits' options that we're getting in a lot of these VNs. this subgenre tends to attract a mostly-queer audience, so it's a great way to make everyone feel included! a lot of games, even in the more niche subgenres, tend to have guys as the default, and that suuucks. this is a much-needed change, and while Love Lock didn't exactly pioneer it (again, BTD had pronoun options and TPOF had pronouns and 'bits' as separate options), it's still rare enough that i like to shout it out when i see it. a medium bit of extra work on the dev's end for a high amount of appreciation for those of us that aren't necessarily guys. SUMMARY/TLDR: i really REALLY wish there were, like, a 'kind of?' option for reviews, because that's where i'm at right now. but if/until the game gets at least an update addressing the egregious amounts of typos, i'm going to put it in the 'not recommended' category. i just... can't, in good faith, recommend paying $30 dollars for something this unpolished. the amount of characters in it arguably warrants the almost-$30 price tag, but the quality makes it not as worth it. in its current state, i'd say maybe $20, or $25? YMMV, of course! but if i'd bought this game for myself only to find this many typos and strange features and outright bugs, i'd be a little miffed. not enough to fully refund the game or anything, but enough to leave a long and ramble-y review about it. (shoutout to my friend for buying this for me lmao, you know who you are) this feels like a very 'quantity over quality' game at the moment. if you're looking for something with more characters than, say, The Price of Flesh, and don't mind a lack of polish, this game might be more your speed. don't get me wrong, there's clearly love and effort put into this game, but love and effort alone don't make a game fun to play.

从今年二月份在itch上看到作者说完整版游戏要上steam了就一直在望眼欲穿地等，终于给我等到了，steam刚给我发邮件说上架了就速速拿下，没日没夜地开玩，然后打通了几条线，有点冲不动了。 至于游戏类型，和BTD等游戏类似，生存+浪漫（存疑）+黑暗+收集马拉松+视觉小说，NSFW，gore元素有但比较温和（这个因人而异自己看着办），其余的要素游戏介绍里的content of interest（fetish）里已经列完了，MC可选代词和生殖器。 先说语言问题，游戏内有中文但是是机翻，甚至有很多乱码，建议直接玩英文原版。 优点在于选择分支和结局真的[b]特别多[/b]，文本量很大，一次性吃个饱，并且由于同类游戏真的很少所以显得很珍奇（？）。 缺点在于选择分支和结局真的[b]太多[/b]，不怎么有兴趣的玩家打通一条线估计就不玩了，苦了我这种收集癖玩家，拼尽全力也无法战胜，只全收集了一个角色的结局。主要还是因为变量太多了，没有完整的指南，很难走完所有分支，想收集完还得一遍又一遍尝试，虽然有skip功能，还是太累了。 以下是吐糟，涉及剧透： [spoiler] 虽然内容警告里有，但我还是被生殖器跳脸雷了一下。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] 最搞笑的是我竟然在这种游戏里狠狠磕到了MC和两个朋友的友情/亲情/qpr（存疑），这像话吗LOL。特别是某个隐藏线路，出于对朋友的保护欲而非爱欲而囚禁朋友，这也太萌了，在一众神人中显得格外清新。数值条也和其他人不同，萌。[/spoiler] [spoiler] 最喜欢的是Damien，不愧是心理学家一眼就看出MC这个人和其partner之间的关系很有问题。行为动机也挺让人怜爱的，恨不起来。按摩和催眠的内容也挺色的，萌。[/spoiler] [spoiler] Stalker线很难评，我不好说。单人线还好，MC和partner一起被绑架是真的一言难尽，因为有当面ntr，甚至还是双向ntr。之前我也不是很排斥ntr（本人比较博爱），但看MC第一视角还是很难绷（但不得不说看partner被草觉得既解气又色（这对吗），看得我想大喊slut（褒义））。不知道女友线Rebecca什么情况，男友线Mark真是给我气得有点头昏。此神人平时对MC掌控欲及嫉妒心极强，对MC俩朋友都抱有敌意，限制MC的人际关系 ，情绪管理有问题，每天需要MC给他报备，但不怎么主动联系MC，要求MC生活里只有他但自己却在出轨（存疑但有点迹象），甚至在MC遇到其他神人情绪脆弱时不但不安慰MC、不听MC的解释，还在醉酒状态下把MC的朋友打了一顿、把MC强暴了，真的畜生啊🤯，MC和Mark真是标准的虐待关系。Mark此神人可在看MC被Stalker草完之后，自己再被Stalker草得神志不清，然后在MC面前亲口承认自己被草得很爽，三重ntr的剧情给我看蒙了（首先Stalker不是喜欢MC吗怎么草上MC的partner了就算要证明partner是个很容易出轨的人你也不用自己上啊，其次虽然partner在MC面前被草得神志不清挺难绷的，但是再转念一想MC在partner眼里不也这样，然后就释怀地笑了（死了））。所以能不能在这条线上加个MC报复Mark的选项。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] 再回过头来一想Damien真的很好，“为了把你从虐待关系中救出来”，比什么杀手、狩猎爱好者、Stalker、虐待者男/女友好太多了（全靠同行衬托） [/spoiler] 又花了几十个小时通了其它线，有新的想法了： [spoiler] 首先吐槽一下某Stalker真是无处不在，MC在David线成功荒野求生后也能撞见他 ，看得我心里一紧，还以为MC又要和Adam线某个结局一样刚逃出生天又羊入虎口，没想到Stalker这次居然没趁人之危，反而把MC平安送回家了。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] Walter线额外内容（后日谈）让我有点接受不能，我还是太有道德了。受害者就在旁边躺着呢，你俩就搞起来了，给人家一个痛快吧。比起犯罪伙伴这个结局我还是更喜欢MC在压力下应激自残，然后被看MC自残爽到的Walter留下的结局。其一是因为MC崩溃的样子真的很萌啊（抱歉），感觉MC可能有BPD（倾向于自残来释放压力），不过也有可能单纯是在极端压力下崩溃了所以对自残时产生的内啡肽上瘾。不管哪种情况，这样焦虑的MC真的很萌，怜爱了。其二是因为这个结局看似是HE，实际是BE。Walter总有一天会不再满足于MC自残，转向更极端、更有威胁性的需求，而MC总有一天会彻底崩溃，自残的行为上升到自杀，不过这一切都是慢性的、侵蚀性的，不会一蹴而就，就更美味了。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] Damien线My Loving Husband结局也很萌，看样子应该是MC被Damien做了前额叶切除手术？（或者说是前额叶破坏手术，毕竟一个螺丝刀从眼睛里捅进去并不是那么精准的）。这个结局的萌点在于MC是神志不清的状态（抱歉我坦白我就是喜欢神智不清的MC），而Damien会做出切除MC前额叶的行为的背后心理也很值得品味。没记错的话达成这个结局的条件是MC并不是很配合Damien的治疗，而Damien的爱又足够高使他不会彻底放弃MC。对MC的执着和抵抗，Damien是十分失望和沮丧的，但他扭曲的责任感（爱）让他仍然尝试去改变、“拯救”MC，但他别无他法了，所以只能让MC变成傻子，永远沉浸在无知的、盲目的幸福中，这样就能完成他之前对MC的提问和许诺了，“变得快乐”。扭曲但萌。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] Mark线Addiction结局也萌。控制狂意识到彻底控制MC的方法是通过物理手段和药物，让MC即使非自愿也无法离开他（习得性无助），对药物和他的“帮助”上瘾，MC因为药物昏昏沉沉被草的样子也很萌。 [/spoiler] [spoiler] 这样说可能会有点受害者有罪论，但我真的很好奇MC到底因为什么吸引了这么多变态，属实太惨了。可能真的和Damien对MC的昵称一样，MC就像薰衣草，安静、奉献性、善良、平和，是个完美的受害者的形象罢。 [/spoiler]

Absolutely love this game. I've been following it for years and was so excited to snag it here on Steam. So many routes, endings, and options. Perfect for those who love dark and twisted dating sims.

Думаю, что, открыв все 9 рутов (технически 10) и посмотрев на 50% основные пути (для того, чтобы пройти всю игру мне потребуется не одна сотня часов, а у меня нет столько времени), я могу писать этот обзор. О выходе этой игры я не знал и был приятно удивлен, что еще одна игра жанра хоррор новелла вышла в стим. Увидев огромное количество рутов и большую вариативность, я понял, что игра мне понравится. Хочется отдельно поблагодарить разработчика за дерево выборов, если бы не оно, я бы не вышел и на половину персонажей))). Насколько я знаю, разработчик у игры один, и я поражен, сколько всего он смог сделать в одиночку, поэтому на мелкие недочеты и баги можно закрыть глаза. Разработчик вроде планировал добавить русский язык и надеюсь, что русский язык все же появится в игре. Рекомендую игру любителям "Boyfriend to Death" и других игр подобного жанра. Надеюсь, что разработчик и дальше будет радовать нас своими проработанными играми.

I've been a fan of this developer's work for a while now, and Love Lock absolutely blew me away. You can feel how much time, care, and soul went into creating this experience - from the writing to the voice acting, to the amazing, unique art style that I adore so much. Now, I will say, this game will not be for everyone. It's labeled horror for a reason. It's got gore, assault (sexual and otherwise), and really kinky things that not everyone likes. But there is a trigger warning for each character, so that's very helpful. Every route in Love Lock is its own rich, emotional journey. I loved all of them, but Sebastian, Damien, and Walter's routes especially had me hooked. The way each character is written, from their charm to their darkness, it's masterfully done. I genuinely found myself thinking about them even after I finished playing. Sebastian stays on my mind <3 I love that a choice tree is included to help get to specific endings for each character. It really helps when you're stuck and not sure what else to do. The only con I can think for this game is literally just grammar mistakes, like super small things that doesn't take away from the immersion of the story. I've played the creator's previous games and loved those too, but Love Lock is on another level. It's bigger, bolder, and clearly the result of an insane amount of hard work and passion. This game deserves all the praise.

If you like yandere's and intense storytelling, this is a must play! A wide range of characters, scenarios, and endings, at least 50+ hours of content to enjoy. Super dark themes so proceed with caution, not for the light-hearted. Its also lgbt+ friendly and has tons of options for trans players!