Skate & Date

"Skate & Date" is super cute! One playthrough done in just under an hour (I turned on the quickest text option, and am a fast reader). I was originally looking for games with roller skating in them, and stumbled over this one. It doesn't only have roller skating, it has LESBIANS. Amazing. The lesbians are very cute, the flusterdness and "oh my GOD what if we hold HANDS" is believable for them, it really feels like high school crushes! The writing does a good job at bringing that across. As for the rhythm game, grateful that I can play it on easy - I love rhythm games but they don't like me back, so I need easy mode for sure! And it's interesting that my choices in the rhythm game parts influence Maggie's attitude during the visual novel parts. To get all achievements, I have to play through the story using different skating styles! There was one song in there I found boring, but otherwise the music ranged between inoffensive to groovy. The audio is simple so best not to expect too much here. It would be more fun to me to play the rhythm game to 80ies hits, it would also work with the vintage feel of the graphics, the game playing on the screen of an old TV. Maybe one day the dev will make it big and that'll happen! Haha. Also for the art, I love that this little game has fully-drawn out scenes. They're beautiful.

Very cute and chill game mixing romantic visual novel parts and rhythm game, with several catchy tracks and great art. Not very long but it's interesting that the way you play the rhythm parts can change (a little) the interactions during the story.

This game is a very sweet, short and charming. Its a queer dating & rhythm sim in a pixelated art style. It's a bit rough around the edges, but this is totally understandable from a small dev making a game for the first time. It's got awesome CG's, unique character designs and while I didn't enjoy the rhythm gameplay elements, I really admired the creative twists that the devs applied to these. I've definitely never seen anyone make roller derby tackles into a rhythm game mechanic before. 10/10 for innovation. Just was hard finding the correct pacing and accurary for me in these sections. Especially for the jumprope and rock show portions of the game. Overall a pleasant experience! Hope to see more polish in future games from these folks! Keep making rad queer stuff!

so cute! a very charming experience that made me feel warm. i have never played a rhythm skating game and really enjoyed it, the controls felt natural, i enjoyed the songs, and it felt challenging in a good way. the story was engaging - i don't play a lot of visual novels or romance games because i will get sad easily, but this one was sweet and had me cheering for love the entire way. also love the puerto rican representation <3

A cute rhythm game/visual novel. Everything is pretty breezy, the plot moving quickly and the gameplay generally being forgiving. While the focus is on the central romance between Maggie and Patricia, you do get a bit of the other girls on each team, though I wish it could've breathed a little to spend more time with the characters. The rhythm game portion is straightforward with its two lane tracks, the interesting addition being how you play those notes affecting Maggie's personality and thus story trajectory.

a cute little game!! the story isn't very long, but there's a few different dialogue options so I ended up playing through a few times to see them. the roller derby mini game is pretty fun, and there's difficulty settings for it so it's customizable! the story itself was very cute! the main characters are adorable and I enjoyed watching their relationship grow throughout. and of course, it's gay. what's not to love? the only downside I noticed was a few small typos and bugs, but nothing major. overall a good experience!

This game is definitely a scrappy labor of love! I recommend it because there's a lack of roller derby games out there, and I'd like to see more. I'm a former derby skater and budding game dev, so I might have some bias! "Skate & Date" is part visual novel, part rhythm game. I haven't played a lot of rhythm games before (with the exception of Dance Dance Revolution years ago), but this makes me want to try more. It took me a while to get the hang of the timing - and the tutorial wouldn't let me progress until I really nailed it down, and so I felt "stuck" for several minutes. But once I got it, gameplay was fun and came pretty naturally. It's a cool way to present the sport of roller derby; derby is tricky to recreate in video game form because the strategies are so open-ended from moment to moment. So to be a jammer dodging and hip checking opponents in time with a groovy tune is clever. The "hits" felt satisfying, and the art was at its best during the gameplay itself. The jump rope minigame happened so fast I didn't have a chance to figure it out, though! It's a short little game, but cute, and I wish the dev all the best! The feedback I would give to the creator is to try to make the art style more consistent and continue to develop your digital painting skills - or work with other artists to really bring the visuals home!