ValiDate: Struggling Singles in your Area

I came into this game expecting inclusion and pride and I felt all that and more. The game plays very much like a visual novel and with each character I felt a certain sense of representation that I have never really felt before when it comes to most games. The amount of care and time put into this game is very much noticed and appreciated. I def recommend playing it!

I did not enjoy the writing style of this game, the conversations kept jumping from the description /monologue(?) to the dialogue, I think it wants to be a novel more than a VN. The use of "You" as the character is something I couldn't get pass. It's ok otherwise, idk. I want to be nice to it. Edit: I'm just leaving this here because I believe the team put a lot of heart into this game, I will be back whenever there's another sale to retry as I don't think I was in the right mindset to fully appreciate this game 🫡 Seeing the Devs reopen the server and push forward is something really nice.

This is one of my favorite games. The writing is very real and raw. The game has a comprehensive list of content warnings both for the game and for each date. I appreciate the thought, love and tenderness this game is made with. I can't wait for any sequels or dlc!

This game is ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS but once you play it in a group chat with your friends it becomes the funniest thing ever. Vibes.

[i]This review will explain what I liked and disliked about the game, as well as some workarounds for bugs on Windows in 2025. Updated December 2025 to add opinions.[/i] [h2]Pros[/h2] One of the most unique visual novels I've ever played. This isn't a traditional dating sim: characters ending up in romantic relationships together isn't the goal. The "Good" endings seem to be whatever allows the lead character to move forward. You get to watch them grow and change through their relationships with one another. The stories balance humor with serious moments. While some characters' stories cover serious or sad topics, the overall tone of each narrative is hopeful. The characters feel human and flawed and are written with love. The art is all amazing: the sprites, character designs, backgrounds, end cards and cinematic graphics (the illustrations in the middle of the story). There's a large cast of NPCs who help the characters and their worlds feel real. I liked the music: there were a few tracks I stopped to listen to a bit more when they first came on. [h2]Neutral[/h2] Each of the first 4 characters is written by a different person. The writing styles are noticeably different. [h2]Cons[/h2] [b]Game-breaking bugs[/b] The UI was not intuitive and it took several minutes of clicking around to figure out how to do basic things. The Settings and Options menus are confusing and it was easy to forget which options were under Settings or Options. Sometimes the Save option does not appear under the hamburger menu in the bottom middle of the screen. When this happened I saved the game by clicking the phone icon in the bottom left, then the gear app to get to the settings menu. There is a tutorial for how to play the game under Settings. There is a 17th page in the tutorial that you can navigate to using the arrow buttons, but only 16 page markers appear. [h2]Story and Characters[/h2] This was a funny, heartbreaking and hopeful experience. Sometimes all at the same time. Validate runs against some commonly expected conventions of the romantic visual novel genre. The huge range of emotions in the game plus showing the characters' messiest moments is a difficult balance to strike, and I think the writers did it very well. The characters have strong and distinct personalities and play off one another in interesting ways. It was exciting to see characters make appearances in each others' stories. I would not recommend playing Emhari last. Her story started off strong, but I was disappointed by the last date and epilogue. It felt like the writer had a novel's worth of ideas for the last date and tried to squeeze them all into one chapter. The final result was disorienting to read. I liked the themes of family relationships, and that several characters are parents. Of the unreleased characters, I'm the most interested in Yolanda, Bigs, and Catherine. [h2]Bugs and Workarounds[/h2] Most of the Steam reviews are from earlier versions of the game, and some of the bugs mentioned on Steam have been patched. I try to be kind about bugs on indie games, but these severely impact the playability of the game. [h3]Serious bugs: Dialogue Box and Text Log[/h3] The first bug makes character dialogue boxes teleport to the upper left of the page, making them unreadable. Like other visual novels, there is a text log you can use to read all text that has been displayed so far. This is tedious since it takes two clicks to get to the text log. The second bug is in the text log. Sometimes only fragments of text you've seen so far will be displayed, and it is displayed in a huge paragraph of incomplete sentences. [b]If both these bugs show up at the same time, the game becomes unplayable.[/b] However, one of them is fixable. [h3]How to fix the dialogue box bug[/h3] This bug usually occurs after the skip button is used, but it didn't happen every time. Quitting the game and restarting from your last autosave or manual save can fix it. If that doesn't work, try completely quitting and relaunching the game and restarting the date from the Start Date button. Do not use the skip button (double arrow button). You can set the text speed to 100% and turn on Autoplay (right arrow button in the bottom middle of the screen). There were a couple times where I got this bug even after quitting and relaunching the game, and restarting a date from Start Date. I think I just kept quitting and relaunching the game and eventually it worked. [h3]How to fix the ending bug[/h3] Sometimes you will not get the correct ending even when making a correct series of choices. This can be fixed by quitting and relaunching the game. I ended up playing through each date once and then using a guide to get the remaining endings because the lack of Skip button from the dialogue box bug plus the ending bug took the enjoyment out of replaying. Emhari and Bigs' date required several restarts to get the correct ending with the same choices. Inaya and Yolanda's date only took one restart. [h2]Overall recommendations[/h2] Overall this is still a fantastic game that brings a fresh take to romantic visual novels, it just needs more time to iron out the bugs. If you are considering buying this game, read the discussion posts about bugs, and check replies from other players and the dev team. I backed it on Kickstarter and followed its development for years. Sadly, if I knew nothing about the game and read about the serious bugs, I would not buy it. There is a thread about the dialogue box bug and those players were not able to fix it. Consider using the skip button within the first two hours and see if you can fix the bug using the methods explained above. Or play without using the skip button. You might wonder why this is a positive review. I loved this game so much, and know friends who would love it too, but I don't feel right recommending it when the bugs are this severe. So many people could love this game but will not be able to play it and won't be willing to struggle with technical issues to the extent that I did, and that's really a shame. The core of this type of game is its story and characters, and they really made something special in that regard. I want to see more! The [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/validategame/validate-struggling-singles-in-your-area-visual-novel/posts]Kickstarter page[/url] has updates from Veritable Joy Studios. I will be looking forward to the future of ValiDate, or anything else this studio makes.

love love love love the story and characters! full of life and it's super fun! just ready for the next volumes!!!

DISCLAIMER: i have not finished the game! i've completed Malik's stories, and am about halfway through Isabelle's. lovedddd this game! the art is gorgeous, and the story has a nice balance of the humor i fell in love with in the advertising as well as some serious, heart-to-heart moments. the art is also gorgeous, and i love the serious efforts to have a diverse cast. a lot of the characters were so quippy and funny and felt so real. my main gripe with it though is that (at least from the ads on Twitter or YouTube) i got the impression that this was a dating sim, which it isn't. Steam describes it as a "romantic visual novel," which i would agree with! the story is extremely linear, and regardless of each individual ending you get with each suitor, the overarching story is the same and goes in one path. i also find the rhythm mini-game to be a little clunky, but it's not a huge feature, and hey, maybe i just suck at rhythm games. i still would recommend it as long as you know what you're getting into! i was also a little disappointed there weren't any stories exploring dating apps or online dating in general because based on the advertising and general feel of the game, i thought that would be a focus, or at least SOME part of the game, but it isn't explored at all. while like I said I haven't finished the game, my friend has, which is how I know this.

Como muitos já disseram aqui, o jogo não se importa com suas escolhas - aliás, mal SE PARECE um jogo. O tempo todo me senti como se estivesse vendo uma novela com um roteiro muito ruim e desinteressante. Tentei jogar diversas vezes - como visto pelas 4 horas -, mas nunca passei nem do início do game porque ficava com sono. Existem diversos dating sims e visual novels legais por aí, essa não é uma delas! Fico triste de ter me decepcionado tanto com esse jogo, pois a arte é legal e os personagens parecem interessantes a primeira vista, mas a execução é PÉSSIMA!

Listen, I've played alot of visual novels, and this one definitely has it's own vibe. The characters are unique and sort of interesting, the stories are pretty good, the graphics are great, and the different endings for each character is fun to play through. It's not the best visual novel out there, but it's certainly not the worst. I'd give it a 6/10, and tell you to grab it on sale to give it a shot.

Can't wait for volume 2 and 3 !