Apocalypse Lovers

Even though Apocalypse Lovers is a lewd sandbox game that is still very early in development, it has managed to really impress me. So much so that I have started to follow the game really closely so I can jump in as soon as a new update or even a full chapter is added. I think that what we have here is a game that is just showing an absolute ton of promise and I wanted to talk about my experiences with it so far and hopefully spur a few of you guys on to try it out.

The Last of Us

As far as the story of Apocalypse Lovers goes as you would expect from the title, the setting of the game is during an apocalypse. I think that the developer of the game was clearly very inspired by the hit game, The Last of Us as it is a fungal type of apocalypse here with plants rising up to take the Earth one more…. Well, that or he was greatly inspired by the very mediocre M Night Shyamalan movie, The Happening, but I would wager it is more of The Last of Us. The story plays it all straight for the most part and I am very much liking the direction it is going.

She Said Her Name Was Deborah!

That is a reference to brit pop rockers Pulp and if you get that, my hat is well and truly off to you. Now, the story Apocalypse Lovers has us as the MC looking after this girl in a dirty ass basement called, Jessica. Jessica needs our help, but rather than giving her food and care, we tend to give her booze and head out to find new outfits for her. The twist of the story is that there is another girl called Deborah and she clearly has something more sinister going on as I feel that she has bad intentions for our “heroic” MC.

A Glimmer Of Light In The Dark

I love a post apocalyptic world setting and I would have to say that for the most part, Apocalypse Lovers, gets it right. This place is dark, dirty, and kind of gross looking. The two ladies are very interesting looking, Jessica is all dirty and tatted up and she has a kind of hot, but slutty look to her. Deborah on the other hand has a rather “unique” look that I will leave it up to you to decide if you like her or not. The only issue that I have with the presentation is that it is so dark in some scenes! The scenes in the basement area are way too dark and even with my brightness cranked all the way up it was still too dark. I get that it is to add to the mood and setting, but they went a tad too far with it.

Walking The Right Path

Look, I am not going to go into too much detail about the way that Apocalypse Lovers plays because there is not a great deal to the game as I write this. What we have here may seem like a lewd visual novel on the surface, but there is a bit more complexity to the game (and coming to it from what I understand) than you get with a traditional lewd visual novel. We are talking about recourse management, decision making, item use, mini-games, and so on. You can pretty much see all that is here in your first couple of playthroughs, but it did leave a strong impression on me, and best of all, despite this being an “early access” style of game, I never had any technical issues at all while I was playing it.

Pros:

• The two female characters are very interesting
• I love the post apocalyptic setting of the story
• It has kind of Last of us Vibes which I like
• There is more depth to the gameplay than a standard lewd visual novel

Cons:

• The version I played did not have a ton of content
• There are a few translation issues that will hopefully be fixed as it moves along development