Love at Elevation

Hmmm strange that I missed reviewing this one, or did I?

Anyway, this is a fairly decent story, that comes from a perspective that alot of people may not be familiar with (or interested in tbh) which as you can see probably accounts for most of the negative reviews given.

That said I still remember reading this one several years later, and still remember the LIs and the plot points that swirled around them. While none of the LIs were my cup of tea at all, they are none the less very well fleshed out and will stick in your head for some time after reading the story.

Not the best offering out there, but still worth a read imho.

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.

This was a decently well written story with interesting characters and plot development.

First off, my only complaint is that I often found the story seemed to be... insulting me? And I ran into a few errors in context that seemed like they were written entirely for women, but crossed into the male play through as well.

Overall, I did find the story quite enjoyable though. It actually allows you to get a decent and realistic sense of how relationships tend to workout. The realism is certainly worthwhile, and it never quite lets the author force a narrative on you.

I think in the end, I would give this title an 8/10.

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.:

• "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.
  

• "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!"

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.

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!

Rae is best girl.

I liked it well enough.

I enjoy the romance of the game, and personalities that each character observes. I noticed certain stats change interactions with people, so look at for that. Sex scenes that aren't explicit, but any teen would know what's going on, so that's something to think about. Lastly, I do not have a word for how strange the protangist is, but they constantly have a over-thought process, which I guess is the author's front to testing the player's attitude toward an event happening. I also wish there were some kind of finacial implementation to the whole story, such as counted money I could use to buy cool things, because as it stands my character is rich AF, yet still walks around, and takes community transportation, strange. Overall, I really enjoy devling into these characters; absolutely loved Cliff when I first met his spunky attitude, and Rae certainly got me steamrolled.

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.

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 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

Not a terrible plot for a short story, decent sex scenes... that's all. Everything else in this game ended up irking me one way or another.
The "issues" we had with the RO were forced and came literally out of nowhere, especially the 1st time they were brought up. All the consequent times were slightly less jarring, as I was more prepared, but no less unfounded and forced.
The mandatory choice you have to make between wholeness, fitness and activism all the time was especially irritating, since I couldn't care less about any of these things. I only ended up mildly interested in fitness because going for a hike now and then seemed a relatively neutral activity that I could see my MC partaking in.
Another irritating thing is how this game handles introductions. The initial meeting with the "1st choice RO" is okay (let's forget how the MC instantly starts evaluating them as a potential lover), but the other 2 that you meet after are just... off: "Hello, I thought you were someone else, now I'm looking at you with alluring bedroom eyes, want to get involved in activism? Call me!" and "Hello, beautiful, let me just plant my derrière at your table... You're here on a date? Well, no problem, how about you call me later?" And every single time the game wants you to choose whether to be interested. Even if you've clearly indicated that you only ever do one person at a time (even if he acts like an idiot and accuses you of being a horndog after a single time you 2 ever had sex - the fact that I didn't dump his butt after that should be indicative of how serious I am about giving this relationship a chance. But I digress).
I forgot to count how many times (3 or 4?) the game urged me to re-evaluate our relationship and maybe break up or at least go fool around with one or both of the other 2 RO's. Even AFTER the MC and the 1st RO both came to a conclusion that everything shall be fine during the 1st forced serious discussion that happened. Nope, that would be too easy and realistic, here is another "we should talk"! And another! With the same questions being raised every time! Almost makes you wonder why the hell you are even allowed to have an exclusive relationship if both the MC and the RO are bound to be so darn uncertain about whether or not they should pursue it.
It felt like the game expected me to blast through all of the RO's in a single playthrough, either by sleeping around or discarding one RO in favour of another.
The job, the bosses, the colleagues (friendly and not so much) and briefly-mentioned friends that you could call all felt like fillers. Sure, there were hints at most of them having character and personal story, but... no. Nothing but unrealized potential here.
The ex was fine... as far as exes go. Perfect for satisfying your inner masochist, if you are into that. (I personally felt like indulging, this time). Not so perfect if you are predetermined to erase them from your life entirely, in which case they just serve as yet another source of frustration.
The Boulder itself - for me, it is just a location where the story is taking place. For the narrator, it appears, the city is somehow important. It is given a lot of attention, and the MC is expected to have an opinion about it (well, they ended up here, after all, even left the ex behind to move, and it wasn't a random choice, yet I fail to understand their reasons). Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see why. None of the descriptions of places or people made me feel anything worth mentioning. Boulder being a special place is more of an informed attribute for me.
The most noticeable thing about this game is how the MC appears to be completely alone all the time. Not literally, more like emotionally. As if nobody is there for them. They are on their own in this city full of strangers, with no one to come back to Even the RO, even at the endgame, doesn't inspire any feelings of security, you know?
Same story (actually, there isn't much of it, if any, and it doesn't branch at all), different RO's. The only difference is how you go about it - do you play the field, do you stay with one RO, do you break up and move on to another, do you get back with your ex... Also, even though the choice of RO affects personal scenes (like sex), most scenes and relationship troubles are shared.

So, yes, this is a romance game. If thats not your thing you may not like that, but if you do, it is very engaging and written with grace. Lots of options for replayability and overall a very fun game.

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