My Lovely Wife is a gothic, story-driven management game developed by GameChanger Studio and Toge Productions, the creators of fantastic games like My Lovely Daughter and Coffee Talk, respectively. Currently being featured with The Indie Houses, it combines elements from many different genres, from alchemy, visual novel, dating and management simulators. They all work together fantastically, and personally, I am excited to see where the full game takes me! The music is atmospheric and dark, fitting in well with the gothic genre, married perfectly to the art style. When getting started, you jump straight into the story, immediately knowing what you are getting into. My Lovely Wife is easy to understand, and you don’t need to panic about not being able to understand the controls, or what goes where. The tutorials are very well explained.
It isn’t the play style I expected from this game, but I was enjoying it nonetheless. I went into the game completely blind with no research but was pleasantly surprised. It’s very easy to play and easy to get absorbed into. It’s accessible and quick to start and load up, meaning it can be an easy time-sink if you’re looking for something to do while on a break or just want something simple to play.
The story is surprising, and not what I expected it to be about. Who knew that succubi could be used to revive the dead? However, the beginning cutscenes did feel a bit rushed in terms of telling the story, and felt more like an episode recap. It would have been good to see the characters a bit more developed and given more time to shine before they are gone.
Overall I personally really enjoyed what I played of it, and the demo left me wanting so much more of My Lovely Wife. I was sucked into it, fully invested, then I got hit with the finished demo screen. It was an interesting take on alchemy, a visual novel and a dating sim all at the same time. I look forward to seeing where the rest of the game and story goes. I didn’t run into any bugs or issues of the sort, the game itself was very crisp, clean and stylized, which I did not expect for an alpha development.
There are a ton of games being featured with The Indie Houses. To keep up on all of them, be sure to check out the Indie Game Collective here!
