This Adorable Speed Dating Sim Is Wholesome Fun

I've never been "into" dating sims. It's not a fault of the genre or the content. Instead, it's a problem with me. When it comes to game stories, I'm impatient. I want to mainline it all, immediately, at the fastest speed, and that seems (at least sometimes) at odds with the excellent and interesting pacing of the visual novel format. Sometimes I've managed to get beyond my impatience (I enjoyed both Cinders and Aviary Attorney), but mostly I get caught up then I put the games down.

The Worst First Impression, which was made for New Jam City, the unofficial Waypoint game jam, meets me halfway. It's a dating sim that's about speed dating, and it's about as fast as that endeavor can be. The player meets three different people, and you can have neat little micro conversations about your hobbies, the weather, and do some "ice breaker" questions that have been given to you by the speed dating agency.

If the date goes well enough, and you liked each other enough, you can follow up with the person. I ended up going on a short date to a record store. I took a lot of selfies with my date. We hugged. It was very wholesome, uncomplicated, and fun.

What's so interesting about The Worst First Impression, and what I like about it the most, is that distillation down into simple elements. There is no grand plot, and there are no interweaving narrative lines that I have to track. There is simply the player and the person they are dating. It can be pleasant or it can be cold. And then, at the end of it, you go back to your life.