Ten Dates

Although the writing and characters aren't all great across the board, Ten Dates is a surprisingly engaging experience filled with lots of fantastic acting, plenty of content, and some tight editing.

Ten Dates does a great job of conveying the realities of going on a speed dating event and trying to make something of it. The stories aren’t long, but tell a wonderful story regardless of who you interact with. There can be confusion about what the optimal choices are, and it does take time before you can replay a scene. Despite those shortcomings, there are ten great stories to see, and ten great dates that can become something more.

Ten Dates highlights the unspoken “rules” of dating and discusses what is needed in order for a date to go well. Though it does tend to follow a stereotypical heteronormative rom-com storyline, it gives the player enough autonomy to choose exactly what their character wants and doesn’t want from their love life through each selection of dialogue. It’s disappointing that the devs weren’t forward thinking enough to allow players to decide on their character’s sexuality and therefore force your Misha or Ryan to play as heterosexual. The way the game includes a chance flirty encounter with the same sex isn’t realistic and makes same sex relationships seem lesser than heterosexual relationships, or an afterthought. Overall, Ten Dates is a good adventure to embark on if you like your choices to matter, your dialogue to be witty and your romance to be somewhat predictable.

Ten Dates features strong writing sold by actors that genuinely embodied their parts. There were quite a few surprises in the non-linear path to love — some that made me think twice about a candidate before veering off to another — which was embraced by the gameplay and encouraged multiple playthroughs. Although the weighting of the questions wasn’t entirely clear, that didn’t stop me from having a lovely time. If you’re tired of looking for love in all the wrong places, Ten Dates has plenty of singles ready to mingle.

Ten Dates features a solid cast with occasionally great chemistry and believable dialogue, but it misses the opportunity to improve on its predecessor, with a rigid structure and unsatisfyingly short runtime split between two standalone character paths.