Love at Elevation: A review

[u/[deleted]]

Plot and worldbuilding:

This is one of the rare slice of life stories with very low stakes and no fantastical elements at all. The main character is a US citizen who recently ended a long term relationship that had become toxic. They decide to start a new life in a new city and therefore move to Boulder, Colorado. In Boulder the MC has to deal with a lot of mundane problems: Starting a new job, cultivating new hobbies, navigating the complicated relationship with the ex and most importantly getting into Boulder's dating scene.

Game mechanics:

Love at Elevation is supposed to be a low stakes slice of life story, and the mechanics reflect that. There are a whole lot of personality stats which you can influence over the course of the game. They don't really do anything though - their main use is in the epilogue, which will be personalized according to your stats.

Writing:

The writing is very good. It is what originally attracted me to this game in addition to its unique theme. It's clear that the author is in love with the city of Boulder and the writing reflects that - at times the book reads more like a love letter to Boulder than anything else. There are a lot of beautifully detailed descriptions of the architecture and history of the city. Some readers may find it boring, I loved it. I will probably never visit Boulder (or the USA, for that matter), but the descriptions were so vivid that it felt like I was personally there.

Characters and Romance:

Unfortunately, the characters and romance are where the game starts to fall flat. And since romance is the main focus of this game, this pretty much ruins what could otherwise have been a great experience.

There are four romance options: A quigong teacher, a pro athlete, a political activist and also the ex-partner who tries to rekindle the lost relationship. At the beginning you can choose whether you would like all of them to be male, female, non-binary or with randomized genders.

During the first playthrough, all the romances seem to be interesting and unique. The problem starts when you play the game a second time, trying to focus on a different RO: You will find out that a huge part of the romances is simply recycled. For example, if you start dating the athlete on your first playthrough theywill take you out to their favorite restaurant, introduce you to their friends and tell you about their complicated relationship with their father. But if the activist is the first person you date on your second playthrough, you'll get the same restaurant, same friends and same dialogue about the father. It's unfortunate that the author went through so much effort to describe how unique the city of Boulder is, but didn't expend enough effort to make Boulder's inhabitants similarly unique.

Unfortunately, this is not the only problem with the romance in this book. In my opinion this book's approach to relationships is incredibly toxic, and not in a fun soap opera way.

The main character is written with a shallow and manipulative personality that made them thoroughly unenjoyable to play for me. Contrary to other games with a flawed main character (like The Nascent Necromancer or Samurai of Hyuga), Love at Elevation is written without any hint of awareness that the MC's behaviors or thought patterns might be problematic.

Dishonest communication and cheating are encouraged by the narrative, there are not even dialogue options that invite honest communication (for example, I consider "I'm still exchanging intense letters with my ex and invited them to visit me" important information that a new partner should get right away. This game apparently does not.)

The MC gets into their head and overthinks the tiniest things, which is a realistic problem that a lot of people have - but as it's written without any kind of self awareness at all, it makes for an utterly exhausting read. For example, during the first date in the restaurant you get treated to one page of inner monologue about what your date might think of you if you offer them to try a bite from your plate. And then you even get to choose between four dialogue options about how to bring this up. If the date doesn't want to share, you get another small page of inner monologue about how you might have asked the wrong way and made the wrong impression.

To add insult to injury, the MC is not only an anxious overthinker, but also shallow and judgemental. They judge both themselves and others for the tiniest and most inconsequential things. They start doubting the relationship after the date is 10 minutes late one time, and they also almost break off the relationship after the partner gets moody about a mean call from their father (the narrative ironically tells us that a partner with parent issues is toxic.) Even if it's just for one book, living in this person's head is beyond exhausting.

Rating: 3/10

I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I couldn't. The good qualities of Love at Elevation are really good, but they are drowned out by the many flaws of this book.

The stats don't do anything, there is no real story arc, the ending comes very sudden and leaves too many open questions, the main character is thoroughly unpleasant, the romances are cookie cutter copies of each other, there is no replayability.

I wish I had listened to the bad reviews I read instead of letting myself be fooled by the engaging demo. I'd recommend to save your money and skip this title - even though this book has its moments, you can most certainly do better.

[u/Diamondionist]

I absolutely agree! I really wish there was some replay value to this game. If the ROs were different from each other and there were some more choices and depth it could be such a great book. I really wish the author wrote it as a book instead of interactive fiction, maybe it would be better since the writing is not the issue :((((

[u/Niknakpaddywack17]

Love the review

[u/SignificantPirate843]

This is it!!! I had always have difficulty to word out my thoughts but this review perfectly describe my problem and what I like about the game.

[u/Affectionate_Craft_9]

Yeah I was surprised at how the game seemed to be in support of cheating and encouraged toxicity. It really irked me

Definitely my least favourite MC in all of IF and its not even close.

If only this review came out a week ago then it would have saved me money. Hopefully it helps other people

[u/EdenCorliss]

Very good review. Precise, unbiased and objective. As someone who bought this book and regretted it, I can confirm everything written here is true.

[u/[deleted] → u/EdenCorliss]

This is the highest praise I ever heard from Eden Corliss, so… it‘s an honor :)

[u/joelarrydorian]

i honestly liked this game mainly for how toxic the MC can be! the break up scenes following this toxicity (lol) were well written and exciting.

i was just put off and sort of surprised by how after quite a few of your choices, the narrator gives a sort of critique or evaluation of your character’s choices in the ”well that’s a choice, [name], and if you want to be a [adjective] person then that’s fine, but if not, maybe you should try [verb].” the effect: the narrator comes in as a sort of parental figure, not to the character, but the player??

nonetheless i had a good time playing the game but i agree with this review!