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Sacred Reviews: Wuv

Intro

"Wuv" is a short game that was developed by Overkill using the ika engine as part of a duel with ForteDante. A duel that took the form of a 48 hour game jam based around the theme of "growth" with Overkill choosing to create a game about relationship growth.

Story

The story of "Wuv" feels a bit abstract since it's about monsters representing doubt creeping into and destroying a relationship while the act of gathering flowers in order to focus on the good times is meant to save it. Though why the player is in doubt of their love is never really explained. So I'm not sure if the relationship at the heart of this game is really worth saving.

Gameplay

You run around collecting flowers and give them to your crying girlfriend in order to reset your love gauge. Every time you give her a flower you love gauge gets longer as well so it's easier to collect flowers that are further and further away from her. It also means it becomes easier to just ignore the monsters in this game since they'll basically be unable to deplete your love gauge completely as long as keep moving.

In fact, the overly simplistic nature of this game kind of makes it boring. Even though the game itself can be beaten in under five minutes. And that's if you choose to play through the game as both characters.

Graphics

"Wuv" is definitely a throwback to the old MSDOS days in terms of looks. A decision that was either inspired or meant to annoy the crap out of anyone that plays this game. And with Overkill I'm not sure which it is.

On one hand, this game feels like a throwback to my school days where we built a computer as part of class and installed Windows 3.1 on it in order to play some old DOS games for a little bit. And I can definitely respect trying to make your game look unique by making it look super old school.

On the other hand, Overkill also made "Molasses Meow", a game that contains a maze where the floors and walls are comprised of flashing lights. A room so annoying it made my eyes bleed and would probably cause a person with photosensitive epilepsy to suffer a seizure.

Music

Overkill's bold decision of not including any music in this game is rather bizarre in my opinion. After all, a game about love just begs for a soundtrack comprised of some well known love songs like "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing or "Silly Love Songs" by Paul McCartney & Wings.

Jeez, I'd be willing to give this game a pass if the soundtrack was comprised of just a single appropriate song. After all, this game is so brief you can easily beat it within the amount of time it takes to play either of those songs from start to finish.

Conclusion

While I'd normally give a contest game like "Wuv" a lot more leeway in terms of grading. The lack of music and this game just being a series of short fetch quests makes for a highly boring game. Thankfully it manages to avoid being tedious by virtue of being brief, but that's not saying much. At any rate, I'd suggest giving this game a pass. And if you want a more meaningful short game I'd suggest taking a look at something like "Punch Bears".