Don't Get Your Hopes Up

An extremely engaging short, free visual novel about finding a new flat in Amsterdam. It combines very relatable specific experiences with absurd homes and situations to convey the feeling of being at the mercy of completely lopsided systems. I also enjoyed the commentary on Amsterdam itself, built on precarious ground and sacrificed species, now chewing up and spitting out people as well. A lot of care went into this game - shout out to the hilariously accurate museum exhibit! - and it's worth experiencing yourself. It's also a very easy game to play - short and sweet, with very fun visuals and music, and the usual VN tools to let you try out all the different endings.

i got ptsd flashbacks playing this

Don't Get Your Hopes Up is a really unusual little game, and I was surprised by how quickly its simple setup started getting under my skin. I follow Krish and Yan as they desperately search for an apartment in Amsterdam, and what begins as an ordinary housing hunt gradually turns into something much stranger and more unsettling. I liked how the game takes something so mundane and turns it into a story about anxiety, uncertainty and the feeling that finding a place to call home is becoming almost impossible. The gameplay is mostly built around making choices as I look through different apartments and deal with the problems that come with trying to rent one. I have to think about whether a place is actually worth considering, whether I can afford to push harder and how far I am willing to compromise. I enjoyed these decisions because they feel grounded in the situation rather than being obvious game choices where one option is clearly good and another is clearly bad. The interactive comic format works surprisingly well too. Instead of traditional exploration, I move through sparse comic book scenes with parallax movement and small interactive details. I liked the way this presentat…

A fantastically realized vision that will help you re-live your experiences as an expat in the Netherlands, but this time in the soothing and exhilirating format of art. I felt understood and laughed a lot. Very inspiring work. I hope the dev keeps making art. Played on the Steam Machine with the Xbox controller. It all worked.

millenialslop

This is honestly so insightful and relatable. As a young adult living in the US I completely understand what it's like to be living amidst a housing crisis, but I feel like I learned so much about the situation in Amsterdam from this visual novel. It's very abstract and talks about other local issues, like driving out native species for the sake of money and expansion, as well as other things that honestly don't get enough attention. Plus the vibes are cool and it has a good soundtrack. Overall it's pretty well-rounded, plus it's short and free. If you like games of this genre, give it a try.