Matchmaker Simulator

A matchmaking café story where you gather client info and pair people by shooting arrows at profiles, the overall charm is hurt by weak translation. The game begins in the present, but after an argument with one of the customers you are thrown back into the past, to the moment when everything started. The introduction lasts only a few moments before you begin following a girl who has answered a job offer at a coffee shop. Despite the setting, the shop’s main service is helping single people find love. Gameplay unfolds in two steps, the first being conversations with customers to learn who they are and what they want. There is not much work involved, as you mostly click on a few options to set up their matchmaking profile. Occasionally, people will ask you a question or say something that you can respond to in different ways by selecting sentences or expression icons. Your responses rarely matter. You will still receive the main information regardless, and although you might miss a few details later, nothing prevents you from progressing. Some clients might require a healthy partner, for example, which means you need their medical report, while others may care about bank statemen…

I bought the game because I was intrigued by the description of how marriage is a transaction. In this area, the game delivered a lot of social commentary on modern China, including the topics of leftover men and women, expectations of marriage including bride price, poverty, work culture, urban vs rural lifestyles, divorce, even illegal immigration. I can't comment on the gameplay as I'm not sure if you can change much through your actions (hopefully in other playthroughs), but I found the writing to be deeper than I expected for a casual game. The weakest aspect of the game which could be a dealbreaker was how bad the translation was. I played in English and could only barely follow it because I also follow Chinese social media. What I found odd was the Japanese voiceover acting. There was no option to change the dubbed language but it was so strange listening to the characters when they are obviously Chinese. Why didn't the dev record with Chinese voice acting since that is the original language?