Everyone knows that you need to be polite and courteous when you are eating in a restaurant, and even more so when you are on a date. When your food starts falling off the plate, and your drink tips over, that is when you know things are going horrible. That isn’t exactly the case in this game and you can score pretty well even with these messes. This is our quick-hit preview of Table Manners.
Table Manners is a physics-based dating sim from developer Echo Chamber Games and publisher Curve Digital. This title takes you through the motions of people using dating apps, the communication to and fro, and the actual deed of taking someone on a date. You are a disembodied hand that controls every part of the game from selecting your date to the settings, and everything in between.
Starting off, the controls in Table Manners are a little weird to get used to at first. It feels like it should be a VR title with the way you have to move the hand right to the mouse and keyboard. Moving around was difficult, and even after a few hours of playing the game still gets me when I play. You use the mouse to move the hand forward, backward, and sideways in those directions. This was easier to get than using the W and S keys to move the hand up and down in conjunction with the other movements. It was funny to see the hand moving in such a weird way as you try to pick up food, drink, or a blow torch. Seeing the look on your date’s face when you move that torch closer to them to cook the food, and they pull back and wince as if you are going to burn them.
You will need to play the pick your date game with the dating application, and use it to lock up your potential date. After winning the date your diary will open up to the first two pages and this is where you select your first date and the corresponding levels for the date. Each level gets progressively harder as you try to win them over. Some of the best parts of this are when you have to move food, like a cheeseburger and each of the pieces falls off of it as you move it. When you accomplish all of the tasks that pop up on the screen you will either win the date or lose it and when you lose it makes you feel like the date will hurt you because they get so angry. My son was laughing at me as I was knocking everything over and almost setting the whole table on fire.
Table Manners is a game of digital dating, feeding your virtual date pizza and brownies, and trying not to burn down the table you are sitting at. It is currently priced at $14.39 on Steam and is available to all as of Valentine’s Day. You will enjoy hours of dating on the grandest scale that you possibly can, and have a laugh while doing it.
Note: Our copy was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by PR.
