‘Love Esquire’ is a dating sim from Pinoy developer behind ‘The Letter’

Yangyang Mobile is working on a new game called “Love Esquire,” which the studio describes as a “romantic-comedy dating simulator with a touch of turn-based RPG mechanics.” It’s currently on Kickstarter, where it achieved its funding goal in less than 24 hours.

Fantasy-themed “Love Esquire” puts you in the shoes of a young squire who’s on a personal quest to find the girl of his dreams. There’s only one problem: you’re not exactly boyfriend material.

You’ll therefore have to make a serious effort at self-improvement—from sharpening that brain to building those muscles—before you can even have a shot at entering the wild, brutal, and often scary world of dating.

Let’s not forget there’s also a war looming on the horizon, and monsters outside the walls of the kingdom just waiting for fresh prey such as yourself. It’s all worth it for love and friendship, of course!

Love, personal development, and adventure

From what we’ve seen so far, “Love Esquire” boasts gorgeous artwork, fascinating characters, and compelling game design.

We can thank the company’s all-Filipino team for the game’s exceptional quality. Like Yangyang Mobile’s previous game (the horror visual novel “The Letter”), however, “Love Esquire” also features an international cast of voice actors, many of whom have been in high-profile projects, including “My Hero Academia,” “Dragon Ball Z,” “One Piece,” “Street Fighter V,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” and “Transformers: Prime Wars Trilogy.”

Being a dating sim, “Love Esquire” gives you more freedom of movement than most pure visual novels. As the squire (whom you can give a unique name), you can move between locations, such your bedroom and kitchen; your home and a tavern; or even the kingdom and the lands beyond.

It’s while exploring the world map that you’ll meet five of the game’s main female characters: the hardworking and amiable farm girl Amelie; the sharp-tongued and intelligent Princess Beatrice; the curious and sociable diplomat Kamala (who also happens to be a Princess from another land); the reclusive and laconic nurse Giselle; and the merchant Vel, an oddball who is at times bashful, and at other times boisterous.

You can develop a relationship with each woman by spending quality time with her, giving her gifts, and more. Yangyang Mobile is planning to give players the opportunity to unlock special events as their relationships with the characters grow.

Of course, to make yourself a more a desirable prospective partner, you’ll have to work on improving yourself. This involves lifting weights at the barracks, studying in the library, and cultivating your social skills at the tavern. More activities are unlocked with progress, giving you extra opportunities to transform yourself into the man you’ve always wanted to be. Doing all these things requires time and money, however.

You’ll have to manage your daily schedule if you want to ensure your time is spent wisely. You can’t do everything in a single day; if you’re thinking about hanging out with Giselle and studying on a Monday, exercise and an afternoon with Vel will have to wait till Tuesday.

To make money, you’ll have to put on your adventurer gear and brave the wilds outside the kingdom. Here, you’ll be able to fight a variety of monsters that’ll drop coins upon defeat. Combat is turn-based like a traditional JRPG’s, but injected with zany humor and flashy special moves.

Yangyang Mobile is planning for “Love Esquire” to have branching storylines and multiple endings—so if it’s anything like “The Letter,” your experiences can vary wildly from one playthrough to the next depending on your choices.

Another Kickstarter success

“Love Esquire” reached its Kickstarter funding goal of $10,190 within a day of its launch. The campaign ends on October 8.

While the game seems to be proceeding in a favorable direction, it remains a work in progress. The script has yet to be polished; a bunch of art still needs to be drawn, painted, and animated; and there are gameplay elements that are in the plans but haven’t been programmed into the game yet.

There are also additional features that Yangyang Mobile will only be able to implement with more funding. Stretch goals include additional CG stills and animated scenes, body pillows, an expanded RPG campaign, and a fully animated trailer. The company also hopes to fully voice the game, so that everyone from the main characters to the NPCs will have speaking lines.

“Depending on how smooth the development goes, we’re looking at a late-2018 to mid-2019 release for Love Esquire,” states the game’s Kickstarter page. “It will be distributed on Steam and Itch.io (Windows/Mac/Linux), followed by a mobile release (Android/iOS) a few months after.”

“Love Esquire” will be Yangyang Mobile’s third game. It’s preceded by “The Letter,” which has received stellar ratings on Steam, and the mobile game “The Diary,” which is the prequel to “The Letter.”

You can download an alpha demo of “Love Esquire” on its official website or Kickstarter page. You can also check out its Steam page. — BM, GMA News