Hey there, are you ready to go on a hot date? I am.
Hot Date recently released on the App Store for $1.99, but it’s also available on Windows, Mac and Linux for pay-what-you-like.
“Dim the lights. Light candles. A romantic evening awaits. An evening of speed dating,” promises developer George Batchelor. But wait, here’s the twist: You’re speed dating pugs.
You follow speed dating rules here: You have a set amount of time with a pug where you ask each other questions to get to know one another better. When your time is up, you can decide whether you had a great time and you’d like to see each other again in future, or it’s good riddance. And then it’s on to the next pug (which always looks the same as the one before).
Am I a dog in this game? Or am I just a human that really loves dogs? Those aren’t the questions you should be asking. Instead, date questions range from the mundane like “What do you do for work?” and “What do you do for fun?” to more specific questions like “Have you ever read A Clockwork Orange?” and “What is your ideal starting Pokémon?”
My past articles on dating will tell you that I’ve hit the dating scene pretty hard. And like anyone else that’s done the same, I’ve had my share of weird, awkward, or just downright awful experiences. But for the sake of your love life, I would hope that the dogs you encounter on Hot Date are the worst dating experiences you will ever have.
A pug might start off by insulting your name. They’re bad at making eye contact — their eyes will frequently dart around to the corners of the room. And sometimes they’ll just give frustratingly unsatisfactory answers to your questions. (“Where did you grow up?” “Oh you know, around.”)
Sound familiar? Like finding love in the real world, dating dogs isn’t easy either.
Hot Date is a subtle and bizarre parody of the dating scene that’s filled with a bunch of rude jerks generally uninterested in what you have to say. But, if you’re lucky, you might chance upon someone that’s actually kind of sweet…
…that is, until it insults something you enjoy.
Whatever, love is a lie anyway.
Going into Hot Date, I was expecting to simply giggle at a nonsensical game about dating cute dogs, and what I received instead was the age-old lesson: dating is tough.