Demo Impressions Part 37

Featuring: Affictionate, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, Flight Date, I Want to Play the Villain!, and Mr. Records

Affictionate*

I’ve been meaning to play this demo since it was released, and I’m finally getting around to it! If you know me, you’ll know why I really wanted to play this one. Affictionate is an otome visual novel (hehe not done yet) where the LIs are men that the main character wrote herself. Playing as yourself, as there isn’t any canon name, the game starts during a rough patch in your life. A year long rough patch where jobs you thought you had lined up after college fell through, you can’t even get a job when lowering your standards to rock bottom, and you haven’t been able to find a real guy that makes your heart flutter. At least your parents are helping you out and you still have your writing where you write some steamy/spicy romance just for yourself. However, you are wallowing in your apartment not having the energy to clean up let alone get up. That is, until one of your best friends, Hannah, calls you up to check up on you. Not wanting to avoid your friends longer than you have, you answer and agree to hang out.

And well, let’s just say it was a little bit of a disaster. Not only are your friends doing great while you feel like you’re being left behind (both in life and in the group since you avoided social media as well and thus didn’t hear about their personal life updates), but you’re also the only single one out of the group now. You may have gotten a little bit too drunk where you did lash out after your friends threw some harsh truths out of love to you (though, I personally think the main character was right in some instances) and then drunkenly wrote about your perfect dream guy (after making some compromises). It was for the best though as it was the wake up call you needed as, while nursing your hangover, realize how right your friends were. It pushed you to not only go on dating apps but also get you to clean up which did wonders for your mood. Which did wonders for your mood? Well both actually as you’re not embarrassed about your place anymore, you feel like a new person, and a guy even caught your eye. You’re even going out to meet him in person after encouragement from Hannah!

However…it turns out to be too good to be true as you get stood up at what seems to be a biker bar. He didn’t even text you with a lame excuse, just ghosted you, what a bitch. Well, the night wasn’t all for nothing as another guy walks up to you, Rhett, that you immediately connect with. In-game you don’t realize it since the memory was lost in your drunk haze, but for you as a player you’ll recognize him as the perfect man the main character wrote. And let me just tell you, if this happened to me in real life I also would have fallen in love with Rhett. He is very charming, charismatic, and while he’s a bad boy that doesn’t mean he doesn’t treat you right. Hannah isn’t too jazzed after hearing everything that happened, but you don’t really hear it. Well, other than the planned date falls on your other friend’s, Jordan’s, birthday and the demo ends right where you choose to reschedule or not. Personally, if a man is worth it he’d be fine with it, but hey I wasn’t the one saying that the main character should lower her standards for men.

I really liked Affictionate and I honestly think I might pick this up in Early Access (which while you guys won’t know this, but I don’t pick up Early Access games as much as I did before). I really liked the Common Route, the beginning of Rhett’s route, and the writing style here. Plus, the fact that the developer(s) are planning to release full routes as their Early Access release model really appeals to me (there’s another Early Access otome I bought and waiting on that’s releasing per chapter for every LI and I just know I’ll forget what happens between updates). Other aspects that I like: I like the character designs and backgrounds, really like the realistic friend group (I can’t wait to see the scene where they meet the LIs haha), I was not expecting voice acting for Rhett but it was a very nice surprise, the idea of the love interest being the man you created is just a really appealing premise, and the other two LIs already won me over just by the type of guy they are hehe. Oh yeah, the demo is going to vary depending on how fast you read but for me it was about an hour. It also does feel like the demo is the first chapter of Rhett’s route, even though the game doesn’t seem to use chapter cards.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse*

Out October 15, 2026

I’m so glad this one ended up getting a demo! When I heard Castlevania was getting a new game and the trailer looked really good, it got put way up on the top of my list of games I want. Though I still was a bit worried that I might not like it so when I heard news that it was getting a demo I was excited. I downloaded and played it the day of and, well, I wanted to give my demo impressions before it officially released! To be honest, I did zone out during the beginning cutscene, but basically you play as Rose Belmont who, along with her father Trevor Belmont, traveled to Paris to investigate why the city has become overrun with monsters and, of course, protect what’s still standing. Rose and Trevor split up early on, with Rose investigating the city itself and Trevor going to the bishop that requested help. Of course, this means Rose will run into danger in the form of the various monsters. Unluckily for the monsters, she was trained to fight them, traversing the various locations she’ll find herself in will be child’s play, and the more she’s here the more powerful she’ll become. Not to mention that it seems she’ll encounter spirits that’ll help her out and the bosses she defeats will join her in a sense. Meaning that she’ll gain a spell from them, a needed traversal ability, and receive information from them.

However, there is another matter to worry about, the titular curse that inflicts Rose’s arm. Perhaps she’ll be able to get rid of it after her encounter with Dracula. Or maybe it’ll take over.

The demo is about 30 minutes, letting you fight the first boss and explore up to the first save room after it. So far, I really like the demo! There is something that feels missing that makes it not quite feel like a Castlevania game, but it feels great to play, looks good, and everything seems to be designed well. Though I most likely won’t get this on the Switch cause…yeah it feels like an afterthought.

Flight Date*

I am a bit of a sucker for romance games and Flight Date won me over right with its title. Though, it doesn’t start out with romantic dates but with get togethers with friends. Flight Date is a logic puzzle game where you help people in different locations meet up at the same location. How do you do that? Well, by helping them figure out their flight tickets! It starts out simple, but let me tell you it gets pretty complicated before you know it. Starting with two friends wanting to meet up years after being college roommates and then progressing to helping a date happen, it seems you’ll actually follow a cast of characters throughout the game. Like I said before, puzzles start out pretty simple. You get a map of the area and icons on where the characters are at, a target location, and some tickets. All you have to do is give the right ticket to the right character. As you progress, the game introduces you to more aspects of the puzzle. You won’t just have the needed tickets, but a handful of ones that you have to figure out that you need. More locations on the map will be added, which also ties into there being more tickets for you to sort through, and you won’t have a direct flight to the meet-up place. Luckily, you do get an arrow, as well so you can easily visualize and keep track of the flight path. Money gets involved so now you have to make sure its in their budget and you have to figure out what location everyone can meet up at. More people get added into the mix as well. And finally, you have to deal with time as tickets will have the time of day of when they depart and arrive which also brings in the need to make sure everyone makes it to their meet-up at the same time.

Flight Date is pretty good so far. I liked the story and characters so far (though man, it is very weird that these guys seem to be able to take flights like daily), I liked the artwork, the various aspects you have to keep in mind make sense, and it does get quite challenging towards the end of the demo. The only thing is that I wished there was more room for you to organize the tickets (which I did look at the Steam forums and the developers are planning to improve this aspect). This one looks like it’s going to be a hard one, so if you like hard logic puzzle games with a story this one would be for you.

I Want to Play The Villain!*

Sometimes, you play a demo without looking at what it is and this was one such demo. I Want to Play The Villain is a pretty simple logic puzzle game. Framed as putting on a play, all you have to do is assign your actors to their parts. However, your actors do have their own preferences and you want everyone to be happy with their roles. It can be as simple as there aren’t as many roles to worry about and the preferences are easy to work with, like wanting to play as a villain or wanting to play as a royal character, but as you play more levels it does get a bit more complicated. More roles get added in, thus more actors gets added on and thus more preferences to keep in mind. To help everyone be happy, whatever scene the level is spotlighting will even have a little story write-up so you can get more details on the roles and even two different stages as some actors won’t want to work with other actors. It gets a bit more complicated as that little story write-up will have multiple choices that change the role(s) on that stage, whether it’s the role they have in the story or the character type (like princess or maid), and more character types get added in. In addition, there are even levels where you get an empty stage(s) and a set of roles so you not only have to make everyone happy with their roles but figure out what roles to use and where. If you’re have a bit of trouble, you can enable hints which gives roles a little icon on their story role that can be a bit harder to gleam at first glance like whether they’re a villain or dead. If you happen to get stuck on a level, you can just move to the next one and come back to it.

The demo is the first chapter, out of at least 7, with 18 levels for you to do. The first chapter is royal themed and based on the upcoming revealed chapters the theme is going to change with each chapter (Chapter 2 is magic themed and I believe Chapter 3 is holiday themed). So far, I liked it. It’s a pretty good logic puzzle game and I liked how it got a bit more complicated as you got more levels under your belt. I did also like the little write-ups on what’s happening in the scene and I quite liked the challenge that each level brought. I’ll definitely be interested in seeing what the other Chapters have in store.

Mr. Records*

I’ve been waiting for this demo! The visuals hooked me in and you best believed it reeled me in after I saw that this was a rhythm game. Mr. Records follows an old man named George who decided to open up a vinyl shop called Mr. Records. During the night, George will listen to his vinyls where every song he’ll imagine a whole world that he’s traveling through as he’s listening to it. This is where the rhythm game comes in as you’ll jump over gaps, hit any obstacles or enemies, hold and throw fireworks at the right time, and slide up or down to the song. Each song will only have Normal difficulty available and you have a handful of mistakes you can make before you fail the song. You get graded based on how well you do with stars and, if you get a perfect score, you’ll unlock the Hard difficulty for that song. After you finish a song, they’ll be available for customers to purchase and you get to see how George describes the song through the little sticky note. If you finish a song on Hard mode, the vinyl will turn into a collector’s version which sells for more. George will also be able to order more vinyls through flyers, which not only will give you another song to play but will add it to his shop once you finish. You can also get calls from George’s friend Paul, play the piano and it seems the full game may have something tied to his fridge. You can spend as long as you’d like here and once you’re ready to progress to the next day, you can go to sleep.

During the day, it’s time to open the shop! Don’t worry, this doesn’t take long as the customers for the day will already be waiting and will come in to browse. All you have to do is talk to them, hear what they’re looking for, and bring them the vinyl that matches their request. The demo only includes two customers, but it does seem like each customer will have their own little storyline and way that they’ll request vinyls. Like one of the customers gives you key details like the color of the vinyl jacket or the vibe of the musician while the other one gives you part of the vinyl artwork. Luckily, you don’t have to remember what George wrote about the record as you can figure it out based on the vinyl artwork. Once you finish serving all the customers, you’ll see your progress with the customers and how much money you earned.

This demo is the game’s prologue, which is about an hour, featuring 7 songs (5 you get through story progression and 2 after finishing the demo) with each having a Normal and Hard difficulty. So far, I liked the demo here! I love the visuals and the way they match with the song that’s playing, I like the songs so far, I like the writing style, I like figuring out what vinyls customers want, and I enjoyed the rhythm gameplay. I think the maps fit the songs quite well, both Normal and Hard, and it does a good job at getting a bit more complex as you get more songs under your belt. I also did like how the Hard difficulty is hard, but not too hard. I was already planning on picking this game up, but the demo definitely sealed it in for me. I can’t wait to see what the story has in store and the other songs that’ll be in the game.