Order Up!: Table Manners (Review)
By Rae
Think you have bad dates? Echo Chamber Games is here to put your life in perspective with their new comedy physics-based dating sim, Table Manners. With only your hand to control, you’ll have to light candles, pour wine, and serve food to your lovely would-be darling – how hard can it be, right?
I wanted to love Table Manners, with its amazing concept andnumerous chances for ridiculous shenanigans. Unfortunately, I really, reallydidn’t.
At first, I loved the silly concept and cute, clean style. Unfortunately,I found it just unfun to play. The concept seems fantastic – you painstakingly(and often ineffectively) flail your in-game hand about to complete tasks, potentiallycausing plenty of messes on your otherwise lovely dates. I’ve had a lot of funwith misadventures such as Octodad, so I was expecting it would be both fun andinfuriating, but sadly I just constantly felt frustrated. Even in menus, thedating app, etc the mechanics didn’t feel challenging or fun to nail down –they felt finicky and frustrating.
When I started playing, I ended up closing it out because Ithought maybe streaming to an audience might help me enjoy it more – afterall,it’s always fun to laugh together right? Instead we just kept talking about howfrustrating the movements were for nearly no payoff. The main gameplay – at leastthat I got through – involves your dates asking you to do everything from pouringtheir wine to ordering their food. You either get this task done in time ornot, and are graded accordingly.
In between dates, you can flirt on your app (appropriatelynamed Blundr) with matches, but your options consist of vague choices such as “Seduce,”“Joke,” “Apologise” and the conversations were good for a short laugh, and thenquickly became repetitive and nonsensical.
One of the best features of dating sims is the personalityof your potential partners. Everyone picks favourites as they play Mystic Messenger,Dream Daddy, or Ikemen Sengoku. Table Manners seems to be missing all of that.You get the blurb for each match on Blundr, but on the date you don’t get anyreal dialogue or information. Instead, your date only asks you to do this orthat, and you do it. If there had been a bit more personality and dialogue, itmight have been okay, but it was just a neverending task list with a date whoseonly real personality attribute seemed to be “eats ketchup on steak.”
It could be that I’m just not the audience that this ismeant for. For someone more patient, this might be a hit – I’ve seen somereviews from players who really enjoyed it, and the steam page actually has agood collection of polarized reviews (both positive and negative) thatpotential players should check out if they’re wary. For me, I hit a point whereI didn’t want to continue playing. Normally, I’d feel terrible about writing areview without at least coming close to finishing the game, but not wanting tokeep going felt like a big issue. This is perhaps one of the shortest reviews I’vewritten, as a result – I don’t have a whole lot to say. The art is great, andthe concept is fantastic, but for me it felt like Table Manners was missing alot of heart.
Order Up! is a weekly column featuring indie-focused reviews, news, or interviews! We like old games just as much as new ones and are always looking for something to check out. Have a game recommendation, a project, or a company you want to talk about? Email me at rae@thegeeklygrind.com or find me on Twitter @ArcanaChance
