A Whimsical Journey into Virtual Romance and Cupid. Will you help others find their perfect match, or will your arrows fall short in Matchmaker Agency?
The collaborative effort behind Matchmaker Agency involves the Indonesian studios MelonCat and Niji Games. The game’s concept originated from an online game jam, and gamers might recognize these developers for their work on titles such as YakiShabu – Idle Restaurant Sim and The Sun Shines Over Us. Niji Games was the first Indonesian developer to get Editors Choice from Google for their Android game Cute Munchies.
At its core, Matchmaker Agency is a simulation game that challenges players to run their own matchmaking business. Matchmaker Agency focuses on your character, a recent grad who returns to their hometown of Amoraville to take over your grandparents’ matchmaking agency.
Your grandparents were considered the best in the business, and unfortunately, when they died, your parents could not take over the family business. Still, your arrival will bring new beginnings to the once famous and now historical matchmaker agency.
There is a catch, though. You have 12 months to pay off a debt of 25 000. You’ll also be faced with rival matchmakers, demanding clients, and working to keep your reputation points high, but fear not, you’ll have Charles, a talking black cat, and for me, the star of Matchmakers Agency.
Charles was your grandparent’s familiar and is now your right-hand man or cat, I guess. He is cute, intelligent, and sassy, all things a cat should be. He is a nice touch to Matchmaker Agency; the banter with him and some clients was funny and enduring. Speaking of clients, each client comes from a different background, race, and sexual orientation. Each one also has unique requirements, likes, dislikes, and needs to be met.
To keep players engaged, Matchmaker Agency incorporates a variety of quests and challenges. These objectives range from successfully pairing certain personality types to handling unexpected twists during dates. The quests serve as a driving force for progression and provide additional opportunities for character interactions and story development.
You’ll have to interview the clients to get to know them better and to give you a better chance of finding them a perfect match. Interviews and dates can be difficult, though; for example, in the interviews, you may think you have asked a reasonable question that should get your client to open up to you and give you more information about themselves.
Still, somehow, you end up offending the client, and they end the interview abruptly. You aren’t given any reason why you offended them or why they left, and it can cause frustration.
As for actual dates in Matchmaker Agency, you’re mostly in control. You get to pick the location of the date, if there are any items you would like to add to the date, and you’ll also need to control the date events. However, this is where I found it confusing; the game wasn’t very clear about who I was answering as, whether I was answering as my client or as myself, and choosing how to influence the date.
The questions felt the same as the ones in the interviews. You are given a few possible answers, ranging from what I would consider to be common etiquette or how you would want someone to behave on a date to answers you wouldn’t give if you were trying to get successful matches.
You’re just never sure which one is best suited. If you answer correctly, your answer will turn green, and a happy animation will appear by your clients’ pictures on the bottom left of the screen. If the answer isn’t received well, it will be highlighted red, and you’ll get an angry animation from your clients; grey answers are neither here nor there and are your middle ground. There is no indication of how many correct, incorrect, or neutral answers you need to get a successful match or a failure.
Half of the time, I felt like I was just selecting answers randomly; you can even choose not to answer and let the timer run out and have the game answer automatically. The time you have to answer the questions is also extremely fast.
If you get anxious when you have to answer questions quickly in a game, then you may feel like Matchmaker Agency doesn’t give you enough time, and just to mention, all of this was on the game’s easiest setting, which is just meant for you to play and enjoy the storyline.
You’ll need to market your business to bring in new clients. You can select from short-term, long-term, and special event advertising. Each one has a different cost and a different success rate.
I recommend investing in this as soon as possible in the game, and I ran into the problem of not having enough clients. At one stage, I only had male candidates in my file, and if you don’t set up dates for your clients in a timely fashion, they start to become unhappy, and eventually, they will leave your agency.
Every time you lose a client, you lose reputation points; if your reputation drops to zero, then it’s game over, literally. The more successful matches you make, the higher your reputation becomes. There are also world events, and you’ll be given choices like buying Girl Scout Cookies. Once you answer, you’ll either gain or lose reputation points.
There are monthly payments due to the landlord; you can track your payments, the amount owing, and when the next payment is due. It was a nice quality-of-life feature to have in the game. Matchmaker Agency allows you to renovate your premises, raise your prices, and upgrade your reputation point so that you gain more from successful matches and a variety of other options.
Your date locations are either unlocked by surveying the location at a cost or when you match certain clients successfully, the location will then unlock via the connection that the client has to that specific location.
Matchmaker Agency lets you set up one date per week or spend your week conducting interviews. Sometimes, it does feel a little repetitive, considering the dates end up being similar, and the events on the dates are often repeated. You’re not grinding in the conventional sense, but it can feel like a grind in general.
The art style in Matchmaker Agency is very close to an anime style and is pleasing to the eye. It’s not overly flashy or exaggerated, and the colors are light and suit the game and atmosphere of Matchmaker Agency well.
There’s not much to talk about in terms of sounds and voices in the game. There is only background music and event notification sounds, and when a conversation happens, there’ll be a soft “buzzing” sound that signifies a character is currently talking.
Matchmaker Agency is, for lack of a better word, cute. Its gameplay is not going to change dating sims and how we play them, but it’s a fun little game to play and get distracted in for a few hours, even though it can be frustrating at certain points in the game. I spent much of my time in the Matchmaker Agency, unlocking and upgrading my locations and items.
Paying your monthly rent brings a sense of accomplishment and keeps you working towards a goal. So if you’re sitting at home alone this Valentine’s Day and want to live vicariously through different characters and go on different dates, or if you want to spend a fun evening playing Matchmaker Agency with your own Valentine, then why not pick up a copy? Matchmaker Agency releases on Steam and Switch on the 14th of February. And hey, who can refuse the idea of an adorable talking cat as your co-worker?
