Roommate: Inoue Ryoko

14.02.1997

Genre: Simulator Strategy Visual Novel

Roommate: Inoue Ryōko is a love-simulation adventure game and the first title in the Roommate series. The player can freely move about the apartment, and the game mostly consists of voiced dialogue sequences where the player interacts with Ryōko and can respond to her via multiple-choice answers. Unlike many such games, the two weeks of the in-game story progress in real time using the Saturn's internal clock (or the PocketStation in the PlayStation version), and the time and frequency of the player's visits will affect the events that occur and the protagonist's relationship with Ryōko, leading to several different endings. In Roommate Ryoko you have three years to develop a relationship with her. Using a truly innovative real-time feature, the Saturn's internal clock affects how the game plays out. If you play during the day, she isn't around at times. Most of your "interfacing" with her occurs at night (welcome to the next level, indeed). Bad Three's Company allusions aside, there is a good bit of social interaction that goes on - you actually get to know her and have to reveal a lot about yourself. What is most impressive, though, is that the conversation is never recycled - there are thousands of things that Ryoko can say. Seasonal changes affect the game, and although it isn't played in real time, you must adjust your schedule in the game to hers to catch her (this is done by leaving her notes on your shared white board). Don't get antsy and set the Playstation clock ahead though; the Playstation reads that "skipped" time as time you didn't spend talking to Ryoko, and by the time you get to the "future," she'll have moved out. The graphics in Roommate look pretty good - forget polygons or texture mapping though; everything here is drawn two-dimensionally with special attention to detail. The sound is also pretty sharp because Ryoko actually speaks a lot of her dialogue (while it is correspondingly displayed onscreen). Unfortunately though, the gameplay almost entirely consists of listening to your new roommate and picking an appropriate thing to say (a lot like your freshman year of college really).

The basic plot of Roommate is fairly simple. Ryoko is seventeen, her family has moved from Tokyo to New York, and she is staying behind to finish school. Her father (a friend of your father's) has asked that she move in with you in your apartment (where you have a spare room) so she can complete her studies. But Ryoko misses her family and is emotionally vulnerable - so it's time to for you to do some moving in of your own.