Struck by Cupid's Arrow

Last of my current set of story apps, and probably the most casually fun:

Lovestruck
By Voltage Entertainment

Choose your ideal romance and enjoy the love you've always wanted to in this unique visual romance novel game! Find a story that captures your heart and decide who you want to fall in love with from a selection of over 70 unique characters!

This is what I would imagine the majority of chick-lit romance apps are like: flirty, fun, and fairly simple. It has two currencies: tickets and hearts. Tickets are the standard time-gate which free to play apps thrive on. One ticket gets you one episode, and you can have up to 2 tickets freely generate, which takes about 3 hours each. You can, of course, buy more with real money - 5 for $2, 14 for $5, and so on. When you consider that there are 12 episodes in a season, it's not that bad to speedrun a story for $5, but (again) I'm fine with waiting for free.

The other currency is hearts, which are used in paid story choices (usually for steamy scenes), and can be an absolute bear to accrue. Besides real money, there are two ways to generate them: complete reading challenges, or randomly gain some in the daily card game. Reading challenges have you reading X number of episodes of a specific character's romance, but with 80+ characters to choose from it's probably not one you're already reading. So, yeah, unless you want to read a lot of stories very, very slowly, the reading challenges are useful every couple weeks or so.

The card game I mentioned can be played daily for free, or paid (with hearts) for more tries. It's presented in a match-game style with 12 cards, but you only choose one. Two cards have hearts, one is a redo, and the rest are puzzle pieces. Completing a 6-piece puzzle gets you 5 hearts, 15-piece nabs you 10 hearts, and the 24-piece earns 15 hearts. Did I mention there are about 100 puzzles? So far its done a fairly good job of only offering 3 or 4 puzzles' pieces during the card game, but then there are special events that have their own puzzles... But, hey, at least you get some cool artwork out of it.

Lovestruck leans pretty heavily on its art. Between the puzzles that give rewards, the artwork that is awarded periodically throughout the romances, and the general character art used in the stories, there's a lot to work with. I'd place it above Chapters' artwork, since the characters can have more than 2 poses and sometimes do choreography in their scenes, but it's nowhere near The Aracana's level of polish and detail. It's mostly cartoony, and not all of the characters have received the same level of polish, but it's pretty good for free-to-play.

As far as ads go, it used to be really great. An ad plays at the beginning of every story episode, which is pretty standard fare. Used to, you could click a skip button that would take you to the purchase page, then back out to start your episode. But a couple weeks ago, the skip stopped working, the ad would play to completion no matter what. This gets rather tedious, with ads lasting typically 30 seconds. Not that bad when you think about it, but definitely annoying now that I had a taste of it going faster.

The app currently has 14 different worlds to explore with guys, gals, and more to romance. So far I've only explored 5 of the worlds, romanced 10 characters, and completed 1 story, but here's what I've experienced so far...

Vampires, Werewolves, and Demons, oh my!
Find your Supernatural Soulmate in this mysterious and exciting story!

Havenfall is the world I've experienced the most of so far, it being your typical modern Paranormal Romance. Down-on-her-luck small town chick dreams of escaping her humdrum life, but gets more than she bargained for when her sister turns up missing and the suspects aren't human. Now she's thrust into the secret paranormal society with a super sexy guide to help her find her way (whether she wants their help or not).

I've gone for the vampire (Diego), werewolf (Mackenzie), devil (JD), and dark vampire (Antonio) paths in this one, actually completing the vampire's story through all 8 seasons, and I love this world. The player character has a lot of snark to her, a good sense of humor, and I love her outfit. The stories don't overlap much, even with the two vampires, what with it being a different baddie being responsible for your sister in each case, so they haven't been repetitive yet.

This set has been the only one that I've tried non-male partners, so it's probably the easiest to talk about the LGBT+ representation here and in the app as a whole. The player doesn't get a choice of pronouns (as in The Arcana) or ethnicity (as in Choices) in this one, owing mostly to the artwork. You will always play a female romancing a male, female, or non-binary character (as in JD, seen left). Perhaps unsurprisingly, I've stuck mostly to my own orientation in the app as a whole, finishing the hetero relationship with Diego first, but I am enjoying my dabbling with Mac and JD, too. Diego's story didn't address the player character's own orientation, though it did mention once that Diego was the token straight (implying that you are not), but Antonio's does have you play as bi-sexual, flirting both with him and a female vampire at points. I assume the relationship with JD would imply pan-sexuality, but I'm not nearly that far into their story yet.

As part of the reading challenges, there always seems to be at least one option that isn't male, so the app does regularly incentivize trying out non-hetero storylines. It also has an entire section devoted to Pride, featuring short one-offs with the app's favorite LGBT+ chraracters. Some of them do cost hearts to play, but others are still free. Overall, it definitely has a lot to offer, as long as you don't mind playing a girl.

The fate of the world will change with just one kiss!
Fall in love with the Gods and Monsters of Greek Mythology!

Astoria is kind of a Percy Jackson meets MIB setting. H.E.R.A manages the relations between the Gods & creatures of Greek myths and the modern world. You're the daughter of one of the organizations founders, but you find yourself stuck in a desk job. That is until one fateful day when your path crosses with five new faces, your boss has a favor to ask, and one of the Gods himself requests some assistance. How's a gal to choose?

Whereas the other worlds just have you choose a love interest and go, this one has a prologue that explains the world and players to you before you make your romance choice, which was a nice change of pace. I don't know if they thought the whole Greek Gods & Monsters among us premise to be confusing, or if this was just a unique twist they thought up for this one, but I liked it. From the 3 paths I've taken so far, they seem to be more interwoven than most, with the same major events going on but you taking a different case to follow.

I found the art style in this one a bit lacking, honestly. First off, the player character doesn't have an avatar until you get to the reward artwork, at which point she closely resembles the character design from Havenfall. Then the character models you do see for the romantic interests are a bit wonky at times (see Cerberus on the right). I can't decide if its a lack of detail, or if the models are just simple, but they're not nearly as nice to look at as the other worlds' choices. Maybe this is an early/older series? Still, despite the lacking art of the models, there's a good bit of animation for this world. Each character has an Aura that erupts out of them during fights and it is actually pretty impressive. Plus the Olympus backgrounds (in Hades story, at least) look pretty snazzy as well.

I've started Hydra, Hades, and Cerberus's paths. Hydra is your typical bad boy, working against the law to clear his name. Hades is playing the big boss who is surprisingly kind and protective, even though you've barely met. He also has Persephone, his 'niece', working under him in an office setting, which makes pursuing him kinda weird if you know anything about Greek mythology - even if just from Percy Jackson. Cerberus seems like just a big puppy in a man's body, which is simultaneously cute and a bit annoying. I'm interested in starting Cyprin, the non-binary demigod boss, sometime, but I'm not in any particular hurry with him.

Fall into a world of danger, pleasure, and vice with the Seven Deadly Sins.
Discover your passionate romance lurking in the shadows.

I've only just started a couple of the stories - Sloth & Lust - and so far haven't seen much of their circus show, nor anything about the other players or their backstory yet. So, while I'm intrigued by the picture and setup so far, I don't have much to report other than Sloth seems like a stuck-up jerk, and Lust seems like a playboy (go figure).

In a world of super-powered humans, you find yourself with a group of powerful Super Villains
and discover that love can bloom even in the darkest of nights.

I have even less to state with Villainous Nights. I've read 1 chapter, period, because I was soooooo bored. It looks like it stars super-powered animal-themed thieves running a heist. It was actually (in Duke's story, anyway) super-powered corporate espionage...which required lots of exposition on the corporate front. Sure, I got a cool (literally) action scene at the end, but I probably won't be returning to him until he's in a reading challenge.

On a frontier ruled by monsters and ghouls, there's nowhere for an outlaw to run...
but right into their embrace...

Wicked Lawless Love looks like Havenfall with a wild-west setting. I started Nathan, the Ghost Cowboy's story, and am interested in the Vampire Ranger's story, but since they're brand new, I'm not as eager to jump in to an unfinished story.

So, yeah, that's what I'm reading now. Have any of you tried the app? Are there more along these lines you've played, or are interested in? I definitely am impressed with the amount and quality of free content available. Let me know if you think there are any more I should be playing!