Find magic in this free dating sim’s cafe

Fated is a free simulation video game wherein you can find love among the coffee cups and flower arrangements. Developed by VOWTogether, this 2D indie visual novel is an aesthetically pleasing dating sim game that lets you romance several characters of different genders and sexualities.

Similar to Deliver Us From Evil (DUFE), Fated was made for the Otome Game Jam 2021 and features classic otome game elements, as well as major LGBTQIA representation for all romanceable characters. However, it lacks a lot of features and some of the existing ones aren’t fully optimized for a more comfortable gameplay experience. 

Strangely-familiar names

In Fated, you play as a nameable character who applies for a barista position at a swanky city cafe. To your surprise, you easily get hired and even get befriended quickly by some of the staff. However, you start noticing that there’s something strange about the cafe and its inhabitants as time goes on. To investigate, you’ll need the help of your chosen love interest.

There are four romanceable characters: Juliet the head barista, Oberon the food caterer, Ophelia the florist, and Richard the architect. All of them have different sexual orientations, which works well for the protagonist’s flexible and vague sexuality. This is because you can only name your character and not see any preset appearance at all. Thus, while this genre is meant for female players, you can easily imagine whatever orientation you prefer.

However, while the writing is highly engaging and the art style is gorgeous, there’s not much else to enjoy about the game. There’s no audio at all—whether it’s the background music or the sound effects—so it can be disorienting and a little bit boring to slog through text without any musical accompaniment. Additionally, the text on the interface is all black, which doesn’t display well on the menu’s colored backgrounds.

Feels incomplete

All in all, Fated is a nice little otome game if you like one where there are lots of LGBTQIA representation and your character is free to be customized in how you see them despite the lack of a visual appearance. It still needs a lot of other features, however—most especially the audio—in order to become as enjoyable to play as other dating sim games.