Valentine’s Day Special: Mobile…Tuesday? – Boy Loves Girl Review

Today is Valentine’s Day, and if you’re anything like the rest of the country, you probably did something a little bit out of the ordinary for that special person in your life. Maybe you don’t have anyone right now, maybe you spent the day chasing somebody in a strangely stalker-esque fashion; just like the protagonist in Boy Loves Girl, a game developed by Grubby Hands. We’ve all experienced the story within Boy Loves Girl at some time or another, boy meets girl, boys finds out what girl likes, boy gets it, girl decides she wants something else instead. The Boy in this story even plucks the stars from the sky for his constantly fleeing damsel and still she runs away. What’s a boy to do? Chase her of course! If you like what you read, don’t forget to click the little black ‘App Store’ link at the end of the review to chase your own damsel in questionable distress.

The gameplay has the player controlling a little moon that the Boy is pulling behind him on a piece of string, not the Boy himself. The player is tasked with helping the moon avoid the many cloud based obstacles in its way so that it can keep up with the Boy as he constantly runs after the Girl. This is no easy feat, as the clouds come in many shapes and size, each of them requiring a different method in order to get past them safely. In the later levels they start coming extremely quickly, meaning that the player has to work especially hard to keep the moon with the Boy. Tapping on the clouds can sometimes help you to get past them but with some, namely the rocket cloud, if you’re not paying attention this could make things a whole lot worse.

The whole game revolves around grabbing lots of different objects, usually animals, that the Boy will attempt to use to get the Girl interested in his advances. Just as in real life though, as soon as you’ve got the object that the Girl tasked you with getting for her, and you’ve presented it to her, she suddenly turns round and gives you something else to get for her. Fickle creatures those women. The levels then repeat themselves, just with a different object of the Girl’s desires, catch it, give it to her and the whole thing carries on again. In this respect it certainly does have an air of classic Mario with the “your princess is in another castle” mechanic of repetition.

The controls of the game are easy to use once you’ve figured out what they actually are. Nowhere in the game are you given any kind of tutorial or set of instructions about what you’re supposed to be doing. The most difficult aspect of the controls to understand is the fact that you’re controlling the moon on the piece of string instead of the Boy himself  – he’s too busy running to follow any form of instruction anyway) – but once you’ve got that fact nailed you’ll be able to play the levels with relative ease, until you get to some of the more difficult enemies anyway. Players that aren’t used to playing games, or don’t have quick enough reflexes, may have problems with the speed of input that’s required to get past some of the later levels but most people will find the challenge entertaining and not in the least frustrating.

VERDICT: If a cute little game to celebrate Valentine’s Day is what you’re looking for then Boy Loves Girl is that game. The art style and charming, yet loving story is certain to melt even the hardest of hearts. Most people will be so charmed by the story and entertained by the addictive gameplay that they’ll be able to forgive the game for its slightly stalker-like leanings. If you download one game today, something to play together with your loved one perhaps, then make it Boy Loves Girl, you won’t regret it.

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