Nicole Demo

Reading a good book comes with many benefits besides helping you relax, such as training your imagination, improving your language skills, and opening your mind to new ideas. However, technology made it far easier for you to experience stories and even be a part of them, thanks to video games that allow you to be one of the main characters in the book of your choosing.

Nicole is a visual novel and a dating simulator at the same time, which is not that unusual in the genre. What this essentially means is that you get to pretend that you are living someone else’s life and choose a partner to form a relationship with, while also tackling some kind of mystery along the way. The gameplay mechanics for this type of games are quite straightforward in most cases, since all you need to do is click on the desired choices whenever they are presented to you.

In this case, you play the role of Nicole, a girl who is just starting her college life away from home. Besides getting used to the new environment, you must also help her find new friends and maybe get a boyfriend as well. Not only that, but it appears that some kind of mystery is going on at the school, concerning some strange disappearances that have happened recently.

The other part of the gameplay revolves around the things Nicole occupies her time with during the day, such as whether she goes to the library to study or has a nice dinner at the restaurant instead. Each location is different and there is always the chance for an encounter with another character, so you’d better do your best to visit every location, to avoid missing any part of the story.

Nicole also has a few stats that can be increased by participating in various activities on a regular basis. If you choose to focus on solving mysteries, your ‘Clues’ bar is going to slowly fill as you manage to investigate deeper and deeper. You can also increase your zeal, diligence, amity, and wit, depending on what choices you make along the way. Bars like ‘Morale’ and ‘Energy’ need to be kept at a steady level, otherwise Nicole loses her ability to deal with certain situations.

In the end, Nicole is quite the complete visual novel flick and it provides the players with enough intrigue and options to be worth multiple replays, just to see what happens if you make different choices. Hence, if you are a fan of the genre, this should definitely be on your must-try list.