The Crossroads

Meeting new people can be quite a fun experience under the right circumstances, especially if you have interesting things to share with each other. Naturally, sometimes one thing leads to another and a simple friendship can become a lot more, which is how most love stories have started out. Video games are great when it comes to creating the proper mood for such stories, especially visual novels.

The Crossroads is a simple visual novel in which you play the role of a girl who finds herself in a weird situation, but not the bad kind. Not much can be said about the gameplay, given the fact that your only job is to read the text and occasionally choose what to respond. There’s a bit of a supernatural element in there as well, which makes the whole thing a bit more engaging.

You can customize your character in a few ways before starting a new game, but the changes are cosmetic only, so they do not affect the story anyway. Hence, you can choose whether you have freckles or not, as well as a few other such small details. The whole thing starts when the main character is asked by a wealthy lawyer to house sit for a few days, which is where she meets two interesting men.

It’s up to you who you like the most, although it’s obviously difficult to resist going back in order to make different choices and see how the other route turns out. Speaking of which, besides the two love interests there are multiple endings you can reach as well, although they are not as different as you might imagine. Having options always feel better, on the other hand, especially in the case of visual novels.

As far as the graphics are concerned, they are nothing to write home about, given the basic backgrounds and the somewhat basic character design. On the other hand, the game is not ugly either, so that’s not a major issue in this case. You also have to consider the fact that it was designed in a matter of hours for a game jam competition, so this is more a sketch than a finished product.

When it’s all said and done, The Crossroads can easily make your day better if you need a pick-me-up, but it’s not the kind of game you’ll remember a month later. Hence, it’s more a distraction than something you play for sheer pleasure.