Developer: Unknown
Publisher: Claudio Moltedo, Red Hog Studio
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Print I Love U – Review
Sometimes the simplest games are the hardest to review. In the case of Print I Love U, we really want to say, “Just play it. Trust us.” This is the kind of game where the experience is better the less you know about it. It’s meta. It’s as heartwarming as it is unsettling. It’s… kind of amazing, really. If that’s all the info you need, then by all means: stop reading here. Go play it, come back in half an hour or so, and then see if you agree with our opinion. But if you’re the kind of person that prefers to be well-informed before spending your hard-earned cash on video games, or if you simply don’t trust us on five words (and who could blame you?), then read on.
Story
The premise behind Print I Love U is that it is found media. An opening message, supposedly from the publisher, explains that they accidentally stumbled on the game files on a cheap second-hand laptop. They decided to complete it and release it. A neat little detail is that the Steam page for Print I Love U lists the game’s developer as ‘Unknown’. The updates on the Steam page also lean into this, with the publisher trying to reach out to the developer. Now, we typically avoid giving away too much when discussing a game like this. Given how short and simple the game is, however, it’s impossible to discuss Print I Love U without giving away some major details. As such, consider this your official final warning: skip the next paragraph if you want to go in blind. We won’t be revealing the biggest plot twist, of course, but we’ll still be discussing story elements that could be considered major spoilers.
The ‘Print’ in the title refers to Alice Print, a girl that the game’s developer is in love with. The game is intended for her eyes only. Through a series of so-called “love tests”, the developer tries to convince Alice that the pair of them would make a great couple. Ironically enough, successfully completing these love tests unlocks Print I Love U’s bad ending. After this, the publisher returns, explaining that in order to see the game’s true ending, you’ll instead need to deliberately fail the love tests. This results in a twist that turns Print I Love U from the video game equivalent of a love letter into an outright horror game. We couldn’t help but be reminded of Doki Doki Literature Club as the story unfolded, although the ending is perhaps more palatable, if also more bittersweet.
Graphics
The visuals of Print I Love U are best described as hand-drawn pixel art. The game makes use of thick, crisp pixel lines, with the end result being very reminiscent of something you’d see on the GBA or Nintendo DS. For the most part, the graphics are monochrome, with the occasional single accent shade to create a clean, retro-feeling palette. Aesthetically, Print I Love U combines soft, sweet motifs like hearts, oversized sweaters, and pastel colours with darker elements, like skull designs. The game’s horror elements stick to the same aesthetic, although the colours are decidedly different, with red designs on a black background. Because the game is so lightweight visually, performance is flawless, with no stuttering or frame drops whatsoever.
Sound
Apart from the Print I Love U’s main screen, where the game’s title is proudly and audibly announced, there is no voice acting present in the game. Instead, the game makes use of an atmospheric soundtrack to set the mood throughout the game’s very brief runtime. For the most part, the tunes are upbeat and whimsical, which is fitting with what it tries to convey. There is a palpable mood shift once it switches to the horror elements, which makes sense, although it could’ve been an interesting juxtaposition if the cheerful tunes kept playing throughout instead.
Gameplay
Equal parts dating sim, visual novel, and horror game, Print I Love U is as short and sweet as it is memorable. Once you’re past the introductory message from the publisher, the game’s menu presents you with three mini-games, the “love tests”. The first mini-game revolves around holding hands with the object of your desire, which translates to rotating a giant hand so that you only interact with cute girl avatars and avoid male ‘aliens’. The second test is a dress-up game where you need to match dress colours and patterns with the requests of the girl in the changing booth. The third and final test requires you to match an accelerating heartbeat by clicking with the right rhythm. The games are ridiculously simple, but this is intentional, as the story reveals. We did run into an issue with the gameplay, as button inputs on our controller didn’t match the on-screen prompts, but given the overall simplicity, you can simply play this one with a mouse and keyboard without any issues.
A playthrough of Print I Love U will only take you 15 minutes or so, and we were able to reach both the good and the bad ending, as well as the ‘Honesty’ Steam achievement in around 35 minutes. Steam tells us there are three more achievements to unlock, so there are still some things to discover, but even then we can’t imagine there being more than an hour’s worth of content here. It’s a matter of quality over quantity here, though, and we feel like Print I Love U has all the elements to become a cult classic. At the time of writing, the game’s pricing hasn’t been revealed, so we can’t comment on whether or not it’s worth it, but if the game’s price matches its bite-sized format, then adding this one to your Steam library should be a no-brainer.
Conclusion
It would be easy to simply dismiss Print I Love U as nothing more than a curiosity, but we can’t help but feel like there are layers here that we haven’t discovered yet. Depending on how successful the game is, we might see the meta story of the publisher unfold in due time. But even if Print I Love U remains a standalone title, it’s worth checking out if you enjoy your cutesy love stories with a side of twisted horror.
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