S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch

Developer: U0U Games
Publisher: GCORES Publishing
Platform: PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $13.99 USD – Available Here

Overview

Trying to figure out who you are and what you want to do in life is challenging as it is in our complicated world. However, what if things were even more dystopian and advanced than they are now? In a world where jobs are not only being increasingly automated but being taken over directly by sentient AI, finding a future for one’s self may seem impossible, especially for someone looking to reinvent themselves in that day an age. This is the type of world that S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch from U0U Games places us in, telling a narrative adventure with a few different turns as we navigate the life of an “online mouthpiece” and architect looking to change their life.

Story

Set in the fictional city of Castor Yard in the far more advanced year of 2011, players take on the role of Miki. Miki, whose gender is chosen a bit into the game, is in a rut. With their current job feeling like a potential dead end street as an architect Miki spends most of their off hours working on a side-hustle, and that is being an online mouthpiece. In a rather unique take on a job, Miki’s work in this field involves taking on jobs from clients and then pretending to be them by interacting with their friends, co-workers, or even family in an attempt to accomplish a goal. This can range from simply telling off a sexually harassing boss without getting the client fired, pretending to be a popular online celebrity while the real person is off slacking, or even helping someone get a divorce.

The whole thing is, Miki must always try to act like they are the person who hired them, creating a balancing act that players will have to work with to best solve their clients’ problems while also keeping up their cover. Top this off with the fact that Miki’s own family and friends will be popping up to talk through the same instant messaging system but even her co-workers and day job will send messages as well, meaning that players will constantly need to stay on the ball and multi-task as it is entirely possible to mess these personal conversations up just as bad. Taking too long to respond may irritate a friend or a client’s co-worker and there are even times that some messages are only able to be sent for a limited period of time, missing out on the chance to reply can lock players out of certain dialogue or even properly completing a task.

To make matters worse, what Miki is doing is entirely illegal. S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch likes to throw players into the deep end with its storyline and doesn’t really explain much in the way of how Castor Yard is and why so many people seem to have lost hope and their “Tico” feed of news is often filled with messages about attacks, protests, and incredibly high unemployment rate. Only through interacting with characters both optionally and as part of the main storyline, are players able to realize the unique nature of the world. AI is not only fully established in 2011, but has gained sentience to the point that these “bots” are actually called Cyber Life. Each Cyber Life has their own unique set of skills and talents, appearances when interacting with humans through screens, and even can have children with other Cyber Life. This means that many online jobs or anything involving a computer has been taken over by Cyber Life, in fact even the vending machine under Miki’s apartment is home to a sassy Cyber Life with its own eclectic tastes for what it sells and whether it wants to interact with Miki or not.

As a result, the online space has become incredibly regulated and also gives reason as to why Miki feels lost about their future. Their main goal is to simply save up enough money to quit their current job and find a new path in life, but that is far from the only thing involved with Miki’s life as players navigate through about a week and a half of their time. The narrative is quite compelling and full of interesting nuances, whether it is pretending to be a client and walking the tightrope of how to accomplish their task without crossing a line, or simply going all out and crossing the line anyway with Miki’s choices, or interacting with Miki’s family and co-workers, like trying to get their sister into an academic program, reconnect with an old friend, or even find romance as there are four romanceable characters, the story has plenty of drama as players try to navigate Miki’s life.

It is also worth noting that there are multiple endings to achieve in S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch and the actual way to get some of them are far from clear, as a few involve some very early choices that players may not realize have as much importance as they actually do. It is worth noting that player choice is also heavily factored into various elements, as messaging both as a client and as Miki will often give Miki plot related dialogue entries. These are usually highlighted by Miki quickly summarizing the entry before players press enter, giving players plenty of reason to replay through and see how a client’s case may have gone differently as well as how Miki’s journey ends up.

One thing that is unfortunate about S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch is the localization effort. While it has received patches here and there even as we’ve played the title, it is quite clear that the localization remains rough in places and many jokes and phrases still make entirely no sense. In fact, there are occasionally entire interactions that seem almost like gibberish though these are few and far between. It is also worth noting that the pacing is fairly poor. While it is good to keep players on their toes with multi-tasking, one minute players may be having a dire client with multiple dialog boxes and contacts to keep up with and the next will simply be a minor problem, literally. This translates into the storyline as well. Sometimes Miki’s own journey can often feel like it is taking a backseat to the clients that they deal with, but thankfully this is numbed a bit by how interesting many of these clients’ issues end up being as well as the aforementioned tightrope walking.

Gameplay

Now at its core, S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch can basically be described as an unconventional visual novel. Players will still need to read plenty of dialogue and make choices as they talk with characters, some of which can result in different endings for not only specific cases but Miki as well in the end. The big difference is, unlike most visual novels, S4U likes to keep players feeling engaged. Players won’t simply be clicking to advance a dialogue box, outside of the real world interactions that is, but physically typing on their keyboard to generate Miki’s computer responses as well. There are even a handful of more complicated key-specific mini-games throughout the title though these are few and far between.

All online interactions in the game are handled through a 2010’s style messaging system where players will need to click various “friends” and talk with them through a messaging app. The dialogue is predetermined but requires players to type on their keyboard to simulate the message, even if all they are typing is dfdfdfdfd, trying to immerse them into the gameplay in a fairly successful manner. Almost all dialogue has various options and players can delete their entry and retype it to change what they want to say, with the aforementioned choices relying on this part. There are also little gadgets that Miki can purchase to decorate their desk that are mostly there as collectables to poke or interact with and players can even send Tico stories to their contacts occasionally, to either continue a bit of storyline or trigger a fun interaction, though this isn’t available as often as we would have liked. It is also worth noting that it is very easy to lock in a certain “romance” path far earlier than others and it isn’t made clear in any way that this choice locks players to that character.

Audio & Visuals

S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch has some gorgeous looking aesthetics when players are away from the computer screen. The city-scape players can look out when outside their apartment is highly detailed and the various character designs are also rather impressive looking with a slight retro anime aesthetic. Most of the time though players will be staring at a simulated fat-back monitor and desk with whatever collectables they’ve purchased and the desktop is simulated quite well, though it would have been nice if there was a little more customization to things besides the few decorations. 

Unfortunately none of the dialogue is voiced in any way in the game, with players only having to rely on the aforementioned hit and miss translation. The soundtrack is fitting, with a sort of “lo-fi hip hop” theme to things though it would be nice if players could select their background music at any time, especially if they’ve “bought” tracks from the vending machine. Instead these purchased tracks can only be listened to when city-gazing. It is also worth noting that, at least as of this writing, players can only “save” at the end of each day, meaning if players need to walk away they cannot actually save at will which feels like a strange choice, especially since multiple save slots are available.

Overall

S4U: Citypunk 2011 and Love Punch tells a wonderful and compelling narrative that explores the way we interact with others online while also tackling the challenges that could arrive in a world where Cyber Life grows to mimic real life, at least online. Having to balance the conversations Miki has with their client’s contacts as well as their own contacts to keep their life stable is a fine line to walk, especially when players can deliberately interject Miki’s own thoughts into the client’s world. Combine this with the unusually tactile experience of having to literally type to pull up responses and this unique approach to a visual novel is certainly worth checking out if you can handle a lackluster localization.

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