Whether you choose to romance, befriend, or slay the monsters you meet on your endeavors, you’ll have to do it in style! The more fashion you wear, the easier it’ll be to encounter more monsters, which you’ll need to do if you want to best your opponents. Ready to start your adventure? Let’s go!

What Is It?

Simultaneous Action Selection – Each turn players simultaneously choose and reveal which location they want to go to. They can backstab an opponent to steal a monster, go to the stylomancer to get new treasures and restyle their outfits, or visit one of the dungeons to romance, befriend, or slay a monster.

Tableau Building – To encounter a monster, no matter how, a player must have all the necessary style symbols on their active outfit. Visiting the stylomancer allows them to rearrange their equipment as they see fit.

Set Collection – Ultimately, players are trying to make sets of monsters (2 of a kind, 3 of a kind, or 4 different) to score renown points. Sets need to be in the same score pile, so players need to plan their strategy accordingly.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 -4 Players – Scales well at all player counts
  • Ages 12+
  • Fans of variants
  • Cooperative or competitive players – both modes work well

Variants

Heroes/Pets – These give players special abilities and/or style symbols which can help in a pinch in any game! These add nice, light variety to the game for players after they’re familiar with things.

Solo – Choose your challenge setting and play through the game completing a certain number of quests in order to progress through 10 levels. I felt that the solo game presented a nice level of challenge through the quests, and moving up the different levels of with easy vs hard quests was swift and a lot of fun!

Quest Mode – Instead of collecting sets, players can use quests for alternative scoring. Like the solo mode, I thought the quests were a nice scoring method. It changes the dynamic of the game as you may need to style certain way, or encounter certain types of monsters, which can be nice, especially if you play often.

Cooperative – Players work together to complete quests and earn a certain amount of renown, depending on player count. This mode definitely felt the weakest to me, as it often felt too easy, but I thought it might be a nice choice for teaching the game it to new players, or for the younger audiences.

Team Mode – With 4 players, you can play in teams of 2 and add your renown together or to complete more quests than your opponents. I thought this was a neat twist on the game as it makes you really think about where your teammate might go, so you don’t try to compete with them, but it also has a race type element as you try to hit more quests than the other team.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – The art is very nice across the board; also very colorful
  • Components – Nice cards, tiles, and tokens
  • Rules – Well-written, easy to follow; different modes are easy to switch between
  • Variety – Lots of options with all the different modes/add-ins; really adds to the replay value
  • Turns are quick
  • The game offers you consolation when you lose a fight and don’t get to visit the location you wanted to, which is nice

CONS

  • Theme – I thought by the title that the game would be more about “dating,” but romancing, befriending, and slaying was all effectively the same in the game.
  • Length – If a certain dungeon is very popular, the game can end pretty quickly if it depletes quickly. This is seen more often in a 2-player game, since one less dungeon is also used.
  • Insert – Some of the cards slide around the box because the insert doesn’t hold them in
  • I wasn’t a big fan of backstabbing, which lets players steal monsters from another player’s romance/befriend pile. It felt very swingy, and too mean to me. Luckily, the rules specifically say you can play without that

Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought this game was pretty neat! While it wasn’t just about “dating” dungeon monsters, it was still neat to encounter the different monsters as you tried to get sets together in your score piles.

I was also impressed that all of the variants worked so well. Often, it’s a red flag for me to see competitive, cooperative, team, and more modes because it can mean that they were all just thrown together and none of them are all that good. But I enjoyed all the different modes in this game! I think they all work well, which means there’s something for everyone in here.

The game is definitely light and approachable, so if you’re looking for something approachable and colorful, this one might be for you!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10
Designer – Michael Addison
Artists – Leigh Luna, Mikayla Buan, Tan Ganguly
Publisher – Nerdy Pup Games
MSRP – $35.00
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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