Full Release: Summer 2023

Developer: Pretty Ink

Genre: Visual Novel, Life Simulation, Dating Simulation

Platform: PC (Itch.io – prettyink.itch.io/collegecraze) Steam – College Craze

Mark my words when I say I have found a game that has essentially checked off every item on my checklist. For years, I’ve searched and longed for a dating simulation game where I can also do ordinary things such as go to school, meet random people, and just have fun! All with a customizable MC and thousands of choices which revealed a unique and intriguing story. Occasionally, giving me some NSFW routes in between. When I tell you it has been so challenging out here! Low and behold my prayers were subsequently answered when I discovered this gem of a game. This is College Craze.

SUmmary

Sugardale U: Fuck around and find out.

Welcome to Sugardale, a mid-sized college town and home of prestigious Sugardale University. You play as an incoming female freshman, ready to make your mark in the world.

Choose to study hard, work off campus, or party every weekend. Manage your grades, followers and bank account as you meet and interact with the 15 (and counting!) unique characters of Sugardale.

Create your own story and get into steamy situations, all while helping (or sabotaging) your friends keeping secrets and revealing mysteries about the town’s shady happenings.
via college craze itch.io page

Features

Manage your GPA, Body Count, Followers, and Bank Account (Your choices will effect each/all of them!)
Customizable MC
25+ Characters to interact with
1000+ choices that truly matter to the story
Partial VA in some scenes
S M U T
‘Streamer Mode’ which allows you to censor NSFW scenes if streaming

The game does offer content/trigger warnings which are as follows:

✧ Content warnings: Stalking, emotional manipulation, dubious consent, blackmail, depictions of minor character death, minor physical violence between supporting characters.

One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give to you (that I was also given) is to play through the game several times to get different routes and experiences. I’ve actually played it about 8 times and gotten quite a few different interactions with characters. I easily founded my favorites so far (Jay, Triggs, Jace, Ruby and Professor McGregor) and I know I’ll have more once the game releases more versions.

Each character is unique and adds to the story overall. You can easily spend hours trying to figure out everyone and unlock the secrets hidden within the city and university. There’s just so much content and the game isn’t even completely finished. While there are different versions of the game, you can play the demo which has content up to v0.3 for free right now but, if you join the official Patreon, you can play v0.4 which has a lot more content!

Conclusion

The main reason I fell in love with this game almost immediately is the concept of being an adult and making adult decisions. No shade to other visual novels and dating sims but I enjoy making choices that lead to a decision that makes sense. For example; you decide to do something bad, it hurts you then, and then later on because of said bad choice it can affect another aspect you didn’t think about. That’s how life is. You don’t just decide to do something and not think about the consequences.

To me, a life simulation should simulate life! I know that sounds redundant but sometimes games miss the mark on something as simple as that.

Also, I do love, as stated in my last game review, to be able to customize my MC. I want to see me in a game so I can relate to it. It just makes gameplay more personable and makes me care. Finally, I will always enjoy some good smut. But, it wasn’t just every other choice was some NSFW CG, it came at times when it was completely appropriate and made sense in the story. Overall, I’m excited for all of the things to come with this game. I fully support it and will continue to put in hours to get all the different routes.

About the Developer: Pretty Ink

Pretty Ink is a BIWOC-led studio that creates spicy games to delight and excite players in more ways than one!

If you’d like to show support to the developer, Pretty Ink, I’d suggest following her on social media as well as joining her Patreon. There are different tiers in which you can get access to the latest version of the game before non members. You can also join the Discord (which I’m apart of as well) and get to discuss the game with the developer herself and even get some spoilers on content to come!