I’m here because of BlerdyOtome! She featured Speakeasy and its Kickstarter, I became a Backer, and damn, I wish Open Late Games a very pleasant All The Money Forever. Speakeasy knocked me out of the park!
What drew me to Speakeasy initially was how it resembled my beloved Lovestruck’s Speakeasy Tonight and how the developers wanted to celebrate female sexuality. Daring to give women what they want is quite the brave thing to do during our current times. Diving into the game, I was not disappointed. The Art Deco art influences are everywhere from the UI to the photographed backgrounds. I’m listening to the music as I type this review. Cameo photographs of celebrities of yore are portraits for minor characters. I tremble to think what Open Late Games could do with a bigger budget because they used their Kickstarter haul so well.
Let’s get down to brass tax: the characters and their stories. I played the Happy and Speakeasy Ends and had an amazing time. Every route the spoiled, selfish Cora West grows up, but depending on who she’s with, it’s via different method. Even when I was frustrated with her self-centeredness, I applauded that she continued to choose to improve, to be independent, to find a place in the world that suited her. I felt refreshed by a character who wanted to change, instead of change being forced on them by narrative structure and dictates. Very well-done coming-of-age stories here.
As the stories unfold, Harlowe’s Speakeasy becomes a quixotic character too—a cage can transform to a shelter from patriarchal norms; a monied legacy becomes an obligation tied around the neck. Or vice versa, depending on your choices! The Speakeasy Ends foreground characters giving into excess. No societal dictates can stop these people from giving into their worst impulses. When there are no rules within the walls of the club, what limits will the individual set for themselves? Will they keep to their rules? The mind spins.
Speaking of worst impulses, the routes get dark, and I appreciated so much that Open Late Games did not pull punches. I cannot count the number of games, books, and gamebooks I’ve read that advertise “dark romance” but at the last second let characters off the hook. Here, characters rage, bleed, and make love in full color. Literally, the CGs are gorgeous. The sex scenes are divine, and I adored that characters had other partners besides Cora. They are fully realized people outside of her! Stuff goes on with them when she’s not on their route! Another reviewer noted queerness is baked into the narrative on a cellular level. Both “queerness” as in same-sex attraction and gender nonconformity and “queerness” as the intentional bucking of societal norms. Very cool!
Open Late Games must be one of the most professional, punctual, and polite game developers. They’ve dealt with multiple crises. Unity threw indies under the bus, and they switched to Ren’py engine post-launch. AI slop invaded stock photo sites, and they did their best to establish human provenance on over 100+ photographs. The MC customization stretch goal wasn’t reached on Kickstarter, but they really wanted racial diversity for Cora. They did a hard stare at their budget and squeezed out some minimal skin tone re-coloring. These are no small struggles, and each time Open Late Games made sure to communicate to Backers and act as logically and quickly as possible. There were no long radio silences, blame games, and fraught Internet fights. The cherry on top is Speakeasy came out faster than any other Kickstarter VN I’ve encountered. These people are insanely good at both the art and the administrative aspects of visual novels.
If you like female-centric dating sims with a real guts, put a record on and take a swing at Speakeasy!