I Just Want to be Single!! is an upcoming comedic visual novel from Tsundere Studio. With the release date set as “When I’m no longer broke”, there doesn’t seem to be a planned release date, but a Kickstarter is planned.
At the time of writing, a demo can be found on Steam with the opening chapter. It introduces the characters and a variety of mechanics, which stand out from a typical visual novel.
The New Transfer Student
You play as Aya, a socially awkward girl who has just transferred into a new all-girls school. Unexpectedly, due to a new haircut, all of the girls you meet are now falling in love with you! But Aya isn’t looking for love. She just wants friends and it’s down to you to keep things that way. As a note, I’m referring to Aya as a girl as that is how Aya is referred to in the demo and nothing is said otherwise in-game so far, but the store page says she’s non-binary. I’m unsure if this will be referred to in the full game.
As an introverted person, she can’t handle things like everyone in the class getting excited and wanting to show her around, never mind a love-crazed mob chasing her! The premise and Aya’s reactions are both hilarious and that seems to be the strong point of I Just Want to be Single!! throughout – it’s constantly funny.
Your New Girlfriends
The demo briefly introduces you to six girls, though one of them is literally a silhouette. Many of them seem to fall into common anime stereotypes, some in a rather over-the-top way.
There’s a bookish class representative, a girl who can win at any sport, a rich but scary girl, a chuunibyou, and an arty girl who no one else notices. While not as forward as the background characters or the silhouette girl, most seem to be interested in you to some degree – I’d expect all to be later in the story.
These stereotypes are all used well for laughs. The rich girl throws around insane amounts of money and as you’d expect the chuunibyou claims to have known you in a past life. While these types of things are all expected, that doesn’t take anything away.
Not Your Standard Mechanics
Unlike most visual novels, you can’t just click away here. There are a lot of interactive elements in I Just Want to be Single!!
While this visual novel does have choices, you need to type in your answers. This is often from a list of a few, but sometimes you can choose anything and it affects the upcoming lines or even things further down the line.
There are occasional questions with a correct answer to type in and get a star. Though the weakness of free-text answers shows up here – the answer you type in might be correct or near enough to be marked as correct. It might also be correct but not one of the correct answers listed, so marked as incorrect.
A feature I appreciated here was that it’s possible to type in answers at times that could only be known through playing before. Some thought has obviously been put into this because it comes up with different lines when this happens.
You can also choose different intensities of an answer sometimes. It might be a mumble or you might shout out loud. This is an interesting mechanic, but it can be easy to not notice and then just hit enter to get the lowest intensity.
Timed answers also make an appearance, which might cause problems to people slow at typing.
While more frequently appearing in other genres, a relationship meter is a somewhat rare addition too. It’s not entirely clear how this will work in the final game, but giving answers that the character likes or dislikes affects it. I’m wondering if it might be a case of trying to avoid it going too high or low, considering the idea of being friends but not wanting to date.
Art and Sound
I Just Want to be Single!! has a clear manga-inspired theme. From the style of the sprites to the fonts, it gives that impression strongly. Beyond that, it has animated manga-panel cutscenes, one of which is even voiced. Overall, the art stands out quite a lot compared to many other indie visual novels – that’s both in quality and the unique style.
One simple but appreciated addition is VTuber mode. It seems to just change your full-size sprite on the left to a smaller one on the right – this gives you a place to put your avatar. While it’s called VTuber mode, the same could be done for a regular streamer too.
I felt that the sound is good overall. The music seems to fit the comedic tone well, and sound effects are used to good effect. The one exception is that there’s a repeated sound whenever a new line appears and it did get annoying after a while.
Final Thoughts
The demo of I Just Want to be Single!! has great comedy and pacing, along with wonderful art and some interesting mechanics. While there are some minor issues, I’m looking forward to seeing the full game in the future.
If you would like to see more Visual Novels in development, you may be interested in our preview of LoveSick Darlings.
Looking for more visual novels? How about checking out some of the top visual novels for this year on our Top Visual Novels of 2021 list.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
