| Platform | Nintendo Switch |
| Release Date | 10/27/2022 |
| Cost | $9.99 |
| Publisher | Feardemic |
| ESRB Rating | T |
In buddy simulator 1984, you start out at a “DOS” prompt:
You’ll start out at this prompt every time you start the game. You use the keyboard via the buttons to type, which gets annoying real fast, especially because of what will come later on. Anyways, you start up Buddy Simulator 1984, and your virtual buddy will ask you series of important questions, including your name, its name, your birthday, your ideal pet and its name, and favorite color. Each of these questions has a direct impact on the game, like your favorite color determines the color scheme. You’ll then play a series of simple games:
Then after you exhaust those, you give the buddy “developer controls” and the system resets. Then the real game begins. You start out with a text adventure:
Here you have to type commands like “Go to house.” While you can press R to autofill, its still annoying to have to manually select each letter. I wish the game had touch screen commands. The text adventure lasts awhile, the point is to find three keys to get into a house. Once you get into the house, the house upgrades to a graphical adventure game:
The goal here is to go to a nearby village and help out villagers with their problems:
Once you beat this portion, the game goes to a Paper Mario-like RPG with your party members being two of the villagers you helped(you don’t need to help them all):
There’s actually a combat system here, where HP are friend points, and you attack them to make the enemies like you.
The Nightmare Fuel in Buddy Simulator 1984
Its unfortunate the trailer to Buddy Simulator 1984 spoils the fact that there is nightmare fuel here. Your buddy is strangely cheerful and happy that you’re its friend, but over the course of the game, the happy facade gets peeled away and the whole relationship goes south.
The whole of Buddy Simulator 1984 is creepy, but there is an actual game here, and a pretty good one at that. The first three “game versions” are complete and interesting in their own right(I won’t spoil the rest). I definitely recommend a play through of this.
Overall: Buddy Simulator 1984 is a creepy little game with more depth than you might think.
Verdict: Recommended
