Lovingly Evil is a dating sim (with some non-romance endings too) about attending an evil villain conference. Mingle with other villains, attend presentations, play some mini games, and maybe find a new friend or romance partner.

Official Description:

Unleash your inner villain and head over to the Villain Conference, the one and only interdimensional business event for evildoers! Who knows, maybe you’ll even find a partner – whether it’s in crime or love…

Long Review:

I enjoyed some things but was disappointed by others.

Writing / Characters:

I chuckled here and there, but for the most part, the humor didn’t quite work for me. Not sure how to describe it, maybe a mix of dad jokes and Tumblr but not committing enough to either? Without that humor, the writing fell flat. Humor is subjective though.

The player character had too much predetermined personality (weirdly immature personality, at that) and backstory to be a good blank slate for roleplaying, but not enough to be a real character of their own, which made them feel flat.

I have mixed feelings about the other characters. I think the more heartfelt side of the game, when you get to know the characters more, was the best part. But I think those issues I mentioned above with the writing put me off wanting to get to know more of them. In these kinds of games, I usually do every route, regardless of my attraction. For this one, I just didn’t want to. I did two romances (Felix and Satan), and they were cute. The characters had a little more depth once I got to know them. So maybe the other three (Nova, Evil Queen, Clone) would’ve been cute and had depth too. I feel like I really tried with the clone for a while though, and they just never got more interesting to me.

Gameplay:

I call this a dating sim more than a visual novel because there’s not a story, there aren’t even really routes. There are just conversations, and your ending depends on whether you’ve gotten to know a character sufficiently and made certain choices. And the endings are just a few sentences with a CG (sometimes the same CG). Also, I’m not sure exactly what endings there are for each character. Some have friendship and romance options, but other may only have one or the other.

“Freely explore the conference area” feels like an exaggeration. A lot of the locations have nothing at most times of day, or things happen at random there but not always.

Mini games can be disabled, but I liked them! Especially the flower bouquet arranging, that could be its own separate game if it were built out a bit more. (P.S. If you use five screaming plants in the bouquet for someone you hate, you get some extra comments. Not sure if there are more things like that.) The card game was alright, a combo of rock/paper/scissors and poker. The quiz was just trivia, but I like trivia. The cooking game was chaotic, but I thought the chaos made it fun, and the imp questions and answers were funny sometimes.

Character Creation:

Character creation felt pointless, for numerous reasons. The aforementioned personality problem. The visuals are pretty limited too (except eyes, so many of those), and a lot of the separate pieces don’t go together well, overlap in weird ways, etc. But that doesn’t matter, because the picture is only used for your ID that you never really see.

And then your clone doesn’t even look like you. Their body changes a little, they have the same ears and hair, and they have the same number of eyes (though not the same type), but that’s about it. I would not have even known it was meant to be a clone if I hadn’t been told. I’m guessing it was for sprite and CG reasons (not wanting to draw every combo), but they could’ve found ways around that. It just felt weird talking to my “clone” who looked like a random teenager. They’re also voiced, and it’s unfortunate if the voice doesn’t match how you envisioned your character.

Everything Else:

The rest of the art is nice! Especially the CGs, though there aren’t that many. (I checked the files, 13 plus some slight variations, and you’d have to play the same character romance multiple times to see some.) No gallery to see them later.

There’s partial voice acting. A word here, a sentence there.

I didn’t pay much attention to the music. It didn’t stand out in either a good or bad way.

The game is queer friendly. You can choose different body types, choose between he/she/they pronouns, and romance anyone regardless of gender. At least some romance options are canonically queer.

My first playthrough (romancing Felix, getting to know the clone quite a bit, attending some panels) took 3.5 hours. After going back to see the other Felix endings and romance Satan, my playtime is 6.2 hours. A chunk of that was mini games, so it’ll be shorter if you don’t plan on doing those.

I’m on the fence about this game. The writing and humor didn’t quite work for me, so for me it was a fun enough way to spend a few hours but not worth the current price of $12.99. But if you end up clicking with the humor and liking all the characters, or if you can get the game during a good sale, it might be worth it for you.

Short Review:

– Humor didn’t work for me
– Player character personality didn’t work for me
– Character creation was pointless
– Some cute characters/romances, but I had no interest in others
– Fun mini games (can be disabled)
– Nice art
– Queer friendly
– Overall, mixed feelings, wait for a sale

Accessibility:

(May not include everything)
– Although made with Ren’py, the self voicing doesn’t read text if any of the partial voice acting plays. Self voicing also doesn’t work with the main menu or some of the in-game UI, like the map and phone. This is not accessible for blind players or screen reader users if you can’t look at the screen.
– Separate volume for music, sounds, and voice.
– Mini games can be disabled. As far as I can tell, there is no consequence for skipping them.

More Info:

Steam