„Dinner Date” has been met with some interesting reviews, amoungst which Rock, Paper, Shotgun, TK-Nation, ynet, Techolive and others forthcoming. We will take a moment to look at how Dinner Date has been received.

Quintin Smith from Rock, Paper, Shotgun is quite evoked by the game - „When this game hits its high points you really do feel like you’ve rubbed the condensation off a grubby window leading into another human being.” He does place some quite stern critique with Dinner Date choosing polish over high concept by simply not being mad enough: „Some amount of non-linearity would have been one option. Another would have been to make this game episodic, and also present Julian’s life in his office cubicle, in the bathroom at a club or cleaning up after a poetry recital, making the game a kind of lonely soap opera.” Yet Dinner Date can be seen thus: „as proof of concept, I’d call Dinner Date a dirty great success.”

„The game is strictly linear, which isn’t to say this interactivity is purposeless,” Quintin says, and elsewhere, „for reasons known only to the Gods of videogame design, having the most inconsequential control over Julian’s actions draws you into his world utterly,” echoing previous thoughts of Cassandra of TK-Nation who also remarked „you will find the act of eating bread strangely appealing” and who along with Quintin is quite vocal about Julian’s likeability, something heavily pulled into question - a factor which one may have to see for oneself:

Someone who feels for Julian is the man behind Life, the Universe and Video Games, who offers praise for Dinner Date as art: „Dinner Date is definitely an art game. It gives the player a chance to become emotionally involved with Julian's situation because it is something guys can all relate to,” and is also gripped by his role as subconciousness: „You can't console him nor can you assure him that the girl is just running late. You are absolutely helpless.”

Tim Hage of Techolive places Dinner Date in the interactive novel area of games: „Dinner Date tells its story very well through the use of a one-sided internal narrative [...] It’s best to think of „Dinner Date” as an interactive novel of sorts. By no means is this a bad thing, it just means that the game itself will only appeal to a small demographic of gamers.”

חגי אלקיים (Haggai Elkayam) of ynet also sees a place for Dinner Date next to other art games: „The Graveyard גורם לנו לחשוב על מוות, The Path נותן לנו נקודת מבט מאד מעניינת על "מה המשמעות של לסטות מהשביל שאמרו לנו ללכת בו", ו-Dinner Date גורם לנו לחשוב על מה זה להיות לבד,” which we may roughly translate to „The Graveyard makes us think about death, The Path gives us a very interesting perspective on "What does it mean to stray from the path they told us to travel", and Dinner Date makes us think about what it means to be alone.”

If you have thoughts on Dinner Date - do let us know after playing.

Dinner Date is now available for $12.45 and immediate download - and saving $5.65 one may buy a Dinner for Two - two games specially for those arriving in pairs.