A Gaming Review of Minneapolis Season 8
Developer: Boss Fight Entertainment (Netflix Games)
Platform: iOS/Android (Netflix subscription required)
Genre: Interactive Fiction/Choice-Based Romance
Rating: 4/5 Stars
With the release of Love Is Blind Season 8 featuring pods in Minneapolis, Netflix’s mobile game is more relevant than ever. Netflix Stories: Love Is Blind gives players a glimpse of their own pod experience with the current season featuring singles from Minneapolis. As someone who has watched hours of both reality and digital TV, here’s how the mobile experience compares.
The Pod Experience Goes Digital
The game sends you to the pods where you can pick the gender of your character and whether to date men, women, or both, while Nick and Vanessa Lachey supervise. The core gameplay consists of meaningful conversation, selecting partners in smart ways, and the real question, is “Will you say yes at the altar?”
What It Did Well:
Authentic Vibe: The NYC version captures the feeling of the show with Gotham’s infamous skyline as the backdrop, and similar attention to detail has been paid on all versions
Choices Matter: The choice trees branch out far enough that one replay will be interesting enough, providing a real sense of weight to making a choice
Character Selection: The approach of selecting your dating preferences felt authentic to the show’s inclusive casting
What It Didn’t Do Well:
Repetition: After the first replay, the dialogue options feel repetitive
Limited Play Time with Long-Term Investment: It is fun in the beginning, but it does not have the amount of depth that would sustain engaging play time
Seasonal updates keep it fresh
Given Netflix’s track record of staying committed to evolving the experience, the Winter Kiss edition, for instance, changed everything with garland, fairy lights, pine trees, and holiday decorations and suggested that seasonal updates could shake things up in the format.
Given that Minneapolis is going to be basing itself on the heartland values that differ drastically from the already produced big city seasons, perhaps in the right direction if they choose to do location specific seasonal updates to reflect the culture of being Minnesota nice compared to the urgency found in the NYC or Miami seasons.
Technical Performance
As a game, Netflix Stories: Love Is Blind seems well built. The interface is user-friendly, load times are minimal, and the visuals match the aesthetic of the show. The simulation gameplay is noted for being easy to play and addictive, and for the type of game that is based on choices, this is definitely true.
Pros:
- Seamless performance on devices
- Frequent content updates
- Shows great integration with the show
- Has multiple asynchronous paths
Cons:
- Requires a Netflix subscription
- Little replayability after 2-3 playthroughs
- After a few runs, the dialogue can feel scripted
The Minneapolis Connection
What makes this review timely is how the games themes reflect what we are seeing in Love Is Blind in Minneapolis. The singles in Minneapolis are navigating love squares, and relationship dynamics that feel eerily similar to the player’s choices in the mobile game.
The digital pods serve as a platform to try the same relationship tactics we see unfold on the screen – the assertive early connections, the tactical swapping of partners, as well as the final decisions about whether couples say yes or no in the end, i.e. do they end up at the altar.
Final Judgement
Netflix Stories: Love Is Blind functions well as an adjunct to the show as well as an interactive experience on its own. Perhaps its not as deep as a traditional mobile RPG, but it gives you the addictive “what if” one expects from the television show in a playable package.
Best For: Fans of the show who want to imaginatively experience their own pod experience
Skip If: You are looking for complicated gameplay mechanics or high replay value
Score: 4/5 Stars
The experience is best when it is approached like the television show – simply as a fun experience about modern-day relationship dynamics – and not as a deep gaming experience. With Season 8 providing a fresh Midwestern flavor in Minneapolis, its a good time to see if love is truly blind in the digital space.
Netflix Stories: Love Is Blind is free with a Netflix subscription and available on iOS and Android.
