Love Ahoy! Preview

Find romance on the seas in Love Ahoy!

In Love Ahoy!, an upcoming time management game from Chocolatier creators Big Splash Games, you take a job aboard Love Ahoy Cruise Lines to help passengers find romance and fun while sailing the oceans of the world.

Love Ahoy! is divided into two parts. By day, you’ll help passengers meet and mingle with each other on the decks of the ship. At night, you’ll head to the dance floor where you’ll pair off compatible couples and let them dance the night away – the more compatible they are, the higher tips you’ll earn.

The first part of the game, where the passengers mingle, is all about finding out which interests each passenger has and then pairing them off with people who like the same thing. Gameplay here is actually more like those memory matching card games than time management: clicking on a passenger briefly reveals an interest – if the theme is fruit, for example, you might see an apple, watermelon, orange or banana. You’ll click on the other passengers in turn until one with the same interest is revealed, then click on the first passenger to pair them off.

On the dance floor, passengers show up with their interests already revealed and you have to pair them up on the dance floor, pump on the heart meter between them (by clicking as quickly as possible), and sending them off for a night of romance.

Each passenger has two interests which could be based on food, sports, animals, music or other topics. Perfect matches occur when the couple has both interests in common, and will net the ultimate reward: a wedding proposal and invitation to the wedding. Other matches will simply result in a commemorative photo.

If a couple has absolutely nothing in common, you can still get them to dance together by sending them to the bar first to get a little tipsy. The bar is just one of the upgrades you’ll earn throughout the game’s 43 levels; another is more decks on the ship to hold more passengers.

Erin Bell