The Pretty Blerd Guardian!

Today we celebrate our third day receiving The Ssum created by the Cheritz team! Originally I was going to dish about my initial thoughts during release but given how mysterious the game was, it didn’t feel right to say anything before getting a chance to play and I’ll admit to feeling a little skeptical because the game promised a lot; they were going to find our ‘love match’ despite having one known character and that we’d have at least 200 days worth of conversations, by text and phone.

‘You will find a Ssum whose daily schedule matches yours. You will get to wake up and go to bed around the same time of day as he does – a sign that he is the one for you!’

It sounds harmless enough until you get a peek at their Forbidden Lab page on their website, seeing an illustrated night sky with bright red font and colorful hearts enclosing around these cryptic words:

‘Do you think you can get closer to true love by just having a conversation with your special ssum-one? Our lab has been putting a lot of effort to study love and reveal the secrets of human emotions. Would you like to join our SECRET PROGRAM to nurture what lies beneath the depths of your conscious?’

That little voice in the back of my head immediately assumed we’re going to get snatched by aliens and forced to participate in weird experiments. But weird ‘data collecting’ jargon besides, my head calculator confirms that 200 days is about ….6 1/2 months? So everyday, for nearly seven months, we can expect our ‘ssum-one’ to call, text and even send us the daily selfie but this only made me have more questions:

Was there really that much content? Are there other love interests? What is the Infinite Universe? And what the heck is a PIU-PIU*?

*While I’m not 100% as to how to say this name, I’ve been pronouncing it as “pwee-pwee” as it sounds close to how a bird sounds when chirping.

Usually I’m an adventurous sort but given Cheritz’ devilishly compelling storyline and ability to blindsight us with emotionally devastating twists, my heart was a little wary to tread further. I’m still recovering from V’s storyline even now and it’s been years since I’ve touched the game, that’s how well done they tell their stories but I’d be lying by saying this was the only reason why I hesitated to sing praises…

THE MICROTRANSACTIONS

The first thing I noticed on the Cheritz website was merchandise listed for The Ssum, two bundle packages then separate items featuring bandaids and stickers. All before the release date, too. It gave me an opportunity to scroll and discover there was some really interesting items, mostly pertaining to the voice actor behind our fated love-to-be Teo. A detailed 100+ page journal to help us sort our feelings, and a strange chip to active the full potential of PIU-PIU.

That’s when I saw the prices for the future subscriptions. They offered a Rainbow and Aurora package to help improve our gameplay, with Rainbow priced at 19.99 per month and Aurora being 22.99. The difference between the two, aside from gaining more of these “batteries” that will help progress our story, is that we also get a special Private Account feature – a little peek inside Teo’s social media to see how he responds to our choices.

And I’ll be honest, that immediately had me curious why the price was so steep as compared to other titles. Most sell calling cards, in-game currency to use for choosing better choices, and DLC with a lot of content to sift through in case we wanted to speed up or take our time with the story. With Ssum however, we have multiple items for sale that’s not included in the bundle such as: Typing Expert License to speed up Teo’s typing, a 90$ Incubating AidBot that auto processes your emotions, an extra Flask to process more emotions at once, Daily Pattern Change tickets and an Autocomplete Filter for the common emotion: Freedom to Be Bored.

It’s a little overwhelming to have all these available items charged on top of the expensive subscription already, especially knowing we’re meant to play this game for 200 days. That’s at least 150$ for just the Aurora subscription alone, if you decide to pay per month instead of bundle at a discount for three months altogether.

GAMEPLAY

Ready to find love, post memes and explore planets? That’s right, you heard me! PLANETS! We get to go to space! But to help understand what we’re looking at in terms of gameplay, I’ll be separating this explanation into two halves that present the screens we have in The Ssum: Teo and the Forbidden Labs. I’ll try not to get too technical for now as things are still likely to change given Cheritz’ consistency to update.

This is The Ssum’s main screen or as I call it, Teo’s page. This focuses primarily on your interactions with him and will also be the first screen you’ll see every morning. Off the bat, I’m pretty smitten by the gorgeous background images that shift around the time of day and how everything is fashioned like a real cellphone screen.

Gallery: The gallery collects our photos that we’ll receive from him.

Trivial Features: Think of it like Steam’s badges, you gain little achievements for exploring the game or even something as mundane like opening the app ten times.

Private Account: This is your opportunity to take a ‘peek’ at his personal thoughts when you’re chatting with him. Only available for Aurora subscribers.

Milky Way Calender: It helps document our days and navigate to specific moments in case we’d like to re-listen to our calls or chats.

Profile: Any kind of schedule or personality test you’ve taken will show here, along with your profile picture alongside his. This is where you can edit/change any of the names but also see how your relationship so far is progressing with Teo! A smiley face seems to mean friendly, the heart hinting at romance. It’s not proven yet but there’s a theory that depending what kind of personality and relationship type you get will determine how Teo speaks with you.

Aurora Lab: Where wallets go to perish! Here is the marketplace to help with subscriptions and buy other items. You’ll also see the Emoticon Factory here which will help change what emoticons Teo will use so if the realistic art puts you off? Go back to the cute blob! Free Energy is here too so if you’re in need of something quick, you can safely watch ads to gain them.

Phone: You’ll be able to call him from here and also see your call history. Pretty straight to the point!

Messages: The first screen you’ll find is Tip of the Day where it shows what day you are on, how the conversation went and then the current time of how soon the next chat will be.

One of my favorite features right now is the timers that show on the bottom of the phone and message feature. No longer will we have to stress about missing any interactions! This helps anyone who has a busy schedule or prefers to have privacy so that you’re not answering the phone in the middle of work and giving others the impression you’re speaking with an actual person – not that I’m speaking from personal experience or anything.. ahaha…

AHEM ANYWAYS, let’s move onto the next screen.
The Forbidden Labs

It looks very much like the main screen, just formatted in pixel art. Now here’s when things get a little bananas but I’ll try my best to explain everything without overloading with too much information:

Lab Participant Info: Another profile page that will show things like your nickname, lab code and titles that you can change as you achieve them. The details show small little quotes and Current Energy will reveal how much you have currently. Now on the bottom, this is where you’ll see how many “studies” you have left to write for the day, including support that you can still give others.

Study Calender: Much like Milky Calender, this will record your progress day by day for social interactions. What you’ve written for a study, what support you’ve received and the study question.

PIU-PIU’s Belly: Instead of bird feed and weird bits of string, you’ll find a treasure trove of data instead! Any kind of sticker, items, gifts you received will be here. Profile and title images, too!

Data Search: When you are incubating emotions and find a special one, they will be logged here and what possible planet they belong to. You’ll see the planet name and how many you’ve collected. Creatures go here too! So if you’re ever curious what kind of planet “Joke Planet” is, this is where you’ll go.

???: No idea! How mysteriouuussss~ I bet this is unlocked if you get the improvement chip from the Cheritz store bundle package!

Sunshine Shelter: A little sanctuary to store your cute little fuzzy friends in the fridge (yes, I said fridge) and also let them run around a little. This is how you’ll farm energy but make sure you’re clicking on them to measure their happiness, as you will gain different kinds of animals that might not mesh well together: like a bear and bunny, for example.

Study of the Day (book icon): You’ll write your answers here and collect support. Personally I’d suggest answering per the study question instead of writing what is on your mind, as anything inconsistent might mean you won’t get as much support which contributes to quite a few things in the game. This is a pretty cute feature because you’ll get to see how everyone else responds, give them gifts and feel like you’re part of a huge experime- I mean, community!

Infinite Universe (galaxy icon): The big, wide open galaxy! This is where we’ll find planets to explore and choose which one we want to inhabit in. Each planet is found by incubating emotions and collecting a certain amount of the same kind, like how the emotion Freedom to Be Bored unlocked our first planet called the City of Free Men.

In order to create labs, study topics, upload posts and also support others you will have to collect emotions relating to that planet. So in order to participate in the City of Free Men, you’ll have to collect Freedom to be Bored emotions so please consider incubating on a daily basis to make sure you don’t run out!

CONCERNS & OPINIONS

With this explanation over prices and gameplay, a lot of people have been asking questions that I hope can help guide new players. Let’s start with the most asked and immediate thought that came to our minds after discussing the prices:

Is this game behind a paywall?

As of today, I’m confident that players can still enjoy Ssum without having to pay for these items. Like Cheritz’s previous title MysMe – these items are just to assist us in making sure we don’t miss phone calls, conversations and speed the timeline a little. It’s important that free players pay attention to the schedule they shared with Teo and complete your daily tasks to farm not just energy but also “emotions” that help you pick up on frequencies of other planets.

The current chatrooms give you the opportunity to choose ‘battery’ approved responses even without the subscription and you can also look on your Profile on the main page to see your current status with him by noting the image between your and his profile picture: the heart meaning something romantic, the smiley face being on a friendly basis.

As of right now I’ve not seen any other icons so this might change! But don’t feel pressured to buy thinking that you won’t have hints telling you where you’re at emotionally with Teo or that you’ll gain a good/bad ending with him, remember that we’ve an entire 200 day period to make our feelings known to him.

Is the paid subscription worth it?

Until this game processes more of its bugs and has the opportunity to solve feedback from the players, I’m going to say not right now. Keep in mind we can change our mind at any time within the 200 day period; not having those pesky ads, having more batteries and being able to call whenever we want is nice but our conversations with Teo are short. Phone calls and chatrooms are five minutes long each at best so it’s difficult for me personally to justify a monthly subscription but I’m hoping my opinion will change after considering this:

1. The game just released a few days ago, they can possibly change this within an update or two.
2. Teo begins the storyline located in a hospital, limiting his free time with us to talk.

Maybe once he leaves the hospital and we develop our relationship more that he will want to speak with us more often at longer intervals but since this isn’t a concrete fact yet, please take this assumption with a grain of salt. This is just wishful thinking!

What is the Private Account?

Okay, my curiosity was killing me at this point and decided last night that I’d subscribe to the Aurora package to help understand if this private account was worth the fuss! Right now, the best way I can explain how it operates is much like Twitter. It’s like you’re logged into his account, peeping at every tweet he’s making live.

After playing with this for the past few hours it seems like this is a loose roadmap to see how your responses faired. When you click on each of his statuses, you’ll see another screen in pink showing what decision you’ve made that affected that response. Simple but a neat little feature where it adds on to the realism of speaking with someone you’re just getting to know.

However, I have noticed with other players that sometimes he’ll make posts that are a little .. mysterious. I won’t spoil anything but knowing Cheritz and the nature of Teo being able to post his deepest thoughts, there’s a pretty big chance we might see more interesting statuses as we continue the story. You also will have the ability to check back on previous posts he’s made even if you subscribe later on so keep that in mind!

Is this game just like Mystic Messenger?

While it may have a lot of traits similar to Mystic Messenger, no. This game has stated a few times that we’re to be our true selves and enjoy a relationship with someone over the span over 200 days, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. When we played Mystic Messenger – we had calls and chatrooms every 2/3 hours which made daily life for us miserable but in this scenario we’re actually able to have a life around this game. There’ll be times when he’s too busy to answer the phone or has to hang out with friends, just like we would, and that adds a touch of reality that we didn’t have with MysMe.

It makes me wonder if this game is meant to be taken slowly. With other titles we can play from beginning to end as fast we can but if we’re more patient with The Ssum, maybe considering this game for only a few hours a day, we’ll get the full experience Cheritz wants for us. So if you’ve a busy lifestyle, you can play this game confidently and refer to your schedule to make sure you don’t miss anything.

MysMe is a great game but the less we try to compare the two, the more open minded we can approach this style of game. I genuinely think this is something unique and never done before.

Should I play The Ssum?

Yes!

As a society we crave instant satisfaction but this game might challenge this by making us wait and slowly watch the story unfold day by day. Pricey subscriptions and strange social features aside, this game feels like something incredible is going to happen down the road. I’ve really not considered playing a game for almost 7 months before but given how smooth and simple everything begins, it makes me feel like Cheritz took the time to consider just how big or little this game must unfold to keep our interest. We’ll be playing other otome/amare games on the side, maybe even taking a break for a few days but with The Ssum being so easy to pick up as much as it is to put down – I wholeheartedly believe this might be a game that’ll stay with us for a long time.

Do you have any gameplay tips or advice?

Yes! However if I typed every one of them here, you’ll be reading a book. That’s why Chloe, aka Otome Kitten, and I have decided to create a Twitter Space for everyone wanting tips or share their experiences with the game! We’re considering hosting one weekly without intention of spilling major spoilers because as we’ve found out yesterday, not everyone’s experience with Teo is the same. You WILL have conversations that someone else might not have seen yet. And we love talking about what this means for the game and any kind of theories we’re thinking of.

I’ll be running a poll over the weekend with chosen days and timeframes that will hopefully work for everyone so please consider casting your vote if you’re interested in joining us! We’d love to have you as we all explore this strangely wonderful game.

Until then, take care my little love astronauts~! ♡