So, you'd like to play Love and Deepspace. Perhaps you've seen clips of the game's Lingering Lust event floating around online—an update so spicy that Infold Games posted censored, stick figure teaser trails on social media. Perhaps you're curious about having a digital boyfriend who is a merman in an alternate universe. Maybe you're looking for combat. (No one is looking for combat. Just kidding. Some people may be looking for combat, but that's not me.)
But there is a lot going on in Love and Deepspace. It can feel overwhelming when you download the game and see all the menus, currencies, and buttons to push. There's so much depth in the game; I've broken down some of the biggest questions to explain, in simple terms, how it works.
What is Love and Deepspace?
In the simplest terms, Love and Deepspace is a mobile romance game. But Love and Deepspace is anything but simple.
The game has a visual novel-style narrative, real-time combat, and a period tracker. You can decorate a home as you would in The Sims 4. You can interact with the men as if they were your real-life boyfriend, texting throughout the day then falling asleep together at night. (Yes, falling asleep together. One of Love and Deepspace's features is a sleep system. It's not a sleep tracker, but it plays sounds like breathing and snoring while you fall asleep.)
There are a lot of pieces to Love and Deepspace. It can be overwhelming. You open the app and there's so much going on. But if you're looking to understand Love and Deepspace, just start at the main storyline.
The setup of the story is that it's your first day on the job as a Deepspace Hunter—someone who hunts down the world's bad guys, who are called Wanderers. You play as yourself more or less, and there's a character creator where you can customize what she looks like. You're supposed to be able to map yourself onto the main character, to feel like her. I wouldn't call her necessarily generic, but there's enough space to insert yourself into the story.
Your character is put into your first mission fairly quickly and introduced to the battle system. One key detail here is that the character isn’t just a normal human. There are people within the game's world who have superpowers called Evols. It's stuff like control of the elements or telekinesis. The main character has a rare type of Evol in which she can essentially boost others' Evol powers.
Then, you're gradually introduced to the five guys that you can romance. There are, of course, flirtations in the main story—you don't necessarily pick your favorite guy and head down that route. There's one road through Love and Deepspace, and everyone's on it. Each guy does have their own narrative in Love and Deepspace, but that's not where the dating happens.
Dates are their own whole thing, separate from the main narrative. You can go on dates with the guys. Some of these are little minigames, and others are more narrative. Some pieces you need to unlock using the gacha system.
You'll learn more about each of the guys by doing these dates. Other pieces of lore, including memories from different timelines, come in using the gacha system. The gacha system is also how you'll build out a team for battling by collecting cards, which you then need to level.
I know that this sounds a bit complicated, but a good place to start is just to begin the main story. You can get into the other bits later, but the main storyline will show you how things work.
Who are these guys? Who is the best guy?
OK, so there are five men you can romance: Sylus, Xavier, Rafayel, Zayne, and Caleb. Each of them play a different role in the main character's life. Zayne, who you'll meet early on, is a doctor—the main character's doctor. (The player character has a heart condition that's part of one of the story's big mysteries.) Here's what to know about each of them.
Xavier is also a Deepspace Hunter and a blonde. He's a little stand-offish—maybe mysterious is a better word—but is more affectionate in private moments. He's a little awkward, but in a cute way.
Zayne, like I mentioned before, is a doctor. A really good one! He specializes in cardiac surgery. He's one of the more serious men; it's kind of what you'd expect of a doctor of his caliber. Zayne was a childhood friend of the main character, which I think is really awkward (I wouldn't want a friend as my doctor). He's got dark hair and really piercing eyes.
Sylus is the bad boy. He’s actually an enemy at first. He looks like it, with silver hair and red eyes. His personality is super confident, almost manipulative. He's really powerful and smart. It can be hard to trust him, but he likes animals, which is essentially a symbol of his soft side, something he shows only to the main character. Oh, and he's also not really human. He's sort of a dragon!
Rafayel is an artist. He's seemingly more carefree than the other guys. Though he's more playful and laissez fare, he's still very passionate about art. He's also not really a human. He's Lemurian, which is an ancient race of beings—they're tied to the water. A lot of people describe him as immature or childish, but he's also cunning and sharp. Humans are responsible for the destruction of Lemuria, and he feels a lot of disdain for human morals.
Caleb is intense as a pilot but caring toward the main character who is a childhood friend of his in the global version of Love and Deepspace, and a non-blood related adopted brother in the Chinese version of the game. So, the two grew up together. It makes Caleb protective of her—sometimes veering into possessiveness.
What do I need to know before playing?
You don't need to know anything about the story before playing. It'll walk you through that from the start. You won't be jumping into things in the middle.
What is often confusing for people are the alternate timelines and universes. These alternate universes are largely unlocked via the gacha system of Love and Deepspace, through the memory and myth cards you pull. This sort of gameplay makes it so players can focus on a few of the men and not all of them. It's where you can really dive into the "boyfriend" part of it all. Basically, this system has players rolling for cards from a pool of items. You've just got to hope you get the stuff you want. Some people like collecting everything, others want just cards from the guys they're interested in.
You've likely seen some of the steamy scenes from Love and Deepspace. This is where you'll unlock those. There's such a wild variety of alternate universes. In one, the men are feral and locked in cages. A recent one is essentially first-person sex in a hot spring. You can be an empress. Sylus can braid your hair in an ancient, idyllic grassland. My advice is, don't think about it too hard.
So… I need to battle?
Yep.
These battles will pop up intermittently during the main storyline. I mean, you are a Deepspace Hunter after all. It makes sense you'd need to do some deepspace hunting. These are real-time, third-person battles where you'll use weapons and other abilities. You've got to dodge, fight, and connect combos before time runs out.
Memory cards are a big piece of battling, because they give your companion special abilities. There's strategy involved, too. You must choose the right memories for the right moments to boost strength. It can get fairly complex; YouTube creator EmpressXV has a really thorough guide with details about combat in Love and Deepspace, including weapons, loadouts, and skills.
If you don't want to fight, there is an autobattling system where the game will do the combat for you. EmpressXV recommends that players use overpowered stats when autobattling, though, because Love and Deepspace's AI in these battles isn't always great.
Do I have to spend money?
Technically, no. You don't need to spend money. Love and Deepspace is a free-to-play game. You'll earn some of the in-game currencies just from playing the game and participating in events. You'll just have less to spend on pulls for the different gacha pools. If you're hoping to collect everything, or are interested in stories from multiple guys, this may be difficult.
The reality of gacha is that you're gambling to get the pieces you want. A very real problem here is the fear of missing out—the game really encourages the player to keep rolling and therefore keep spending. You just have to be OK with taking the time to earn resources: log in to check off tasks, games, and battles.
Starting off, too, it's fairly easy to gain resources and in-game currencies quickly. It makes progress throughout the early game much faster. Things will slow down for players once you reach a certain point, and you'll have to do more to earn more. My advice is to choose a guy to focus on. Save your resources for specific things if you don't want to spend actual money.
Do I need a superpowered cell phone?
Not necessarily, but you may not be able to run the game with high quality visuals. Love and Deepspace developer Infold Games, per in-game recommendations, lists the iPhone 12 (A14) or iPad (A14/M1) as the oldest Apple phone to use. For Android, Infold Games recommends Android 7.0 or above, with 6GB RAM or more.
You do need a lot of space on your phone. You don't need the latest cellphone, but you do, likely, need to be OK with playing the game on lower specs. There is a way to manage resources, located on your profile page, and you can pick and choose what to download.
Love and Deepspace can be emulated on PC. Infold Games recommends MuMuPlayer.
Nicole Carpenter
