Man, I really wish there was an in-between option for whether I liked it or not. Because, I did, I really liked it.... but then I didn't.

It starts off really well. the text based adventure was interesting. It felt like a mystery/horror at that point. Dated? Sure. But it kept my interest, and I couldn't wait to find out what was around the corner.
But when it switched to 2D graphics, it went downhill, fast. The quests felt completely redundant and pointless. I know not everything can be meaningful content, but it just felt so pointless. Besides being thrown a small creepy bone here and there, I don't feel like my time was well spent. But at this point, I was still willing to tough it out.
When it entered the third phase, it just skips right to being convoluted and, unfortunately, boring. I no longer feel any payoff from playing this game. I can't bring myself to muscle through the atrocious combat system, despite the encounters being short, and so, as much as I want to find out more about the story, this is where the game ends for me.

I want to end this by saying, I think this was a good concept. I really did get some enjoyment out of the first sequence. I think that perhaps this was an ambitious idea that wasn't executed in a good way. It doesn't feel fluid enough between transitions and when it drops off, it drops off... hard. Or, maybe I'm tough to please. Your call. Either way, I wouldn't recommend this to a friend, and I don't see myself attempting to finish this in the future.

God I wish I liked it more than I did.

There's a lot of love in Buddy Sim, but it throws it's back out real early and never gets it's swing back. The text-based adventure part of the game are easily the most interesting and haunting part, which is also coincidentally and unfortunately where the Demo stops. Playing the Demo is a much fuller and more interesting experience than the whole package.

As the game slowly and unfortunately evolves into 16 bit RPG, both metaphorically and literally watched over by the specter of Toby Fox, the game pulls the worst sin this sort of thing can and starts to drag . A middle section that threatens to never end (the real and honest horror of the middle section is that the AI might make you keep playing the RPG section) makes the all too brief interludes into Glitch Horror more welcome than disturbing.

And as far as an entry into the Glitch Horror genre, it has all the staples: The deep lore, the files getting written to your documents folder, the game closing itself and popping up error messages, yadda yadda. You've seen it before and while there's nothing wrong familiar techniques, the stars of the genre (Doki-Doki Literature Club and the ur-Sainted Undertale loom largest) all depend on understanding the genre that they're supposedly deviating from. "Glitch Horror" is in the name: about the expected falling apart. When Flowey calls you out for restarting the Toriel fight, you never feel safe again. When Doki Doki starts dropping girls, it makes threats that intends (and does) collect on.

Buddy Simulator doesn't. Like it's fictional AI, it's scrambling for something for you to do and has the unfortunate taste of something derivative, not subversive. All the deep lore and .batch files in the world don't make up for boring me.

I bought it on a whim because it looked kind of interesting and I was in the mood for something different. The story is a bit heavy handed and you could easily see where it was going, however I was still having fun with it. What I wasn't having fun with was everything else the game asked me to do.

It goes from a DOS prompt style interaction (which was ok), to text adventure (with a lack of the standardized shorthand such as i for inventory and l for look), to 2d walk and talk (in which you walk WAAAAY too slow), to psuedo 3d with turn based combat (boring and slow with typing tutor QTE moments). I just simply got tired enough of the tedium that I stopped caring where the story was going.

If the above elements sound interesting to you then maybe you'll like it more than I did. As for me, I'm done.

I do not recommend this game, but I do respect it. It is a wonderful yarn that you might enjoy experiencing and if any of it looks appealing to you, by all means, go for it and make sure you don't know a thing about it. Just lower your expectations, perhaps?

In any case, the best spoiler-free description I can give this game is that it's very much like Petscop. That does not mean that Buddy Simulator 1984 (or Petscop, for that matter) are terrible works. In fact, I think it's a fine piece of work, made with love and care. Yet, like Petscop, I think it would be far more appealing to witness this title than go through it yourself, but that's just me.

In the gameplay sense, it's pretty straightforward and mostly involves going from place to place. Mid-way through the game, though, it becomes a bit of a slog and one that both pads the game length and drags the experience down. It doesn't do so in a terribly harmful way, mind you, so there's no reason to turn away if you can stomach some stretched-out pacing.

More importantly, and again without spoiling anything, I feel that while the idea is marvellous, the execution fails to deliver. It clearly worked for a lot of people, but it simply didn't work for me. I feel that the way the narrative is constructed and told suggests one thing and ends up being something else? I really don't know. I was expecting perhaps some stronger delivery here and that's admittedly on me, but mostly that mid-game nonsense just took me right out of it.

Achievement hunters beware - if you want to do everything, you're going to be spending a lot of time repeating yourself and I don't think it's worth the time. I've never quite understood the intention of having players run through a game more than once without any sort of ability to save scum and flip through various routes, but such as it is, you'll have to repeat a few hours multiple times before you can affect any agency on how the game plays out.

Overall, I enjoyed the ideas of Buddy Simulator more than its execution. I think if you're down for some experimental, sometimes-subversive, yet simple gameplay and just need to have your curiosity scratched, then do it. It's not a terrible experience whatsoever, but it's one I can't wholeheartedly recommend everyone play. The narrative is hardly profound, but it is unique, so perhaps wait for a good deal.

dont be like me, read the negative reviews first.

Ultimately, I just didn't like it. I can see how other people would though.

The concept was good, and the plot was okay. The execution ruined it for me.
1. A lot of the same, annoying gimmicks were used repeatedly. This made a lot of the main plot hard to care about. It made it really hard to want to continue playing the game at points, especially since it got so visually obnoxious.
2. I found myself spamming space a lot to get through the dialogue since it was so repetitive.
3. There were attempts to make the environment feel innocent, maybe as a way to set up a surprise or creepy event, that weren't delivered well enough to provide that strong setup.
4. The fake glitches came off too strongly a lot of the time, and they were pointed out by the AI too. Perhaps, the creepy content was a bit forced at points.
5. Most of the game felt like you were trying to befriend/satisfy someone uninteresting who has poor communication skills and a bad temper.

I wanted to like this game so so so badly. It started off so strong but as it went on it just felt very hollow. I love meta-games and it presented itself as something being very similar to oneshot or undertale and at times it does feel like that but just... less.

Characters were kooky and eerie and I would've loved to see more of them. The game doesn't really make you feel attached to anyone besides maybe your dog. And it doesn't even speak. Frankly, when I met a certain character asking for other names, I couldn't remember a single one. Including the one I'd named.

I think the idea for the game was great but again, just not enough. I don't know if the idea was too big for the game or what but it felt very stunted and just not fleshed out enough for what it was trying to do. Even with the secret bat files. I am guessing there are some other endings (I'm just guessing from the choices you can make) but honestly, I just don't feel any drive to find a different ending than the one I got.

Combat was okay. I don't really have much else to say than that lol. It was interesting at first but just got tedious and old quickly.

Overall, I don't think this is a bad game at all. I just think there wasn't enough to fill out the ideas it had so it ended up falling a little flat. I would love to see a deeper version of this though. Maybe with something different to set it apart from games that are very similar. I loved how the world evolved but I wouldn't buy it again. I'd just watch someone on youtube or twitch play it instead.

Overall, I enjoyed the game for the most part. From the start, the slightly creepy atmosphere is very well created and perhaps not as well maintained. Some of the mid-game got slightly repetitive and I wouldn't say that the game is very challenging

My main problem was the ending. It was underwhelming. I really expected the game to be building up to more and a bigger punch... and I was left slightly let down

At the start I very much enjoyed this game. It spooked me and hooked me in for an interesting story. However, it quickly began to drag.
The game changes as you play, and once it reaches its 16-bit adventure stage it feels never ending and the NPC dialogue runs on. This is, unfortunately, the majority of the game. The first three "chapters" are the most enjoyable. I feel like there weren't enough of the "glitches" and teases that something isn't quite right to keep me spooked or hint at the underlying story.
I was also given the impression that the AI learns from you, but really, it just asks you a few questions at the start of the game and makes use of your answers very basically (naming NPCs, mentioning your favourites, etc), so that wasn't scary either.
I'm disappointed, I really wanted to enjoy this game, especially with how the start hooked me, but I couldn't even finish it even with how close to the end I was. It just got boring.

I honestly wanted to like Buddy Simulator, as it seemed to have every premise to be the next big thing: an horror game with eerie elements and a good amount of inspiration coming from Undertale and meta-games, as someone else stated.

But it just didn't get through me, and I think I know why.
Let me get this straight, though: this isn't a bad game. It really isn't. It just didn't resonate with me for various reasons.

First of all, I think that while having a simple and potentially effective concept, this game fails at setting up expectations for the player, as it doesn't have a real direction to point into. Yes, friendship is the main focus and you can get that even before booting up Buddy Simulator, but I think that this should lead to a different experience.

Let me explain: you start off pretty strong, playing some simple games with your AI which eventually turn into a sort of text-adventure with horror elements. And I thought that was it, I thought that I was supposed to go through a text adventure with some kind of horror twists like "Stories Untold".
I really hoped that it would build upon that structure, it felt original and quite honestly I haven't seen much like it recently. I was hyped.

Then, things change as your AI tries to develop the perfect game for you, eventually turning everything into a 2D adventure which feels 100% Undertale, with strange and eerie characters combined with unusual dialogues and an odd feeling. It tried to be creepy, but eventually lost a huge amount of scariness as time went by. I was unimpressed. Characters felt kinda flat and there wasn't much to uncover, leaving everything as it was: simple and hollow.

Then it becomes 3D-esque and... I think that's when it becomes really boring. I mean, I haven't had any fun... I tried to be curious and to talk with people, but everyone always felt really flat compared to what the game wanted everyone to be. Undertale characters had much more charm and you actually felt emotionally attached to them and, more importantly, you got to know them before becoming friends.

Then it switches to a first person perspective, and you just... do things, for a little while. I didn't have a real reason to play the game, other than expecting a story which never uncovers nor develops. Instead, there's just a huge amount of nothingness and I've struggled to go forward.

What's the point, then? Why should I play? I didn't feel motivated, and it really bothers me because there was some real potential there! I mean, these are the coolest designs I've ever seen from an rpg since Undertale. They reminded me of Yume Nikki too.

I've talked before about friendship, and how in this game everyone is forced to be your friend no matter what. I get it, it's the main purpose of the game, but after 6+ hours it gets stale. The beauty of Undertale was that you were in control of how to handle friendships and combat, eventually getting you to a different ending which really did make you feel uncomfortable, especially in the genocide run. To this day I haven't been able to get a genocide run on Undertale because I've learned to care about fictional characters.

But it wasn't the case here. And it's the game's main purpose! It should promote friendship, but everything feels... forced. No matter what, you will get along with enemies. Always. There's no threat, no consequences, and I did expect something else from an horror game. I want to get into trouble if I don't choose correctly.

In fact, when I met my first enemy, I've tried to spare him, but I couldn't. Eventually I've found out that even after fighting, your foe leaves with a positive message. It should promote positive vibes, but it just feels... wrong. I want to feel the weight of my actions here, and I've felt like I didn't have a voice and couldn't change anything. It may seem like I'm trying to play Undertale here, but it really isn't the case. I just wish there was more of an horror side to it.

And that brings me to... combat. If I can't defeat anyone, why engage in combat at all? They could've made me interact with these people and get me to know them instead of letting me experience tedious and uninspired turn based combat.
Again, I'm comparing this to Undertale just to make a point, but in the latter you have at least an inspired turn based mechanic which keeps everything fresh. Here I've just... fought. Over and over again, without earning anything, without getting some more world building, without... anything. In the end, my sensation was that fights were there to stretch the game's length. In "The Stanley Parable", for example, you could get into a minecraft level or a portal level. But it was an exception, and you would eventually come back to the game's main mechanics. Here things change... for the sake of change.

I would've preferred a more linear, fight-less storyline (or at least with a few "easter egg" fights) with more emphasis on character development and more well-thought dialogues. Also, excessive positivity ends up being annoying, rather than supporting. It just doesn't feel like you're gaining anything.

It seems to me that this game could've been better as a youtube series like Petscop was. It could've promoted mystery, horror elements and many, many things. The team is clearly talented, and this is a well crafted game after all, it just isn't what it would want to be. The Evoland-style game evolution could be an interesting concept, but it doesn't really feel fleshed out at all.

In the end, I just want to say that if you find this game on sale, you can absolutely try it. I'm sure many are enjoying it, as I see here on Steam. But for me, personally, it's a no-go. Lacking storyline, empty characters, no threats nor consequences (which horror games usually have), superficial worlds and dialogues. I've definitely felt disconnected from the operating system the game runs on as time went by. The main thing they've really got going for in this game is its art style, which is something I really wish more people would do as it really is good.

But, again, that's my opinion. If you end up liking Buddy Simulator, that's perfectly fine.
I know I may have been too harsh on this game, but believe me: I've just felt a strong potential here which didn't deliver properly. I'm eager to see what these devs will come up with in the future.

More reviews:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/bodolovsello/recommended/