Table Manners Review

Slapping a lady in the face with your meat is probably the worst start to a first date you could possibly imagine. Thanks to Table Manners, it’s a fantasy I can not only live out - but succeed with too. Table Manners is a nonsensical ride. A ride that routinely ignores the basic concept of table manners. Table Manners, as a game, is very simple. It’s quite similar to Surgeon Simulator, if you even remember that early 2010’s fad. You boot it up, swipe right and off you go on a first date destined to descend into madness.

Table Manners is frustrating straight out of the box for me. Swiping through the endlessly similar character models, a seemingly satirical decision. Mocking the blandness of modern dating apps like Tinder, is probably the peak of the Table Manners experience. The lucky lady I swiped right on was Miranda, the apparent front woman for the game, if that’s even a thing. Miranda had me performing these mundane, pointless tasks. If I perform them well, I get to complete them all over again on another date. Hooray!

A date consists of a few basic premises, constantly repeated under differing circumstances. You control a hand. Just one hand. I’m unsure where the other hand is, the game lore doesn’t delve into the missing hand too much. With this mighty hand, you practically control the whole date. The whole thing will fall apart without your hand. Your companion is incapable of using their hands - again, no explanation as they seem to work pretty fine for the most part. You perform tasks such as refilling their glass, feeding them food, knocking everything on the table over; the usual tricks you’re likely to pull out on a first date.

The control of the hand is supposed to feel wild and chaotic, similar to that style perfected by Bossa with Surgeon Simulator. The problem Table Manners has is everything except the hand causes chaos. Regardless of how refined your skill becomes, it can be very difficult to get the game to cooperate at times. You pick up items that get stuck in your hand constantly. Objects get stuck in each other, which causes a domino effect amongst everything on the table. Table Manners is meant to be frustrating in a humorous way, but the physics are so infuriating it makes you want to turn it off. The game is agitating for the sake of comedy, but completely misses the mark and just creates a grating experience for the player.

It’s ironic that Table Manners is clearly inspired by Surgeon Simulator as both games place you opposite equally dead characters. You can swipe through all the characters in the game, but once you sit down, they all use that same loop of expressions. If you do poorly enough in a level, they’ll eventually take out their phones before calling off the date completely. It’s probably the most successful outcome for everyone.

Under the hood, beneath the issues, there’s an interesting and often funny commentary on modern dating. From the in game dating app being ‘Blundr’ to the often hilarious character bios you can often find on real dating apps. Table Manners nails the written humour straight on the head. It’s a shame everything seems to fall apart once you click on that play button for the first date.

Table Manners tried to find humour in its obstructional gameplay, but ended up being stood up by a quality delivery. Although a funny social commentary in its title screen, the gameplay itself falls well short of being entertaining. Bland and broken, Table Manners is a game you probably won’t be swiping right on any time soon.