Love ToDo 恋爱番茄 ~ RIEview + Mini Guide

Love ToDo 恋爱番茄 (LianAiFanQie; i.e. Love Tomato) isn’t a game per say, but rather a time-management app! It’s made by Taiwanese developer Minus40 and subsequently launched in September 2020, that incorporated romance elements to draw people using the app, and me being a sucker for pretty art, I downloaded it. As the game is developed in traditional Chinese script, I will only provide a guide in the Game Mechanics section on how to go about using the app. 

At first I’ve also considered translating the plot, but as the translation would basically give everything away and inevitably cause players to skip using the app, I decided to not translate the stories. Perhaps in the future once the app gains a considerable fanbase will the developers translate to English, but until that day comes, consider using the app as is! Now onto the review! 

Game Plot 

The app begins with a prologue describing your first day in the company where the characters work in. By choosing your first character to romantically pursue, your character will now work with them and subsequently develop a relationship through the character’s route. Note that you can change your romance interest later in the app, so yes you can pursue multiple characters at any time. 

At the time of publishing this post, each character route only has 15 chapters so far. Players can follow the game developers here for new updates.

Verdict (4.5/5)

So far loving the stories! I like how each plot is unique, and that the writers have made sure to avoid using the same source of conflict in each route. Can't wait for the new chapters!

Character Diversity & Personality 

There are 6 characters: Zhou BoYan 周博晏, Lin Yin 林尹, An ChenXi 安辰希, Fang JieYu 方介宇, Wen YuCheng 溫予橙, and only female Yvonne 伊馮那. Like in standard romance simulation, each route has a central character with other characters occasionally appearing and interacting with the main character of the route. On that note, I should mention that the protagonist’s gender is never explicitly revealed, so players can assume their gender of choice when playing the routes. 

Spoiler #1: This is not the case for Yvonne‘s route, it is implied that the protagonist is intended to be female for all routes. This conclusion thereby means that players will be involved in a lesbian relationship with Yvonne. So if you’re uncomfortable, you can either skip the route or proceed with the assumption that the protagonist is male. 

Another thing to note is that because Yvonne has never made an appearance in any of the other routes, this makes it appear that Yvonne does not play an equally central role as the other characters do, therefore skipping her route will not impact the player's experience with the overall story.

Spoiler #2: In Lin Yin’s route there was a moment when the protagonist is introduced to Zhou BoYan and his colleague chasing after Zhou escapade, and subsequently An ChenXi and his mention of a new coworker. From this conversation, whoever the protagonist selects to work with, their roles working with the other characters in their routes are also filled at the same time. Based on the description of Zhou BoYan’s colleague as male, the game again hints that the protagonist can choose their gender, so not sure why it’s seemingly fixed in Yvonne’s route.

Verdict (4/5)

It’s interesting how your department of choice changes depending on who you’re romantically pursuing, instead of the writer standardising the protagonist’s role in the story and merely altering how the characters would meet each other. I especially love the interactions between the characters, so hopefully there would be more of those in the future! Regarding the issue in Spoiler #2, I personally don’t think it’s a problem. After all, if Spoiler #1 makes me uncomfortable, I will just assume the protagonist is male and run with it.

Game & CG Art 

Really pretty art, and yes there are CGs! The R and SR cards have their own mini stories, which includes a CG that you can save. Of course, the CG only appears in the 2nd chapter so you will need to have enough character-specific keys. Keys can be obtained from duplicate character cards and from daily logins.

Verdict (4.5/5)

Love the CG art the most! It sucks that developers would only release 1 R or SR limited edition character card but the rest are N, so only 1 character would get the CG for that edition. Hopefully in future releases they would change and release more R/SR cards for the limited editions!

Game Mechanics 

As a time-management app, the game mechanics is setting task timers and choosing a character to complete the task with. You can name the task, designate the duration by selecting how many tomatoes the task will take, and even set when you want to start the task. A tomato represents 25 minutes, and tasks with more tomatoes will include a break of 5 minutes. You will be rewarded a golden tomato once you finish all set tasks for the day, which you can view in the app's calendar.

While the default setting is Freedom mode where you can exit the app while the task timer is running, you can change the setting to Fixed mode, where the game will grant 1.5 times experience points in exchange of having to stay inside the app. A chapter in the chosen character’s route will be unlocked every time the character levels up.

Experience points used to level up characters can be obtained from setting the respective character on task, or from consuming items obtained from the daily missions. Completing all daily missions will reward players with flower petals, which can be used in the gacha pool.

Daily missions consist of:- 

• 新增今日第一个待辦 Add one task for today – Reward: Chocolate
• 完成今日第一个待辦 Complete one task for today – Reward: Chocolate
• 一次完成两颗番茄的待辦 Complete a 2-tomato task at once – Reward: Caramel Macchiato
• 累積完成四颗番茄钟 Cumulatively complete 4 tomatoes worth of tasks – Reward: Energy Drink
• 新增一个明天的待辦 Add one task for tomorrow – Reward: Caramel Macchiato
• 获得今日第一个金色番茄 Obtain today’s golden tomato – Reward: Chicken Essence
• 完成所有每日任务 Complete all daily missions – Reward: Flower Petals

Environmental settings

Tomato Timer

Dialogue

Account settings

Note that each code generated can only be used once and is only valid for 24 hours. The next time you want to migrate your account to another device, you will have to regenerate a new code as it will expire after 24 hours.

Verdict (4.5/5)

I like how the developers spice up a simple time-management app by including stories to spice things up! Using the time-management app does make me a bit more productive, since each tomato is 25 minutes so I can force myself to focus instead of procrastinate. A reminder that should you leave or close the app anytime while an active task is running on Fixed mode, you will lose ALL progress made. So if you do need to use your phone but you do want to get the task timer running, make sure your setting is in the Freedom mode!

In-Game Events 

As a new app launched in September 2020, the events released so far relates to limited-edition cards released in the gacha pool. From 26th April to 17th May, the developers released a new event called This year I’m 5 years old 今年五岁 (JinNianWuSui), which has an event story and also includes a limited-edition gacha pool. There are 11 chapters in total, with each chapter requiring a set of multi-colour puzzle blocks. You can gain puzzle blocks from starting the task timer, with longer tasks giving more puzzle blocks. 

Note also that working on a task with a rarer card will give you a higher probability of dropping the respective character block. From my personal experience I got another character’s puzzle block instead of the character set on the task, so it’s really up to the app on what blocks it wants to drop.

Verdict (4/5)

An event that runs for 3 weeks is actually a pretty good strategy. The drops are random, so it’s a good idea to have at least 2 weeks or more to ensure players can get all the blocks they need to unlock all chapters. Well, considering it’s a new app, the developers have done a good job in the first event of its kind.

Honestly I enjoy using the app! Been using for over a month now and it's satisfying to see all the golden tomatoes for April haha. As someone who's read all the available chapters, it's now a waiting game for the developers to release new updates. Of course with the ongoing event it does keep me busy for now. 

Will you download and try out the app? 

Happy Gaming!

~ RieRie