When the creator of QWOP unleashed his rage-inducing creation upon the world, he likely had no idea that he was inspiring countless other masochistic developers to make their own physics-based nightmares (or "games," if you wish to call them that.) Titles that feature obtuse controls that cause the player to scream profanities and bash their keyboards to pieces. Nowadays, these games seem to exist primarily as fodder for YouTubers and streamers to play so we can laugh heartily at their intense misery.

This is another one of those. Table Manners is tailormade to be played by content creators, but if you were looking for an amusing game to play for fun, then you should probably swipe left.

What A Handsome Fellow

In Table Manners, you play as a disembodied hand that's apparently attractive enough to land a date. Using a Tinder-like dating app called Blundr - that's the best they could do, huh? - you swipe through potential matches, find the boy or girl of your dreams, and then take them out for a fancy meal.

It's a good enough premise for this genre, although it would've have been nice if the potential partners had any personality or character. There's not really any courtship, as talking to them through the dating app seems less like a conversation and more like a string of pre-written sentences haphazardly slapped together. All they really do is stare happily if the dinner goes well or stare at their phone if things go poorly. Sure, that might be realistic, but you never form any form of meaningful connection to anything in Table Manners.

Sure Hope We're Splitting The Bill

Table Manners is essentially what would happen if the doctor from Surgeon Simulator went on a date. This floating hand is put through the wringer trying to make the relationship work. The hand is controlled by using the mouse to move around. The left-click button picks things up - or tries to, at least - and holding down the right-click button rotates the wrist. The W-key raises the hand and the S-key lowers it, and that's about it.

Your date will then make some innocuous requests that in any other situation would be perfectly reasonable. However, since you're a one-handed, incorporeal being, simple tasks are incredibly challenging, especially since there's a time limit for each one. Pouring wine requires you to rotate your hand and hover directly over the glass without knocking it over. Lighting a candle can result in a burning table, which then requires a desperate attempt to retrieve a fire extinguisher to put out. Things that are normally easy, like grabbing a hamburger or cooking food on a grill, become herculean challenges that no mortal man can overcome. To make matters worse, the dates eventually move to more unconventional settings like an unsteady cruise ship or a sushi restaurant with conveyor belts. It's a comedy of errors that usually ends with your partner giving you the stink-eye.

This Relationship Won't Make It To A Second Date

The first time a date goes awry, it is quite funny. The table is a complete mess with glasses and food scattered about and the relationship is barely saved because you managed to pour some whiskey shots just before the timer ran out. And that look of nonplussed resignation your digital date gives if the night doesn't go well hits just a little too close to home.

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However, subsequent poor dates lack the same punch. After the initial shock period, there's not a whole lot going on. It becomes a routine of replaying the same horrible dinner over and over until you manage to season their fries in time or make their drink in an orderly fashion. Even for this particular genre, Table Manners' gameplay feels too shallow. There's not a lot of variation when it comes to the objectives. It eventually starts to feel even more repetitive than actual online dating.

You can try to get three stars (or hearts in this case) on each level to unlock some cosmetics for the hand. Aside from that, there's not a lot of reason to keep going back in unless you're actively streaming it on your own Twitch channel. It's a game that's ideal for watching, but unless you play games primarily to raise your own blood pressure, there's not much to fall in love with here.

It's Not Me, It's You

Table Manners doesn't do enough to justify its $20 price tag. It almost feels like the developers saw other dumb physics-based simulators that YouTubers play and decided to make a boring version of that. Whereas Surgeon Simulator is a ludicrous game about trying to perform complicated surgeries with one hand, Table Manners is just about making sure your date's steak has enough pepper. It's simultaneously too dumb and not dumb enough. These types of games need to be utterly ridiculous. In Getting Over It With Bennet Foddy, you try to help a bald man in a pot climb a mountain with a sledgehammer. In comparison to other titles in the comedic simulator genre, Table Manners is incredibly tame and not very funny.

There's no doubt you'll eventually see your favorite content creator or streamer yell in a comical fashion as they scramble to play this. But as a single-player experience, Table Manners is very much like a bad Tinder date: after one awkward night, you'll probably never want to see it again.

A PC copy of Table Manners was purchased by TheGamer for this review. Table Manners is available on PC.

Table Manners

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