Take a delicious journey in Sifting Thyme, where the love of food and romance combine to make the perfect dish!

The Story
You're a new student who has transferred to the Lincoln Culinary Academy, a private school, to study the culinary arts and find a side dish or two of romance on the side. There are for love interests, Tyler, Jamie, Leo and Geoffrey. All cute and adorable in their own ways. Tyler is the reliable childhood friend, Jamie is hard working, sweet and friendly, Leo is the school's celebrity who comes from a prestigious culinary family and then there is Geoffry, a slacker with a "don't care" attitude but loyal to his friends.

Game-play & Features
The settings in this game are your standard find, volume controls, text speed, display settings and credit info. There is also a library where extra content unlocks on each potential romance as you play through the game.The game is divided up into 13 chapters and an epilogue. You can hide the hud easily to take screen captures. There is a log that is created as you play so you can always go back and check past conversations.

You can save your progress but I found no way to rewind your progress and you cannot save during the screen that shows dialogue options so you're basically stuck with the dialogue option you pick unless you save in an earlier spot and reload the game.

The fun mechanic that this game integrates is adding social media into the gameplay though your in game phone. Apps such as Snappbuzz or Clickagram and a message app. I never really found a purpose for Snappbuzz as nothing ever showed up in it (could be a bug) but had fun viewing the posts that would come up in Clickagram.

The game being split into chapters lets you focus on the lives of you and your romantic interests in stride. It does not feel rushed and you can interact with each character equally until about chapter 9 when you have to start focusing on which romance you are going to settle on for your final run to the end.

This game is not graphic or lewd. The romance is light with hugs or kisses.

The Visuals & Audio
The artwork has cute anime styled characters. Clean artwork, bright colors and clean backgrounds that mesh well with the character art.

This novel is not voice acted, which is a personal preference, some enjoy making up the voices themselves and others like them voiced. Personally I am happy with either style.

The soundtrack is okay. Piano music that changes with the chapters and locations within the chapters. It is pleasant enough but I found myself keeping the volume down low and focusing more on the narrative. There are also no ambient sounds to make the experience more immersive.

Overall Experience
Overall I ended up really loving this game. It started off slow and I did not get really hooked on it until mid-way when the romance started heating up by Chapter 9 and I had to pick a romance route. I loved all the characters so it was hard to decide on the first run.

I ended up picking Leo as he was actually my least favourite up until mid-way and not normally my type. The ending I had with Leo made for a fantastic romantic ride. I ended up loving his character the more I delved into his story-line. I look forward to going back into the game to experience the other three romantic endings. A great otome novel. It was fun, as well as educational and I loved all the characters (which is rare)! 💖

Review originally posted on Steam

Please follow our curator page, Otome Lovers, if you'd like to see more reviews like this one!