Review + Guide: Friendly lab - unlock(); (Tennenouji)
I was going to wait for the English translation of the PC version, but got a bit impatient and decided to play the Japanese version instead...! So here's my spoiler-free review in which I explain the gameplay mechanics and what the game's about. I also wrote a guide, as the ones I found online were a little bit confusing to me because some endings are a bit tricky to get. When the English version is released I'll replay it and update the guide.
In this game, you play the role of a researcher who's conducting a gentle experiment on two test subjects. The goal of the experiment is to measure what kind of impact the interference of the researcher has on the test subjects. The experiment must however be conducted safely, without harming the test subjects. A small locked room, two test subjects who suffer from memory loss. It's your goal to present a variety of items to them and to observe their reaction.
If you're here for the guide I recommend scrolling down a little bit! I'll start with a short summary of what the game is about and how to play it. This game was originally released as a mobile game in 2022 and I played a little bit of it, but I didn't reach any endings, so this was my first time completing the game. The gameplay of both versions is almost identical, but this time there are no in-game purchases and ads, which is nice! As the game's description mentions, you have to conduct experiments on the test subjects, Nishi (West) and Higashi (East), and observe how they react to them. Both of them don't remember how they got there and also don't remember much of their past lives, so it's up to you to slowly make them remember. This game is unvoiced and there's also no background music, so it immediately makes the player feel a bit uneasy. The only sound you hear is the sound of the clock ticking.
Gameplay and story
As the researcher, you can use 10 different sub-menus to interact with Nishi and Higashi: Spying, Meals, Special Items, Incident, Entertainment, a safe which becomes the Cultivation Room later, Questions, Paper and Pen, Bathing and Bedtime. At first the game does seem a bit confusing because you have to figure out which items trigger a reaction and it's a bit slow at first, but I did have fun slowly learning more about the characters! The goal is to gather as many keywords as possible, but you only have a limited numbers of actions each day, so use them wisely.
Both characters have completely different personalities. They don't remember their real names so they use the Japanese words for East and West (Higashi and Nishi). Nishi knows a lot about many topics, such as plants, medicine, animals and likes sharing fun facts about items shown to him. Higashi on the other hand, seems to be struggling with a lot of things, slowly remembering his dark past when certain items are presented to him. Throughout the story, Nishi helps him to slowly regain memories of his past, which sometimes get rather dark.
Almost the entire plot of the game takes place in a single room, so the characters and their stories are the most important part of this game. Through their interactions, you learn what happened to them, allowing you to theorize how they could have possibly ended up in a situation like this. Because of this, the gameplay sometimes feels a bit slow, but I recommend taking your time so you can learn more about the characters. The game auto-saves the current experiment so you can close the game whenever you want. It takes a while to replay the game a few times too to unlock every ending, but I had a lot of fun testing each option to see what would happen next. The only downside is that you can't really save, so if the experiment fails it's over and you have to restart.
A few more tips to get all endings ↓
Spoiler-free guide
I'm pretty sure the game always gives you a game-over during your first playthrough on day 10, so the choices don't matter, but I recommend using the cultivation room which unlocks on day 2. When you ask the characters questions, a pop-up will show up that you obtained either 10, 15, 20 or 50 ml of cultivation water, which you can use in the cultivation room. Make sure to complete the experiment, as it carries over to your next playthrough. After the first round, start a new game and follow the "route 3 hint" card, it will show a little light bulb symbol next to the options you should pick. You can skip experiments you've done before by double clicking it, it's faster than pressing the skip button.
Don't use all your daily turns immediately as some options only show up throughout the day and some are only available for a limited amount of time. I recommend using the on/off button next to the eye symbol to only display experiments you haven't done yet. You can still get the endings if you miss some of experiments, but make sure to not miss too many.
The bathing scene choices usually don't matter, so just pick the character you want. You have to replay the game at least 10 times to get all the endings, so you'll have plenty of time to pick each option.
The choices with the pink handshake symbol next to them increase the affinity between both characters, which is necessary to unlock some CGs, so make sure to select a lot of these.
I think there's still an unpatched bug that makes the game freeze on day 10 of your first playthrough no matter how many times you restart. It's a bit unfortunate, but when this happens you have to go to the main menu and terminate your current playthrough. This happened to me in both the Japanese and English version but after starting a new game it never happened again,
Ending 3 and 2: Follow the "ending 3" hints which will show up after your first playthrough and select the choices with the lightbulb icon. Prioritize the "Spying" option and occasionally check if any new options unlock throughout the day as it is possible to miss them and then the game ends on day 10 again. At the end of the game you're presented with a choice, pick the option to not tell the truth for ending 3. Afterwards start a new game, follow the "ending 3" hints again and this time pick the other choice for ending 2. In my case the skip button somehow skipped the entire choice, so if you replay to get ending 2, be careful to not use this too much near the end of the final day.
Ending 4: Automatically unlocks at the same time as ending 3 if you've completed the cultivation room in your first playthrough. It's not really an ''ending'' but more like an extra scene you'll get immediately after finishing ending 3.
Ending 7: Follow the "ending 3" hints and give the characters the "happiness gas" (or bliss gas in the English version) 8 times. With this item you unlock some of the only 18+ content in the game. You can obtain this item by selecting question cards, and sometimes the characters hint that they want to do something specific (eating, entertainment etc.) and one of the sub-menu buttons will light up, hinting that you should pick one of these options next. A choice to use the gas will pop up at night. Just use this every night and you'll get ending 7.
Ending 1: This one is a bit tricky because the game doesn't really give you any in-game hints for this one, but I eventually got it by following the "ending 3" hints again. On the final day after watching the "Cow Backpack" experiment, don't select the experiment after that which should be called something like "Letter from Nishi/West". You can get this ending in one of your first playthroughs too.
Ending 10: I accidentally got this ending when I was trying to get another ending, but you can get this one by picking as many choices as you can with a ★ symbol. I tried using all of the options like Spying, Meals, Special Items etc. This ending should also unlock the ending 5 hint if you start a new game after finishing it.
Ending 5: Follow the "ending 5" hints card. If this doesn't show up for some reason you might have to try playing ending 8 and 9 first. While following the ending 5 hints, make sure to avoid question cards as much as possible. Pick the experiment which looks like ""■□ヌ"■■_リ" in the "Incident" menu every time it shows up (in the English version it also looks like that). There's multiple parts and it seems to show up randomly throughout the day sometimes.
Ending 6: Exactly the same as ending 5 but this time, make sure to use all of your question cards every day, the game ends after playing the final "■□ヌ"■■_リ" event.
Ending 8 and 9: Follow the ending 3 or ending 5 hints again, but make sure to use happiness café au lait (or bliss coffee in the English version) 8 times. You unlock this the same way as the happiness gas mentioned above, though the coffee will show up directly in the "Special Items" menu. Also make sure to play the "lump of ???" (mystery lump in the English version) event, which is an experiment that also sometimes shows up in "Special Items" during the first days. Avoid the final "■□ヌ"■■_リ" event because that might trigger ending 5 or 6 instead. You can't always use the café au lait immediately, but just check the special menu item every now and then to see if it's there. After using this item 8 times, you can choose to give it to Nishi (West) which unlocks ending 8, or Higashi (East) which unlocks ending 9.
I recently started playing the app version of the game too because it still gets regular updates and some additional content, which is also pretty interesting. I do consider both versions two completely different games though, because the PC version feels more like a serious, linear story, while the app version has so many options I sometimes don't know what to do. In the app version of the game you can purchase all kinds of items to dress the characters up, and there's also a third (and later even a fourth) character you can summon to interact with, though the main pairing of the game of course stays the same. This version also has no 18+ content, but it does have some different romance scenes instead (another kiss scene for example). I recommend playing the PC version first but if you're looking for additional content you can always download it and check it out yourself.
Final impressions
The gameplay of this game is something totally different from what I'm used to, but I had fun! It takes a while to complete so I recommend just taking it slowly. The artstyle was a bit different than Yura's usual style, but I think it really suits the game's setting. I will of course not spoil the plot of the game but I think it was really good! The game gives you all these little hints and slowly but surely, you learn their backstories and what happened to them to end up in such a place. It's called ''friendly'' lab and while the experiments themselves don't directly harm them, I will say that some of the endings are anything but "friendly", so mentally prepare yourself for that.
Anyway, I recommend playing the game without reading spoilers, because the whole point of the game is that you're slowly learning more about these characters. Despite the dark plot, of course there are a lot of funny interactions between the characters too like any other Tennenouji game. At some point you can also ask the characters if they know Giancarlo for example, a reference to Luckydog1, which was funny because it seemingly came out of nowhere.