The main gameplay is the typical stats raising thing where you choose Sian's actions for each day (Sleep, study, work, etc) and this affects her stats (fatigue, intelligence etc) You also get to choose who she hangs out with and what she says to them.
This is set in the same world as Re:Alistair, and was made by the same people, but it stands alone, and the re:Alistair shout-outs are pretty subtle. Also the stat raising gets repetitive and can be annoyingly fiddly, after my first playthrough I used a walkthrough for everything and still had trouble sometimes. About the only thing I entirely disliked was the music, which was painfully generic. So! It's a well made game, with nice art, good writing, good voice acting, and great characters. The answer for me was yes but YMMV! So here's a more detailed review for anyone who wants one. I spent quite a while staring at it going "yes, it looks fun, but is it $30USD worth of fun?". You have to balance school, work, and socialising and there's romantic paths as well as the option to focus more on friendship or her career. The sole female romance option, Nicole, is much more than she appears at first sight, and I even enjoyed the occasional sightings of Sian's college professors.Backstage Pass is an enjoyable dating/life sim about a makeup artist, Sian, in her first year of college. The fellow industry workers you meet while working with Vice / Versus are interesting, and I think romance routes with Rachel or Allison could have been very interesting additions. Alvin is adorable, and it's refreshing to see an asexual character in a visual novel, although I take extremely pointed objected to his ending being labelled as a friendship ending when it's very clearly a romantic one. Topping the list here are the side characters, who I for the most part prefer to the main guys. The four main bachelors are Adam, Benito, John, and Matthew, and while none of them are the best characters in the world, they have enough varied dialogue and characterization to make them far more interesting than any of the ones in Always Remember Me pulled off. As someone who shares Sian's social anxiety and panic in crowds, I found myself identifying with her instantly. Sian is a wonderful protagonist, a driven girl who doesn't let her shyness get in the way of doing what she wants to do. Where this game noticeably outshines Always Remember Me, however, is in its characters. All in all, it makes the learning curve a bit unfriendly, though not impossible. The stat-raising sections go by so fast that it's hard to catch the effects it had, and consumable items that you can buy in shops don't have their effects on your stats spelled out. For example, running your fatigue too high will cause you to take a significant stat decrease eventually, but I didn't actually figure this out until my third playthrough.
It's all a bit complex, as you might be able to tell, and while enjoyable, a big fault is that the game doesn't explain a lot of the specifics behind the stat-raising mechanics. On weekends, you can call up friends to hang out, hit up the local shopping scene, or just sleep to lower your fatigue, and weekends are also the only time you can check your e-mail, which is vital to catching job offers from various characters.
You're mostly free to do whatever, although certain slots will be booked up by jobs or in-game events with other characters and you can only schedule activities for the morning when class isn't in session. During the week, you select activities for your afternoon, which can raise corresponding stats, affect your GPA, or bring in income.
Gameplay is a blend of stat-raising and dating sim.