some more dating sims

so, it's pretty exciting to have found that since i started working on my thesis last year, all sorts of new kinds of dating sims have come out - old stuff in a new, strange way.

i think a lot of people heard about "Hatoful Boyfriend" - it's definitely making its rounds on the internet. it's a typical sort of dating sim targeted at girls, but instead of bishounen the high school is full of pigeons. literally, photographically represented pigeons with anime personalities and little anime bishie boy extra background imagery, but basically they are actually pigeons. and the player is a random human attending this pigeon school for some reason, and lives in a cave?

i played a little bit of the game and it has a really quirky sense of humor to it uncommon to these kinds of games. it doesn't take itself too seriously, even though there are these very basic kind of romantic relationship elements with various persona stereotypes (perverted male nurse, shy domestic nerd, haughty council boy, etc)



as you can see, though, the graphics of this game are extremely limited, especially in terms of animation or emotional representation except through sound effects...

there's another game that game out recently that's also available as freeware (did i mention that hatoful boyfriend is free? because it is, and available to english-speaking players through the dedicated efforts of fans alone!) called "Katawa Shoujo" (literally 'disabled girl(s)'). in this game, you play as a male character with arrhythmia. all of the girls at this school have different sorts of disabilities or disfigurements, including a girl with prosthetic legs, one with stumps for arms, a burn victim, and a deaf mute. the characters in this game are really phenomenal and lack the one-dimensionality that keeps most dating sims from being anything more than a notch below webcomics on the boredom relief scale. there's even an anti-feminist male with aspergers and a bipolar teacher! I'M IN HEAVEN!!!



(here's a review of the first act of the game, talks about some of the same stuff)







these are some of the animation sequences from the game. clearly the developers for this game put a great deal more effort into the animated sequences than the average dating sim. so not only are the characters really relateable, human, and interesting, but the animation is good? crazyyyyyyy

people who have played this game rate it especially highly - a friend of mine started playing it recently, the kind of person who doesn't play these sorts of games, at all, ever. he really likes it and wishes "there were more games like that." me too man.

dating sim inspirations

an example of how homosexuality is typically handled as 'fan service' or a joke to the player, namely as a 'bad end'; you've failed to get with one of the coveted main female characters is the assumption of this ending, therefore your conclusion is a joke ending.



long, meandering, boring dialogue... horrible dialogue. poor animation. this is the typical sort of dating simulator on the market. no character to... characters? stand-ins for fetishes (negumi character is bashful moe type)



this game is also produced in a studio and available on PSP and other next-gen consoles, and yet notice the poor quality animation and stilted dialogue. especially the stilted dialogue. really conveys that the idea is a manipulation of characters into ideal romance or collection of characters like trinkets or objects. this even extends into female-male or male-male focus group games.



example of dating simulator style affects to design with extra production value, 3D RPG environment and less based around 'romance' stories. characters are better developed and are also the focus of this game, more so in unraveling their quirks and dark histories. the dating simulators featured above could be considered the low-production pandering version, or this sort of game merely taking those principles of cultivating relationships with characters to another sort of dynamic, more innovative. clearly it's possible to make games focusing on the cultivation of relationships with characters, or investigation of characters without a pigeonholing of sexuality.



typical sort of thinly-veiled H (hentai game) - notice all female characters have their fucking nipples visible or cleavage in boob holes and stuff. yet, the developers insisted on putting in such a lame little story to cover up for this being straight-up jackoff material.



SPRUNG is the game whose title SPUNK plays off. it's a really tedious talky game, but with pretty decent facial animations during interactions and conversations, which is cool but a huge waste on such a boring shitty game. you can play as a doofus jock or a doofus bimbo. once again establishing the legacy of player characters being the most obnoxious possible character in the entire game.



lots of good things in this one. super paper mario is a great game with great art direction and character design. the appearance of this dating simulator in the RPG platformer game of great production value is indicative of how pervasive this little niche culture of sex / romance games is - even to the point that the players are well-recognized. even the menu options have so much humor to them in this clip, every thing about it is appealingly quirky and fun and yet not such a huge inside joke that most people won't get it.