AUTHOR’S NOTE: This series of posts discusses games which often have very explicit content. This series can be considered very, very Not Safe For Work, although no photos or screencaps contained within will be explicitly R-rated (although potentially glancingly so), only the text itself.
Jon: I can’t say I have a grand history with Dating Simulators – far from it, by most accounts. Sure, I’ve been a bored teenager on the internet which, by definition, means I’ve almost literally seen everything, but Dating Simulators always seemed a little sad by comparison. I use this word quite specifically – gaming is one of those things that comes bundled with a set of stereotypes (less so now, and increasingly comparative to comics). I’m no fan of the term ‘gamer’, mostly because it’s a broad and ineffective term of othering that carries the weight of stereotype far more than simply saying “I like gaming” ever would. In all my hope that gaming can be increasingly stereotype free, the subject of games like Dating Simulators brings me right back to the notion that, well, sure, there’s a lot of weird games out there and honestly, who plays them?
There’s nothing inherently odd about a Dating Simulator, really. Even that term is a broad category, encapsulating everything from actual dating simulators to novelty games in which you try to fuck a goldfish. The great irony of Dating Sims is that their biggest resistance – the cultural connotation that having to simulate dating is pretty sad (there’s that word again) – ends up being their greatest strength. Diversity is alive and well in dating simulators because they are necessarily predicated on desire – without desire, there is no impetus to play the game. Sure, there are lots of Pretty Boy Sims and Hot Girl Creep Sims, but there’s also a flourishing market for niche games that appeal to much more than the ‘sad’ stereotype.
Make no mistake, there are a lot of Pretty Boy Sims and Hot Girl Creep Sims, terms I feel encapsulate pretty much everything you could say about it, and these can’t really be ignored. They go above and beyond chaste “kiss the girl to win” objectives, too – again, as a teenager with access to the internet, I’ve definitely played one or eight of these. It’s hard to button mash to keep an affection meter up with one hand, but there you go, let us never speak of that again.
C’mon, don’t act so surprised.
Much of the appeal of dating sims comes from the fact that they have a lot of overlap with the ‘Visual Novel’ genre, which like so many things is big in Japan. Visual Novels are exactly what they say on the tin – Dating Sims turn the Choose Your Own Adventure aspect of the visual novel up to 11 and wear their intention on their sleeve. While Hideo Kojima’s 1988 game Snatcher was a visual novel about a half-Invasion of the Body Snatchers, half-Blade Runner future, and Ace Attorney is a series about exaggerated courtroom drama, such instalments do not necessarily dominate the genre. Eroge, literally ‘erotic game’ because folk have no subtlety, are a substantial part of the genre (as mentioned above – although if it’s all about sex, this qualifies as yet another subcategory, ‘nukige’, a word that comes from Japanese unlike it’s half-hearted parent above).
I have no problem with admitting that most of the specifics here are coming from Wikipedia. As I said, I have very little contact with the genre beyond teenage fumblings, which might seem odd to use as a starting point for such a rambling piece. This brings us to the crux of the matter – why don’t we have more visibility in this genre? People obviously play them, it’s hard to deny that Dating Sims aren’t going away. Wikipedia alone ists a very incomplete list of 40 games it calls ‘True’ dating sims, a definition it uses to preclude a very, very long list of related games. The desire to romance characters in games arguably reached its mainstream peak in Dragon Age: Inquisiton, a game some would make a strong argument has (admittedly simple) dating sim mechanics interwoven with the very fabric of its save-the-world Tolkeinesque adventure.
Personally, I romanced Sera. Something something Noble Tits.
So here’s the idea: what if we played some of these games, just for the heck of it? I pitched it to Justin in the middle of laughing about a particularly tame instalment in the genre. This formed the backbone of Two Bi Men Shout At Dating Sims; Or, A Romancer’s Tragedie. Over the next 12 installments of this series, we’re going to work through 12 dating sims and report back about the experience – how we felt, how the story went, and how the experience came together despite our relative lack of knowledge on the subject. We’ll take opposing tacks – one of us will play to fuck, one of us will play to romance; it can’t be denied that a game whose mechanics requires winning people over takes a certain amount of strategy to get a desired outcome. This will probably change, too – we’ll let you know as we go. Hopefully we’ll all come out of the experience wiser for it.
Or maybe we’ll see a bunch of anime boobs and dongs. It’s hard to say.
Justin: I’d love to say that my experience with dating sims (and I guess the larger genre of visual novels) is vast and completely different to Jon’s. I’d love to say that I have a bunch of ROMs on my computer all with perfect fan translations that present a window into interspecies romance. I’d really, REALLY like to say that my Sega Saturn never gathered dust and that pirated copies of Machi, Utena: Four Days in Othori and Policenauts spun happily night and day.
But none of that would be true.
I have two main memories of dating sims; the first is of some ridiculous hentai game played on a computer in a house I shouldn’t have been in when I was a lot more intoxicated than I had any right to be. The second is of trying to play Tokimeki Memorial with a stack of printed out translation FAQ’s. I may have spent nearly ten hours with that game but I can’t tell you anything more than it hurt my eyes and I didn’t magically understand japanese at the end of it.
As a gamer my experience with the genre leans more towards that have taken elements of dating sims and pulled them into the fabric of the game. Harvest Moon/Rune Factory, Persona and not to mention games like Mass Effect – Big western IPs have been pulling in the influence of dating sims for a while but no where more obviously than Bioware’s premiere RPGs. Building your relationship with the rest of the crew may only result in a change of dialog or a poorly animated sex scene but the relationship itself helps players connect with the characters. That connection can sometimes gloss over poor dialog resulting in greater affection for the game. Its a simple trick but one that pays unexpected dividends.
The answer is “probably”
Coming Out On Top is (as far as I understand the genre) a visual novel with dating sim elements? Or it might be the other way around …. but for western audiences unfamiliar with either genre what this adds up too is a “Pick-A-Path” type adventure where the player progresses by choosing different dialogue responses. Your character will meet a variety of people and based upon those dialogue choices will build relationships with them and eventually you’ll get a still picture of the character having sex with said object of your affection. Then its back to the start to try different choices and see different penises.
What we’ve done, and will do again, is discussed in a back and forth, easy-breezy manner our feelings about and reactions to the first of hopefully many dating sims – name, Coming Out On Top. Our credentials are only that as bi men we’re into most things, but that’s more qualified than most. We’ve stormed the walls of erotic criticism and come back with handfuls of the hair of critique. We’ve dared to suggest that a game about men’s penises should aim higher, and we’ve probably given tiny windows into our own experiences. We’ve taken a niche genre and said “lets walk you through this, lets play these games together”. Or we’ve grumbled a lot. Take a look by clicking through below.
FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR RELEASE SCHEDULE (each instalment will be released at the end of the month, list subject to change, click-through for easy access (that’s what she said)) [Month: Title, Developer]:
JAN: Coming Out On Top, Obscurasoft
FEB: Hatoful Boyfriend, Mediatonic
MAR: Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entrée, Anna Anthropy
APR: Great Personality: Guardians, Lightgrey
MAY: Hate Plus, Love Conquers All
JUN: Katawa Shoujo, Four Leaf Studios
Jon tweets at , Justin tweets at .
