In this game, players will be able to attend a prestigious and totally legit cooking academy while they deal with the social scene and their bubbling feelings for Colonel Sanders himself. If you’re not familiar, dating sims involve playing as a character as they try to navigate the world of relationships. What you say and do could lead to you romancing that special someone. Let’s look at some of the best games that feature dating and relationships prominently.
Marketed mostly at women, there are romance mobile games now that pull in a wider audience with the characters they bring and the stories they tell. Also, the Steam page reminds us that “If you die in the game, you die in real life. If you prepare your taxes in the game, you prepare your taxes in real life,” so I’m hoping there will actually be some spooky Doki Doki-ish goings on here. Although, I can just as easily imagine that MSCHF will probably just take the piss out of dating sims, in the same way that Chair Simulator does. Not all relationships are meant to last a lifetime, and short-term causal connections can be powerful and beautiful.
Dating Sim
Dating simulators, part of the larger genre of games known as „visual novels,” are single-player story video games with mostly simple mechanics. The goal is usually to navigate complex interpersonal interactions with several characters that may or may not result in romance, depending on your actions or dialogue choices. My favorite kind of April Fools’ joke is where developers create mock-ups for products so ridiculous they’ll probably never exist. It’s even better when they actually release that product and it ends up being great!
With a moody, seductive style and a wildly diverse roster of seven potential dates, including a K-pop star, a cat and two non-binary characters , it promises to be as inclusive as it is entertaining. While it still retains some visual novel DNA that most dating sims like Summertime Saga share, it’s actually more of a card-based RPG. In our opinion, this brings some much-needed interactivity to the sometimes overly passive dating sim genre.
Though Yukari was beautiful as a human, Kazuma finds her alpaca version equally as beautiful. Kazuma finds the situation odd at first but learns to accept her new form. They still work together to find out about the Alpaca Kingdom and why Yukari transformed. Our next pick is another well-drawn, funny, and weird dating simulator, with a decent narrative and plenty of characters to romance as you play. Doki Doki Literature Club is one of the most popular dating sims out there. The story starts innocent enough with four potential love interests, a high school club, and lots of poetry.
Anyways if you would like some unique dating sims to play, you have come to the right place. After earning a degree in Computer Information Systems, Ben left his IT job to write full-time in 2016 and has never looked back. He’s been covering tech tutorials, video game recommendations, and more as a professional writer for over nine years.
Lovestruck
One place to start is by looking to the stars and focusing on zodiac signs who don’t take dating too seriously. They’re a fun and varied bunch, whether it’s the buff fitness dad, the hot teacher dad or the dad who sports his belly with pride. Even if the game started out as a dad joke, Dream Daddy ended up being the gay dating sim we all needed. The latest entry in Nintendo’s strategy RPG series actually dials back romance, with marriages between characters and their offspring not even part of the gameplay. And not all S.Links are romantic but all of them operate under reading dialogue from a specific character and making choices to increase their affection for you. That’s also how many dating sims tend to operate so it makes sense to draw parallels.
Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel starring birds as the primary love interest. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the mutated strain of the bird flu, H5N1, has killed several humans. The counter-virus mutates birds to a human-level of intellect. After several years have passed, humans and birds have tried to reconnect and unite equestriansingles com once again. You are not only a new transfer student at St. PigeoNation, but also the only human at the school, which is filled with various talking birds. As you study, you raise various character skills that make the birds more interested in you, and can choose what your character wants to do every day and what parts of the school to visit.
With so many games that put an emphasis on lighthearted fun, wholesome romances, or overall just a typical romantic vibe to their narratives, anyone looking for a change of pace should take a look into Xoxo Blood Droplets. Sometimes, great dating sims don’t take themselves too seriously. Whether they offer horror, meta-humor, or both, these games are hilarious parodies. The characters are younger, since the story is set in middle school, so it’s rife with awkward moments and humor. The game begins with a mystery as you learn the previous owner of your locker has disappeared. There’s nothing really explicit about the game and it plays more like a visual novel, hiding a compelling mystery beneath absurd humor.
Dream Daddy
Whether it is a guilty pleasure, something to kill some time, or a favorite past-time, mobile romance games are fun. Mobile romance games combine the fun of playing an RPG and enjoyment from reading a romance novel. Like Panzermadels, Attack Helicopter Dating Simulator pulls no punches in its absurd tribute to the dating sim genre. The helicopters are anime women, but the game also depicts them as helicopters, elevating this dating sim’s weirdness. Based on the problematic „Attack Helicopter” meme, this irreverent game captures the awful spirit of the Internet age into which it was born.