While Hatoful Boyfriend uses many typical dating sim characteristics and many character archetypes featured in dating sims, it is notable for one parodic option: all of your suitors are birds. Hatoful Boyfriend is a parody of the dating sim genre. If one falls too low, then the suitor gains a "bomb." When the suitor has a bomb, then she'll gossip about the player to the other characters, lowering his relationship with them. The player needs to keep his relationship up with all the potential suitors. The Tokimeki Franchise is most notable for introducing the "bomb" feature. Picking the wrong choice can have the meter decrease, potentially harming the player, depending on the game. In order to woo a suitor and get the "good ending," the player needs to pick the best choice out of multiple options (usually two to three) that reflects the suitor's personality. Good interactions boost your meter, bad interactions reduce it. In most games, the relationship between the avatar and the potential suitor is measured in a meter. Ends can be fairly bittersweet: a good end can involve the couples in a long distance relationship or a deathbed confession of love, but it does involve the couple getting together. The bad endings are typically only "bad" in the sense that the player does not woo the suitor-unlike "bad endings" of other games, death or other permanent consequences rarely happen. The good ending consists of the suitor confessing his/her love, as well as the possibility of a physical reaction (kissing, holding hands, sex, etc.). The endings typically come in two types: good ending and bad ending. Just like how there are multiple suitors, each suitor has multiple endings. With titles such as "AchingDreams2 Hentai Game," "Meet'N'Fuck Road Trip," and "Orgasm Girl," it's pretty obvious what sort of direction these games are heading into. The adult games page is easily more popular, with some games reaching views in the millions. Newgrounds has two main dating sim pages: an all ages one and a page for adult games, found under the "Adult Features" collection instead of the "Games" tab.
Other options are flash games, which are less focused on characterization and are hosted on websites such as Newgrounds. Visual novel creation platforms such as Ren'Py and Novelty exist and are designed for people with minimal experience coding. Through cut-scenes, their relationships improve as the characters climb up ranks, culminating in S rank, which is only unlockable with two characters of the opposite sex and which enables them to marry.īecause of the fact that they're relatively easy to make, dating sims have been created by many indie designers. A higher social rank also means that characters will give each other better benefits (higher dodge rate and higher attack skill, for example), with the S rank as the highest. Upgrading a character's social rank unlocks cutscenes where character pursue romantic relationships or improve their friendships. For example: in Fire Emblem: Awakening, pairing up two units in battle improves their relationship, which can grant "rank" upgrades in the Social menu. These are often found in Tactical RPG games, where unlocking a social link can boost certain stats. Modern games have optional "social link" features, where you can build up relationships between supporting characters granting different benefits. There have been multiple spin-offs (such as puzzle games) and multiple adaptations (such as an anime, Tokimeki Memorial Only Love.)Īspects of dating sims have been transferred into modern non-dating sim games. Due to its popularity, the game been remade multiple times (Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You, Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de, etc.) and has been ported to multiple systems (Game Boy Color, PlayStation, Super Famicom, mobile phones, PSP). Tokimeki made it big thanks to word of mouth.
While the genre started in the 1980s, arguably the first dating sim to make it big is Tokimeki Memorial, first released for the PC in 1994.