Psychological Horror?

[COLDFIRE]

I noticed this game has the 'psychological horror' and 'horror' tags. I thought this was a regular visual novel at first, but now I'm pretty intrigued.

[Valikdu]

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

[Crazyhobo100]

Sorry to resurrect this 2 month old discussion post, but the tags on a game's store page are actually popular tags that people have applied to a game. I haven't really looked into this game, but usually people put 'psychological horror' or 'horror' tags just because it's anime. They do it as a joke.

[COLDFIRE]

Crazyhobo100 lähetti viestin:

Sorry to resurrect this 2 month old discussion post, but the tags on a game's store page are actually popular tags that people have applied to a game. I haven't really looked into this game, but usually people put 'psychological horror' or 'horror' tags just because it's anime. They do it as a joke.

I actually managed to get a role as a beta tester (I contacted the developer through Kickstarter). So I've played through the game and holy wow, I can confirm it is most definitely a psychological horror. I don't know exactly what I expected, but the game is now in my top 5 horror games.

[Crazyhobo100]

Well hey, at least the tags matched up. Sometimes I've seen games on here where people have put up tags that don't match them whatsoever.

[Planguy]

Does the game actually have cute girls that you can date or is it just a deconstruction that uses dating sim and life sim elements to get you in a unsuspecting state of mind where horror elements will be more effective? Like is it a horror game that is also a dating sim or is it a horror game disguised as a dating sim?

[COLDFIRE]

Planguy lähetti viestin:

Does the game actually have cute girls that you can date or is it just a deconstruction that uses dating sim and life sim elements to get you in a unsuspecting state of mind where horror elements will be more effective? Like is it a horror game that is also a dating sim or is it a horror game disguised as a dating sim?

It feels pretty complete as a full dating sim. I managed to complete Rei's route on my first play and there's another 4 girls I think. The dating elements let you choose who you want to visit each day, buy them gifts, etc.

[Dlanor]

Planguy lähetti viestin:

Does the game actually have cute girls that you can date or is it just a deconstruction that uses dating sim and life sim elements to get you in a unsuspecting state of mind where horror elements will be more effective? Like is it a horror game that is also a dating sim or is it a horror game disguised as a dating sim?

I know it was answered already but I'll be clear on it too, it IS a full fledged dating sim with a group of characters you can pursue, all with unique likes/dislikes/preference in gifts/locations they frequent/talents/personalities, and they all have a couple scenes about themselves. Don't expect a full-on massive story about any character, as they basically get a "friendship scene" where you get close to them, followed by a "this could be a relationship" scene where they get closer, and then you can choose to "date" them, which will require 1 mini quest and then you'll get 1 final scene where you do actually date the character, which is unrelated to the plot's ending but does fulfill a requirement of actually being a dating sim. So, there's basically only like 10 minutes of unique content for the characters "routes", but the dating sim shell can keep you invested for easily 10 to 15 hours.

It totally goes for the dating sim vibe to make the horror elements more effective, so if you want a pure dating sim there are far more fleshed out ones than this, but if you are interested in trying a dating sim with an overarching plot, and about 15 hours seems reasonable to you, this is a good choice because honestly the visuals and sound are all great, especially the CGs, and even if the writing is a little basic and the characters are pretty cliche it does a good job at being a basic dating sim even ignoring the other elements in the game.