And I think there is a lot that can be said regarding the game, but I must admit to having some difficulty in deciding quite how to approach it. I mean, it's a fun game to be sure. But there is some oddly disturbing subtext going on at the same time. And of course, being a sex themed game there's always the possibility that I'm going to have to make some sort of definitive statement on whether or not it actually gave me an erection at any point.
The people have a right to know!
So, where do we start? The gameplay would be a good point I suppose. The odd thing about Huniepop is that the actual sex part is fairly removed from the playing of the game. It's mainly a bejewelled ype match 3 puzzle, with a bit of meta game fiddling before hand that may or may not improve your chances of completing a level. And then if you complete enough levels you get a naughty picture.And if you've got the patch for uncensoring then you get a naughty picture WITH EXTRA SPOODGE. And I think maybe the girls actually get to take their pants off as well. Which you think would be kinda helpful at some point if you're going to be doing that sort of thing. I don't really know. OBVIOUSLY I sorted the censorship thing. It's a game allegedly about sex after all. If you're going to remove the selling point we might as well just go and buy actual bejewelled. At least then we could put some porn on in another tab or something.
Anyway, I'm digressing.
So, yeah. You meet a lady. You can talk to her and buy her presents to make her like you more. As you talk an energy bar is consumed, which you can replenish by giving her food items. If the bar runs out then she won't do anything until you give her some food.
So no, whilst I didn't get a raging erection at any point, I DID get a strong urge to watch Little Shop Of Horrors an awful lot.
Seriously. You'll want the soundtrack on standby. This happens a lot.
Then there's the alcohol meter as well. We'll get back to that later under the headings of creepy subtext and unfortunate implications.
So, giving gifts and successfully talking earns you points to improve your stats, which makes the date puzzles easier, but costs money which you somehow earn on dates. I'm not entirely clear how this works. Either we're running some sort of gigolo service, in which case you'd think it'd be easier to get the actual sex bit, or we've just taking the poor girls wallet when she isn't looking. Which now that I come to think of it might well explain the rather hostile reactions some of the characters give you if you fail a date. These ranging from polite dissapointment as you might expect from, say, getting rained out, all the way up to the sort of reaction you'd normally expect after your character had for some reason decided to spend the entire date explaining that the holocaust didn't really happen and then presenting the poor girl with an extra large buttplug shaped like Hitler.
A polite "No Thank You" then.
Since this reaction is independent of how close you actually get to the final score there is an odd dissonance going on that I can only rationalise in this fashion. 2 points of your target score of 2000? Clearly a Nazi sympathiser. Or something.
Anyway, you still manage to sneak a few quid of their wallet, and they'll happily go out with you again next time anyway. So there we have the unfortunate subtext that women are either shallow or greedy enough to be happily bought off with a few trinkets and a free meal. Such are the perils of the dating sim however. The only way you're going to come up with a game that nobody can read an unfortunate subtext into is not to bother making the damn game in the first place.
Not that this is going to stop me pointing such things out even whilst I'm trying to talk about how much I enjoyed the game. I'm either good at multitasking or easily distracted like that.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, conversations I think.
So, we have a bingo card of standard questions to fill out for all the girls. This is in many ways unfortunate, since I'm pretty sure if you go up to any random woman in the street and ask their age, weight and cup size the only thing touching your dick is going to be a boot moving at high velocity.
Unless you're trying to chat up Dragonball Blanka over here.
The major problem with this system however is that, as you fill out the available questions you have less to ask. And whilst each girl has a few unique questions they can ask you, mostly you get questioned on what you can remember about what they've already told you. Which would be fine if it didn't quickly turn even your most favourite character into hideous neurotic tangle of self obsession and paranoia. There are only so many times someone can ask you if you can remember how tall they are and where they went to school before you start carefully backing away and looking for the nearest exit, ya know?
What makes this system doubly frustrating is there is one character who actually overcomes it and shows you a glimpse of a game I'd pay you good money for right now. Meet Celeste, the secret alien character.
She's smiling because she just bit someone's dick off with her space vagina. Seriously, it's like the Sarlacc down there.
So, yeah. reasonably fun mechanic, just could be a little more detailed.
I should probably talk a little more about the other characters as well. It's important to note that whilst everything is drawn in an anime style, and obviously dating sims do tend to be Japanese, Hunipop is actually an American game. And when you're playing it you can't help but wonder if they're going for a straight homage to the genre, or perhaps actually going for a subtle parody. One of the more obvious things hinting at the latter option is the dialogue of Kyu, the fairy character who knows full well she's living in a dating sim and uses a lot of fourth wall breaking humor. Which I guess makes her like the Deadpool of dating games or something?
"Seduce me with your sexy puzzle skills" ACTUAL DIALOGUE.
But it's there in other ways as well. And one of these is in the theory of the Evangelion Waifu Dichotomy™. ASuka or Rei? The quiet one or the loud one? Red or Blue? Tsundere or not all dere?
Meet both the best and worst characters in the game.
All the subtlety of a giant robot jesus powered by your dead mother. But cuter.
So we have Nikki, who is quiet, introverted and has short blue hair. She's also the nerdy one so yes, OBVIOUSLY I went for her first. I've always erred on the Ayanami side of things I'm afraid. Then we have Audrey who is, I'm afraid to say, a ghastly screeching harpy caricature of everything that could possibly be wrong with a person. Sorry Asuka fans, but all the actual Tsundere appeal actually went to Nikki.
In case you're not au fait with the terminology, Tsundere is a character trait where someone is initally cold or hostile, but underneath is actually quite nice once they warm up to you. Nikki has this in spades. She's socially awkward and doesn't really know how to talk to people, but is actually quite sweet once you get know her. I can totally identify with that.
Unfortunately once you get to Audrey you discover that the thin veneer of screaming hostility isn't actually covering anything. She really is just an awful, awful person. She really is just a bitch. And an excessively loud one at that. Whilst they're clearly trying to reinforce the Evangelion Waifu Dichotomy™ with the vocal performance on these characters I can't help but think they might have pushed it a little too far. The deliveries are certainly reminiscent of the dub on Evangelion. But whilst Rei's flat monotone is brought up a little and given a bit more emotion for Nikki, for Audrey we have Asuka, cranked up on bath salts and bad meth being violently double timed by Invader Zim and, bizarrely, Miniature Fantasy Willem Dafoe from the Jimquisition. It's a voice you could saw through logs with, but only if you wanted to burn them afterwards.
I HATES Audrey. I hates her so much. But I know that I shouldn't. Because of all the characters in the game she's the only one who is clearly going to be raped and murdered before she makes it to 30. Assuming she doesn't OD or commit suicide first.
Audrey is ALL disturbing subtext. Let's talk about the alcohol meter shall we?
Please refer to this adorable puppy / bunny combination when things start getting too depressing.
The basic mechanics are pretty simple. You buy alcoholic drinks for the ladies. This fills up the meter, which in turn provides bonuses to the points you get for talking or giving them presents. And if you get them utterly pissed you get MASSIVE bonuses, plus some helpful extra points during the date itself. I shouldn't really need to point out that having a mechanic where you get girls as drunk as possible before taking them out so you can try and have sex with them is a bit... Rapey. That's some full on unfortunate subtext right there. Once you work out how the drinks really work you can't help but feel like a creepy pick up artist if you actually try and use the mechanic. But the worst is yet to come. The girls will normally only accept a drink under certain conditions. Normally if it's evening or night and they're out at the bar or something. EXCEPT Audrey. She will except any drink at any time. If you need to farm XP to level your stats, what do you do? You go get Audrey drunk at 9AM.
Oh, did I mention that each girl has a unique type of present you can get them? And that Audreys is DRUG PARAPHERNALIA? She's a drug dependant wreck, and the only reason anyone would ever actually talk to her is to use her for something. In this context, sexual favours. Of course, the game never goes into this in any overt way, but it's all THERE. Drops out of school, drinks all the time, lives to party and get high... Sucking dick in an alley for crack money seems like one of the more positive outcomes for her. But since she's played as SUCH a ghastly, unredeemable bitch you only get the constant nagging sensation that you're a terrible person for going near her when all you really want to do is level up and complete the game.
As I said, there is this pervasive sense that the game is attempting some sort of comment on the tropes of the dating sim. But sadly it never actually get's that far into anything. Audrey COULD be an interesting character if she ever stopped shouting. But she doesn't so whatever commentary one might derive from the character ultimately goes nowhere. All you can do is fill up the meters, unlock the pictures and move on to stalking the next character.
Speaking of other characters it's probably also worth mentioning that ethnicity and personality are, in fact different things. You've got to give the game some credit for actually including a bit of racial diversity, but then you have to cringe a little in how they actually handle it. If I never have to listen to Kyu's awful speeches on the subject of chocolate and yellow fever again I'll be quite relieved. And then there's the gifts. As I mentioned earlier each girl has a set of unique gift items reflecting their interests. So you can buy Nikki classic gaming accessories for example, because she likes video games. You can buy Celeste telescopes and the like because she's into space stuff. You buy Audrey drugs because you're both terrible people. You know what present I got for Kyanna, the allegedly Mexican character?
A LUCHADORE MASK.
Waiter, one sex please!
Yeah.... that's going to be an interesting date. I'm sure there are ladies out there who might like a mask in black leather, but I'm pretty sure Kyanna isn't one of them. And yes, OF COURSE you can also get her a sombrero. Why wouldn't you buy her a sombrero? How could that possibly be misconstrued? To be fair I suppose the only other character who get's strictly ethnic gifts is the allegedly Japanese one. But I'm pretty sure they ran out of ideas for the black chick after spear and voodoo mask so decided to make her an air hostess instead and save on the complaint letters. Even the Indian character is obsessed with Yoga. I mean, what else would she be into? Curry? Working in a call centre?
At this stage it's more like I'm really HOPING that the whole thing is a meta-comment on representation in games. Because otherwise that implies someone genuinely thinks it's a good idea to buy someone a sudoku book as a present just because they look asian. And I'm not sure even episode 1 was THAT racist.
So.... yeah. bit unfortunate no matter how it's lamp-shaded. Also a bit weird how they think character diversity is best served by half the available cast being defined simply as sporty and not white. Seriously. We have a mexican keep fit fanatic, a black tennis enthusiast and an indian yoga instructor. It's a little weird. I mean, sure the Japanese character is a bit of a slacker, but it's not like asian is particularly distinguishable from anything else when drawn in an anime style since everyone is six foor tall with massive tits and huge eyes. If they didn't make such a point of telling you I don't think I'd have noticed.
So, anyway. You meet the various characters, and whilst the game isn't exactly an in depth exploration of emotion and personality they're all sketched out just enough to be recognizable. This is a puzzle game rather than a visual novel after all. So you increase their affection by completing rounds of match 3, and as you fill in that meter you get sent a few pictures of an increasingly risqué nature. By which I mean the third one might have nipples and / or pants. You only get 3. Then when you've maxed out the gauge you can take them on a night date and attempt to get them into bed.
Whilst I don't really know much about the whole sex and relationships thing I do have to ask: Does it not strike anyone else as weird that nobody in this game fucks during the day?
Seriously. If you want to get to the sexing part you can only do it at night. Not in the afternoon. Not even in the evening. Not even once you've already unlocked the final naughty picture and could therefore be said to be officially involved with the young lady in question. Only at night. Do they have vampire underpants? Do their vaginas turn into pumpkins during the day? What's the deal here? It just seems a little... Odd.
Anyway, onto the main event. The sexing itself. This part is weird. In the dates you have a set number of moves in which to achieve the required score. When it comes to the actual fucking you're doing a similar thing, but are trying to fill a constantly depleting meter as quickly as possible. You can't actually loose, but you have to keep making matches as quickly as possible. And whilst in the dates your matches are met with enthusiastic or encouraging quips, here it's all grunts and moans. This has a couple of interesting effects. Firstly,since you're having to concentrate on the game board to keep making matches you don't actually pay any attention to the image of your date stood next to the game board in her pants trying to be encouraging. I know her bra will dissapear at some point, but I couldn't tell you when or how. Secondly there is course the side effect that if you can get into a good rhythm making matches you can also try and play a tune on your grunting compatriot like your trying to make cheap techno rather than having an intimate moment. Especially if you get a good cascade happening and all the noises start to overlap.
And of course there's the fact that even if you're ambidextrous there's no way in hell you're actually gonna be able to masturbate to this bit. I can do left handed fine. But not whilst having to play an intense round of rapid fire bejewelled. It's gotta be more than a little off-putting.
Once you've completed this part you are rewarded with one final picture and then... that's it. One scene and that's your lot. No further perversions to pursue or story lines to unlock. There's the secret characters, but no ultimate harem mode or anything. You can repeat the sexing part, but it doesn't actually do anything additional in the game once it's been done the first time. And I said it's hardly suitable for other forms of.... Recreation.
Pic unrelated?
So yeah. It's not necessarily the most in depth game. It has a fun gimmick (puzzles + dating sim lite = naughty pictures), but doesn't really develop beyond this. And perhaps the most interesting question is simply: Should it?
See, whilst I can totally see how there's an awful of unfortunate subtext and weird attitudes towards sex and relationships I keep coming back to the same point. Is the way this game handles sex actually any weirder than the way other games handle violence? I mean I can sit here pointing out how some of the mechanics combine into something that's a bit uncomfortable when you think about it, then alt-tab over to hyper murder simulator 5000 and start machine gunning down anything that moves. You can't tell me that's actually better than a bit of consensual promiscuity.
I suppose at the end of the day Huniepop leaves itself in a bit of a difficult middle ground. It's not in depth enough to really get into doing anything interesting with the characters (narratively speaking at least), and the game play is so decoupled from the actual sexual elements that's not really going to make effective pornography. Especially when you consider that since you're buying it from the internet it's going to need more than just naughty pictures to really compete with everything else on offer.
GUESS HOW MANY DILDOS!
But as a relatively light hearted puzzle game with a NSFW frisson I think it succeeds fairly well. Certainly good enough that I'd be interested in seeing it expanded on.
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