Video games at the best of times tend to always be extremely exciting. Depending on your preferences that is. So it goes without saying that some of the most extreme games out there will not be for everyone, but when it is a match made in heaven, then it is bound to captivate a certain kind of audience and player.
If you happen to be on the same page as myself as a keen horror enthusiast, explaining what the appeal is on all things horror erotica will not be a requirement. If anything, you are probably already familiar enough with the three games we are exploring in depth in this piece. So for today, this is an article aimed at everyone else who either passes on ever exploring said mature dating sims and why you should give them a chance. You may be surprised with what lays in wait for you.
On that note, please acknowledge that this article and the games mentioned here are all explicit experiences. These are 18+ titles, so if you are a minor, please kindly exit out of this page.
A dating sim, only the main aim is to survive your date
Are only adults left in the room now? Great, so let’s talk about survival horror. Survival horror as a subgenre for video games is already well represented, what with popular titles such as Resident Evil, Parasite Eve and Silent Hill immediately coming to mind.
Survival horror in dating sims, let alone in any given visual novel is like a needle in haystack. In fact, a stand out example of such a title actually only recently released in 2022 with The Price of Flesh. In it, the player gets kidnapped and auctioned off to one of three potential buyers who want to use you for their own gratification. Your goal is to not die at the hands of your perpetrator, succumb to your environment, or even manage to obtain its unique ending achievement of turning the tables on them.
If you were to dig even deeper, the developer of said title is Gatobob, one third of the team who made one of the most infamously macabre dating sims to date – Boyfriend to Death.
Boyfriend to Death features many elements that The Price of Flesh carries over that was first established with this initial creation of theirs. This is not only relevant narratively with plenty of call-backs for existing fans of Gatobob’s works to appreciate, but also in the way that they all function. In each of these titles, meters are used to track player’s success rate of getting out alive. Since these games are rampant in the sheer amount of possible bad endings (Boyfriend to Death 2: Fresh Blood’s Ren route contains 27 alone), keeping tabs on what choices affect both the main character meter (life/sanity) and relationship values are where your chances of escape can be found. This is where the value in the series’ challenges can be seen.
Furthermore, the latter meter type tends to be a hidden tracker depending on the guy, a design choice that further instils the horrors of it all when your fate is only visibly decided before the dead end screen hits you. Boyfriend to Death simply functions as one of the most effective horror stories you can actually interact with. It’s a psychological horror that challenges the player unlike anything seen in the dating sim genre before it.
On that note, Boyfriend to Death really owns and makes proper use of the visual novel medium. It did what Doki Doki Literature Club would get overwhelming praise for years before its release, such as plenty of interface screwing such as screen shakes to further perpetuate the tension of each of its most harrowing scene. It also nicely ties into the typical functions of said medium, such as how it introduces the player character’s name due to the main character being too post-drunk to recall it.
While it is both horrifying and comedic in nature, the title is a downer of an experience, and one of the first of its kind. It is completely ruthless in its conclusions, especially with its first game that actually contains fates way worse than death even if you survive. The sequel improves this with way more possible outs for using your wits. Boyfriend to Death is sheer nightmare fuel, but for the right player it’s more like a dream come true.
A murder sim that contains one of the greatest revelations of its medium
It goes without saying that the above example does well to perfectly capture one of the core aspects to any visual novel, but one that tends to frequently underdeliver – your choices have consequences. Nowhere is this any more apt than within Dead Wishes, an indie dating sim that also challenges the player to find the best path possible from a diverse and wide range of love interests. With the primary goal being the simple seeking out and obtaining of the best possible endings with each of the many love interests, Dead Wishes manages to flip this core ideology on its head by its final route. This is because the real intention of the game never was actually about you adapting to the situation at all.
Dead Wishes starts off scary enough with a personality test to pair you up with one of its romanceable characters as the most appropriate matches – only, that’s the first lie of the game. The game jumps from being macabre and chaotic to surprisingly wholesome depending on the route, but each one only adds more questions than answers until the climax hits. Dead Wishes is what the very best of the genre has to offer when it offers so much substance in its themes and narrative progression, asking philosophical questions that are layered in existentialism meanings.
Dead Wishes is no walk in the park like the other games here – it is meant to make the player feel uncomfortable and tense, always on the edge of their seat as characters’ motivations are eventually revealed that tends to always want to use the player character for their own personal goals. You never know what exactly you will get when the majority of its characters mask their intentions, and it’s made all the more dramatic by the end stretch when the wider implications are finally unveiled.
If you do intend to play Dead Wishes, its free Strategy Guide is well worth reading through for key discussion and notes on the characters’ routes, personalities and storylines. It’s just as eye-opening as playing the actual game is.
Cosy and horror in perfect harmony
Courtin’ Cowboys offers something different to what tends to be the norm in the genre. As another dark dating sim intended to be played in short bursts, the gameplay loop of Courtin’ Cowboys is exactly that – it’s a looping of experiencing the very same day but experiencing it in every way possible. The amount of variables to consider here is astounding for such a small game. The core means of progressing through the game can only be tracked via the in-game achievements list, and there is quite a lot of events and consequences to experience in the tiny, cosy town of Summerfair.
And right there we have our very first major merit to Courtin’ Cowboys’ design and appeal. Everything about it at face value is adorable – its retro themed music, pixel art, colourful illustrations, eccentric character designs and overall atmosphere is pretty wholesome. The majority of the first run-ins with characters are in fact meet-cutes, but that gets thrown out the window when love rivals form or secrets start to stack up instead of your body count that reveals the dark underbelly of what the game has to offer.
There are a lot of tallies players are able to keep track of. Body count is one thing, both player and NPC deaths are also easily increasable depending on how you converse with others, with plenty of discussions and choices biting back at you later on down the line. Effectively building up rapport with the named folks of the town will hint to the wider truths involving the secrets of the town, character revelations and crime happenings.
Conclusion
I feel it safe to say that I severely doubt the majority of those reading this have ever heard of the games we have discussed today. If you happen to have a mere passing interest in any of them, I implore you to explore them further. It’s worth all the nightmare fuel and yandere love interests. But what I wanted to demonstrate most is the missed opportunities of the most popular “dark” parodies out there – think of the spoof dating sim Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim that could have touched upon these more macabre notes since, you know, you’re wooing serial killers!
So there you have it, three major reasons to give erotic horror a spin – do it for the challenges, unforgettably immersive storytelling, or the juxtaposition of horrifying content against a cosy design.
