Dating simulators, or dating sims for short, are romance role-playing games. Users typically pursue one of several eligible candidates with the goal of ending up with them, in whatever sense that may be married, going steady, etc. These games are usually in visual-novel format with certain mini-game elements. Overall, there are four types of dating sims: The game itself is pretty standard: In order to understand why this game stands out among many, we have to look at the dating sims already out there, and their downsides.

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Characteristics Screenshot from the original PC Engine version of Tokimeki Memorial illustrating the complex system of statistics standard of the genre. In a typical dating sim, the player controls a male avatar surrounded by female characters. The gameplay involves conversing with a selection of girls, attempting to increase their internal “love meter” through correct choices of dialogue. The game lasts for a fixed period of game time, such as one month or three years.

This gives the games more replay value, since the player can focus on a different girl each time, trying to get a different ending. Dating sims such as Tokimeki Memorial often revolve almost entirely around relationship-building, usually featuring complex character interactions and branching dialogue trees , and often presenting the player’s possible responses word-for-word as the player character would say them.

Dating sims such as Tokimeki Memorial, and some role-playing games with similar relationship based mechanics to the genre such as Persona , often give choices that have a different number of associated “mood points” which influence a player character’s relationship and future conversations with a non-player character.