dating sim
English edit
Noun edit
dating sim (plural dating sims)
- (video games) A social simulation game centered on building and maintaining a romantic relationship with one or more NPCs.
- Hyponyms: galge (male player character, female love interests), harem game, otome game (female player character, male love interests)
- 2004 September, “Dating Lessons With Anime Play?”, in CPU: Computer Power User, page 9:
- Unlike typical Western games, the goal in Japanese dating sims is to attain true love rather than defeat level bosses.
- 2015, Nicholas Ware, “Interative romance and button-mashing sex: Gameplay design and video games' Nice Guy Syndrome”, in Evan W. Lauteria, Matthew Wysocki, editors, Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games[1], page 234:
- Tokimeki Memorial was hugely influential not just in kickstarting the entire dating sim genre in Japan but also in the way its gameplay influenced the love mechanics I've already described in Persona 4 and Dragon Age: Origins.
- 2021 December, Edwin Evans-Thirwell, “Kitfox Games”, in Edge, page 93:
- Short had enjoyed playing dating sims in grad school, but grew frustrated by their focus on the desires of cishet men. "I was like, 'Ah, I gotta make a game where you can date whoever you want, because this is ridiculous'," she recalls.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:dating sim.