I know the game is old, but holy cow was it a crazy ride. I feel like not enough people are aware of its existence, which is kind of a shame. So, for those of us that are familiar with this bizarre fever-dream of a dating sim, wanna talk about it?

Hatoful Boyfriend is so good. I'd recommend it to anyone who already enjoys visual novels/dating sims, or is looking to get into them.

On the surface, the story sounds ridiculous. Human girl goes to a school for gifted birds, and your goal is to romance one of them? It's so silly! But damn once you get into it... It's full of humour, heartbreak, and some dark af moments. Anyone who skipped HB because it sounds daft is really missing out.

It's well worth playing through all the routes to unlock the "Bad Boy's Love" route. All the insane background story you learn there is something else. Some of the main routes are dark and gut wrenching enough (Nageki's path gets me every. Damn. Time. T_T I love him), but BBL is something else.

Come for the silly pigeon dating. Stay for the dark and gut punching lore.

With all the VNs and dating sims popping up on Switch, I really want a Hatoful Boyfriend port. I'd buy it for the fourth time.

I’m pretty sure it started out as a way to satirically make fun of other dating sims, but that took a sharp left turn with BBL lol. It’s been a minute since I played, but didn’t the original game get an update a while back so you could romance additional characters? I’ll have to replay it just for that

Also, Holiday Star was incredible and inspired me to read Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is apparently a well-known classic in Japan. One of these days I really need to dive into more of HB’s related media and adaptations. The world building is high-key fascinating and I kind of want to write a story inspired by the bird/human schism in the HB universe

Yeah, it started as an April Fools joke and parody of those types of games, but got expanded further. Pretty crazy seeing what it became!

I didn't know Night on the Galactic Railroad was something that existed outside of HB. I'll have to check it out myself if I can. :o

The world building is one of the things I love about these games. The twists in the story and details about the world make it such a memorable series. I think the Steam version of HB comes with some digital manga and other extras.

Honestly, I'd love to see an anime adaptation.

Well, I got a Steam gift card for Christmas and I now know exactly what to spend it on! I had no idea the Steam version came with extras, that’s awesome!

I’m slowly but surely learning Japanese, so maybe one day I’ll be able to appreciate the audio dramas. One can only dream...

Yeah, and Holiday Star too. They can be bought alone, both have Collector's Editions with the extras. Or if you already bought the games the extras are available as an upgrade DLC.

Both games are available as a bundle with their respective extras, and are stupid cheap right now in the Steam sale. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/243/Hatoful_Boyfriend_Complete_Pack/

You had me at “stupid cheap” lol. Consider it bought! Along with a handful of other discounted games that had been sitting in my wishlist for a while. Alas, Dream Daddy was not on sale and shall remain unpurchased until that changes.

I look forward to getting back into this game. Tangentially related, but I just remembered that since I started learning crochet, I could totally make character amigurumi one of these days. I could crochet a little Okosan! The future is looking bright

Haha enjoy!

I've had Dream Daddy on my Switch wishlist for ages now. Never once seen it go on sale. :( I'll pick it up if it finally does, but I'm starting to think it won't happen. Might end up giving up and just buying it when I can spare the money.

Ah cool! :D I've done needle felt before, and want to make a little Nageki. >w<

Has anyone else here gone through the grief of trying to get a friend to play Hatoful Boyfriend but never succeeding because they always say something like "LOL, pigeon dating sim? Get outta here, mate!" even when you hint at there being more than meets the eye? On the rare chance someone does show interest, you never hear confirmation that they got around to playing it.

Also, a shout-out to my favourite birds, Kazuaki and Nageki.

It kind of reminded me of anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica where you start off with like ooh that's cute lol before the needle drops and then you're like whaaaaaaat---

Yeah, I haven't played any other dating sims but I heard good things about Hatoful Boyfriend so I played it and it was a fantastic journey. Memory's poor, so I don't remember names. I liked the energetic white dove one and the grumpy one. :'D

Now that you mention it, it really does follow a similar progression to Madoka. I only watched it many years after its initial broadcast, but I'm sure a lot of people lost their minds back on release when that episode hit. If we could get even a small fraction of the people who've watched Madoka to play this game, I wonder what their opinions on it would be.

There must be a genre of cute turning into dark, creepy cluster!@*# to explain series like that. :')

I thought Hatoful Boyfriend was pretty popular though. Could be wrong. :0

Oh it was popular alright, back when it first came out. Every one in my department was talking about it. (Granted there were less than 50 of us and we're all suckers for obscure good stuff, so who knows..)

Then because it's a VN it didn't really get the attention it really deserves. Then Doki Doki Literature Club came along and everyone called it revolutionary like it was the first ever piece of media to do the cutesy -> dark thing. eyeroll What DDLC had over HB is that the former is pretty short and you can get through everything in maybe 2 hours. HB on the other hand is way longer.