![]() Each game’s interface is set up to feel just a bit overwhelming, as one might if she was trying to keep four or five men happy at once, accepting compliments and managing her schedule in order to see each of them. The fun is supposed to come from the fantasy.Īlso, otome games aren’t really intimacy simulators they actually strive to make the player feel desired by multiple men. Though the simulation is painstakingly detailed, it’s still an artifice. It’s rare for classic otome games to employ any irony, unlike fun, comedic simulators like Hatofel Boyfriend, in which the player woos and dates pigeons. Playing an otome game is an incredibly lonely experience, as the fantastic and imaginative environments never allow you to forget that you are interacting with a developer’s image of an attractive man. Otome, after developers reflected on the games’ appeal to adult women, began to include situations like navigating a relationship with a coworker, or letting a guy down easy after two awkward dates. Surprisingly, otome’s primary demographic became women in their mid-20s, and the narratives of the games changed from teen dating sims to scenarios set in the adult world. ![]() It’s difficult to find comprehensive, reputable sources on the development of otome games, but academic Hyeshin Kim wrote about the trend in her cultural essay, “ Women’s Games in Japan: Gendered Identity and Narrative Construction.” According to Kim, otome games were developed, originally, by an all female team who intended the product to take off with adolescent girls in Japan. A great many involve different paranormal storylines, fantasy characters, mythological creatures, monsters and/or aliens. Some are based in workplaces, others in academic settings. More complex games open up a chat function once the player chooses a character to “date”, and that character checks in with the player via text, the way an actual man would.Īll otome games are remarkably similar, following the same pattern - choose your fictional guy, trade automated responses regularly, change partners if you want - but the games differ in environments. The primary objective of otome games is to navigate social structures and eventually choose a NPC “boyfriend” after being presented with several options. Otome is a still-emerging genre of mobile gaming which allows the user to roleplay as a character, typically female.
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