Many of the choices in the game involve physical closeness between the player character and Nilson. Commercial dating sims are designed around the bargain between player and game that, if the player scores enough points, the game will reward that player with increasingly sexy anime pictures (another patriarchal system, churning forward) 2. Untitled Dating Sim exists in a subversive place in video games because it deals exclusively with non-violent exchanges and forgoes the explicit promise of sexual gratification found in the majority of dating sims. It is an un-ironic work designed to upset the imperialist/capitalist values found in mainstream gameplay. The work sometimes stumbles into self-parody, but ultimately is a way toward meaningful connection. The three fragmented identities are divided into Barista Nilson, Art School Nilson, and Boy Nilson, and each is a critical, often humorous, often earnest self-reflection. It’s a game best played in bed with your friends. A queer video game, I consider Untitled Dating Sim an interactive self-portrait and intense act of sharing. All other answers in the initial questionnaire are recorded in variables except for this one. The game asks for a player’s gender, a video game trope, and then doesn’t record the answer. Untitled Dating Sim begins with a questionnaire. Players are given many options throughout the dates, and while ultimately contrived and controlled, the game allows players the choice to act kind, flirty, or cold toward Nilson. Inspired by dating sims, I developed a game where the player dates three iterations of Nilson. Stemming from visual novels is the niche Japanese genre of dating sims, which vary from the playfully absurd to the pornographacation of characters of all genders and ages 1. By their nature, visual novels are designed to be quieter and more contemplative compared to games in other genres, dealing more with relationships between characters than centering around violent action sequences. It is up to the game creator to assign these exchanges moralities, in-game values, and meanings, to give them flavor, inject them with violence, cleverness, primordial energy. Video games are made up of designed exchanges between player and game. Players follow the logic of visual novels to create the possibility for love/connection rather than an exchange between player and game aestheticized by violence. This work considers the abstractions of human bodies in games as more than just a means to score points through (a patriarchal notion).
Using game genre as metaphor, I put a digital avatar of myself in a series of vulnerable positions for Untitled Dating Sim.