31) Boyfriend Dungeon (2021)

Developed by Kitfox Games after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Boyfriend Dungeon is a combination visual novel style dating sim and rougelite dungeon crawler. It's an interesting combo that answers the age old question: Can I fuck my sword? The answer, unsurprisingly, is a resounding yes. To boil it down in such a manner actually does a disservice to the game, which has a surprisingly nuanced approach to the subject matter, but it does serve as a bit of a litmus test. If the concept disgusts you, then this isn't the game for you. If the concept intrigues or, dare I say, excites you, then I have great news.

We begin by creating our character, which is an admittedly are bones experience, and are given the option of choosing our pronouns. Afterward, we find ourselves arriving in Verona Beach, spending our summer living in our cousin's apartment. Our cousin wastes no time in providing exposition, explaining the things that would be common knowledge in this world, but still somehow unknown to our naive proxy. In this world, there are two types of people, the kind who can turn into weapons, and the kind that cannot. There also exists places that have become dungeons, or dunj, which manifest a person's fears into monsters. A popular dating activity involves a weapon person being wielded by a non weapon person to explore these dungeons, and our cousin has already set up a meeting for us with a friend of his that is meant to be strictly platonic, though it can become more. As we progress through the story, we begin finding weapons that have been damaged and locked away, a disgusting type of kidnapping and abuse, which leads to the greater mystery of discovering who's behind these incidents.

If all of that sounds complicated and convoluted, it's because it is. The game explains it in a very matter of fact way that sets up our gameplay loop nicely. We go on a date, explore a randomized dungeon, fight a boss, then meet new dateables. Each character we meet brings a new combat style with them, and furthering our relationship with them allows us to choose how to augment these styles with a rudimentary skill tree. It's fun experimenting with the different combat styles, and the narrative supports this experimentation with your dateable characters knowing one another and being completely fine with you exploring these other relationships. I want to note that the game does an excellent job of allowing the player to pursue platonic or romantic relationships with any or (almost) all of the characters, and stresses the importance of consent and communication.

The characters are well written and diverse. Despite the name, you can romance men, women, and non-binary characters. In addition, the game explores and supports poly relationships. It doesn't force any of this down your throat, but leaves the options available, which is a nice bit of representation. There is one "dateable" character that gave me pause, as there is a literal cat you can spend your time with, but thankfully this is handled as more befriending the cat rather than, well, you know.

Dating sims hinge on their cast of characters, and while the characters here are a bit one dimensional, they are written in a way that seems real and mostly likable. Each of the characters has a flaw or personal issue that, with the help of our character, they get to explore. Much like in life, the resolution to their problems isn't always cut and dry, and can often be messy, but the cast remains fun and enjoyable. For our part, exploring these relationships and dungeons helps our character overcome their own shortcomings. While initially conceived as a self-insert character, the developers made the smart decision of having our character have issues and problems to overcome, which is refreshing to see in the genre.

Ultimately, the game comes off as a fun fusion of two seemingly opposed genres. It would be easy to make a visual novel with a shitty rougelite attached, or a rougelite with a shitty visual novel, but the game actually does a good job of excelling at both. While it doesn't quite innovate at either, it blends the two into a fun, if a bit short, experience that wears its heart on its sleeve and certainly forges its own identity. If you're a fan of either genre, there's a lot to like, and I can see it being a fun gateway for either genre into the other. While I could lament the game's shortcomings, I found the experience as a whole to be incredibly fun and easy to pick up and play in short bursts or settle in for longer sessions. I would love to see the ideas and concepts presented explored further, especially if the same love and care is put into it.