Random Flavors of Pocky #12: Girl Get Games: If Dating Were This Easy, Everyone Would Be In a Relationship
(Warning: Some of the links may be ‘Not Safe For Work’, and will be marked as such. Click at your own risk.)
Raise your hand if you remember the old ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books from when you were a kid.
Now imagine that the choices you make, instead of leading you to treasure or doom, lead you to either have a successful or unsuccessful date.
That is the world of the girl get (also known as ‘galge’) game.
If you’re a fan of anime or console games, then there’s a good chance you’ve at least heard of one of these games. Several have been made into anime series (Kanon, Air, Tokimeki Memorial, etc.) and others have been reviewed (or bashed, depending on your point of view) by various websites.
In general, you play the protagonist, who can be anyone ranging from the ultra-generic nice guy cipher, to a raging sadist bent on subjugating the women in the game to his will, to everything in-between. The play style usually follows one of a few common templates:
1. Visual novel/Adventure game – the visual novel is the play style that most closely matches the ‘choose your own adventure’ pattern. As you go through the game, choices will occasionally pop up that will determine how the rest of the game goes. These games tend to have several endings, including ‘bad’ ones, and often only have one ‘path’ that will work for their specific ending. Examples of this style are Kanon, the To Heart series, and a lot of adult girl get games.
2. Dating simulator – this game has some of the ‘choose your own adventure’ elements, but focuses more on your character’s statistics. The girls in the game have prerequisites you must meet before you can get their ending, and in some cases, before you can even talk to them. Making the right choices when it comes to improving these stats, as well as during other times (like on dates) is vital to winning the game. The most well-known of this play style is the Tokimeki Memorial series from Konami.
3. “Simulator” – this is a more recent (say the past ten or so years) development in galge games. While there are still goals to achieve and multiple endings in most cases, the way the player gets to the end of the game is through game play that is decidedly different than the first two types. This can be anything from a role-playing game (like the game Brave Soul (link is worksafe, game is not)), a combat simulator combined with an adventure game (the Sakura Wars series), or even a ‘touching’ simulator (the
How many of you out there have played one of these games? If you have, what have you played? If not, are you curious about them, and why?
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November 27th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I’ve played a few. Admittedly they aren’t ones you would ever see on the Wal-Mart shelves. I enjoyed them, but I the better ones, the higher quality ones, I can’t play due to not having the needed console (i.e. PS2) or not being able to read Japanese (something I’m struggling to change).
I don’t recall the names of the ones I have played since it’s been a couple years since then. The only one that really ever impressed me the most was a simple one on newsgrounds. SimDate I think it was called. Simple, but entertaining. It would also be a great place to start for those curious about how galge work. It would fall more into the second category as you need to be able to defend the girl your after against a rival highschool student.
But yes, I’ve played them and would certainly play more if I were able to find more translated versions or once I am able to read Japanese better.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:59 am
[…] the tastefully named Richard Kim told you on Tuesday, the Gal-game genre tends to fall into three major categories, each filled with dozens upon dozens of very similar games. As with any overcrowded genre, each […]
December 5th, 2007 at 2:45 am
Squib: I would guess (you don’t have to confirm this, of course) you’ve played the games brought over by Peach Princess, which is how a lot of the U.S. fans first experience galge. As for the SimDate, I remember seeing that years ago and thinking, “Not a bad attempt.” I believe the creator has done more since then.