Boyfriend Dungeon – -apkrig
The protagonist of the Kickstarter-funded visual short story Boyfriend Dungeon from the Kitfox Games studio is practically at the starting line. Anxious, uneasy, unkissed, he arrives on a holiday job with his cousin in a seaside resort. If he comes home from it in love, it’s up to you.
However, the local world is influenced and shaped by one peculiarity – some people can turn into weapons, which gives rise to a logical symbiosis, where the gunman joins together with a swordsman, a user, and with the vision of extra income, they go hunting together for monsters. An interesting (though not entirely original) idea.
Since, of course, from the principle of the matter it is a relatively contact activity, it is no exception when it starts to sparkle between the blade and its holder on a non-professional level. Which, in other words, means that while in many other games, stabbing with an ice dagger takes place into the enemy, here the situation is … a hair different.
Like butter
So to be clear, it won’t be that hot again. Boyfriend Dungeon is definitely not a pornographic or even erotic game, and although several of the offered relationships can be traced to a slightly more advanced physical one, the game usually only weakly indicates this, blows out one sentence and continues. So if you like a more spicy scene in your visual short stories and you were looking forward to showing your halberd to your halberd, look elsewhere. Do the same if you are LGBT against them.
And what hurts me the most is the same, so do it if you’re looking for a really good game.
But in turn. On the contrary, what you get is seven storylines, one for each available weapon partner, which, despite the supernatural deployment, actually remain completely grounded. And that’s not bad. Problems and situations that most likely came into contact with in some form will be addressed. Divorce, tolerance, standing on their own two feet, recognition in the eyes of parents, depression, loneliness and so on.
But … although the game is not sympathetically afraid of flirting with social commentary, there is one unpleasant thing in the way of it cutting into the live. Unfortunately, the quality of the script and the writing itself is average at best.
Several problems can be observed. First of all, the game is too short (completely finished with all the relationships to the maximum in less than six hours) to be able to meaningfully draw the personality and story background of seven characters.
There is no time or space to build a relationship. Romance seems terribly hurried, empty, and as a result they can only be trusted with difficulty. With the set range, it would make much more sense to include one or two lines of reference, which would, however, receive due attention, instead of seven plastic theaters without depth.
Sure, I’m not trying to pretend that in reality you can’t sit down with someone so much that you barely end up in the park after a few hours doing an activity for which you wouldn’t really be praised in Sunday school because you just couldn’t help yourself. . But this is how practically everyone behaves this way. That’s not the way to go, and if the game is profiled on one side as a realistic insight into the real issue, but at the same time lets everyone fall to your feet immediately, it’s like a fist to the eye.
Plus, shouldn’t the hero happen to be timid and inexperienced? The game will show this in one of the first scenes by the fact that you are not able to slowly even creak the greeting, but three screens further you are already flirting like the king of all skirts (trousers). Character development full of nuances as fine as a demolition hammer, just what’s true.
One way
The interactivity of the story half of the game and the associated player freedom is minimal. For each counterpart, you can choose whether you will be interested in a platonic or, say, more advanced form of relationship, but once you choose, the rest of the story will end on the tracks without major switches. Dialogue choices are usually variations of the same message, the plot does not branch significantly and the possibility to style oneself with the help of one’s replicas into a role and then to observe the reactions of the surroundings does not exist.
In addition, although you can choose one chosen or chosen and stay with the others only on a friendly level, you can also wrap all the characters around your finger around your finger with an unperturbed expression on one step and … it won’t change anything at all.
The game can’t turn out badly or at least not unconditionally well, the conclusion is always the same in its tone. Which, on the one hand, reduces his strength and, on the other hand, reduces the replayability to practically zero. In the world here, not only is everyone immediately angry with you with undying love, there is no jealousy yet? Come on.
Virtually the only bastion of negativity is the first-rate annoying antagonist. And it must be said that it is actually well written from a certain point of view, because it got on my nerves as it should be. So much so that after a while I just started ignoring him, but the game won’t let you go. It forces you to respond to the news and the relentless arrival of someone who would, in fact, end up immediately ignoring – and worse at police – reacting at best. Why? It’s just another black dot for the script and a blow to the credibility of the whole adventure.
As a result, while watching the closing credits, I didn’t feel like I would remember any of the characters or scenes in another week, because I didn’t care. Katarze not found, the actors roared around without much excitement.
With one exception. And that’s the seventh partner, the cat. True, cats are better society than many people, so it shouldn’t surprise me, but Pocket Boy is probably the most likable character in Boyfriend Dungeon and his casually crafted line about moving from distrustful vigilance to a magical moment when comes to caress himself, I really enjoyed. Although, of course, to some extent, my bias stems from the fact that I am a completely feline human, but Pocket is simply divine.
To the depths
Relationship development in Boyfriend Dungeon is firmly connected with the action half of the game. You will take your partners in their blade-like form with you to two twelve-storey dungeons, and with their help you will crush a crowd of monsters. This brings you closer, opens a continuation of the story that you wake up, then back to the underground and so on.
The event itself will be reminiscent of, for example, Hades or Curse of the Dead Gods. However, although it does not feel bad to the touch, it is relatively fast and smooth, you will soon realize that the resemblance to the mentioned seeds is really purely visual. The fight here is primitive and absolutely simple.
As already mentioned, there are a total of seven weapons, each gaining increasing levels and new abilities, but in practice, unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what you have in hand. Both dungeons without a snag and regardless of whether you are waving a sword or a scythe, you run by constantly pressing the mouse in the rhythm of left-left-right with an occasional space bar when something happens to approach a dangerous distance. Too bad, the potential was definitely bigger here.
In addition, there are few dungeons. So not that there is a danger that the action will captivate you and you will want it more – this could really only happen if Boyfriend Dungeon is your first action game in life. The point is, the moment the boss of the second dungeon falls, you will have a fully improved one, maybe two weapons.
But if you decide to catch up to everyone, because, as I mentioned, the process in their storylines is locked up, there is no other option than to return slavishly to the once-cleaned floors and simply bluntly love love. Which, since the action here really isn’t so catchy that you want to deal with it longer than necessary, isn’t the sheer essence of fun.
Why play it?
Bottom line, when I look back at the experience the game was able to provide me, I can’t help but ask a subtitle question. Why should I choose this?
There are far more engaging and moving visual short stories, much more sophisticated action games and significantly deeper and smarter social comments full of more refined and striking symbolism. So what should be the hook on which the reviewed title is to catch you? That he does everything at once, but none of it really? That’s no win. That he openly approaches sexuality, LGBT and gender? Commendable, but the theme alone does not make a good game.
No, the Boyfriend Dungeon is average at best. Full of form, but without really interesting content. And I’m still quite forgiving, because the creators let me pet a cat.
