I do love a bit of controversy. Its my nature thanks to my profession as an artist. I enjoy seeing what riles people up and making sure I put my two cents into the whole situation to give my work that edge, to get people talking.
2014 was a particularly big year for the role of females in videogames thanks to the whole GamerGate debacle (feel free to Google it if you aren't familiar with it). The argument that set the gaming world on fire for the majority of the year, the effects of which are still felt today as the embers slowly flicker away underneath the surface, waiting to ignite into a fiery inferno again the next time the role of women or videogame journalists in videogame culture rears its ugly head.
As such, I feel its only right for me to introduce you to a recently released anime puzzle game created specifically for an adult audience, you read right kids, this is not for you.
HuniePop could be best described as Candy Crush meets Rule34 (Google at your own risk), yeah, that's the kind of thing we are getting at here.
The majority of the actual gameplay is a match 3 puzzle game, where if you successfully acquire a points prerequisite in under a set number of moves you succeed. Congratulations, give yourself a shiny and stand on your winners podium.
But there is a lot more going on underneath the surface of HuniePop. You see, the game is also a dating simulator, with the goal of the game to bed all of the 10 glamorous ladies the game offers to you.
Between puzzle sessions you must converse with your lady of choice, find out her interests and learn important things about her such as age, height and err...cup size. You buy her gifts, get her drunk and generally flirt with her to your hearts content. Once you get on with your new lady friend well enough you can take her on a date, where the match 3 puzzling comes into play. Each successful date nets you an increasingly revealing selfie from your date.
Once enough successful dates are had she will come back to your place and, well you do the deed, unlocking you a fully nude photo of your latest conquest and allowing you to move onto your next target.
It would be all to easy to jump on the prudish bandwagon about how this game is a prime example of female objectification, to state that it says that women are no good for any other purpose than to provide sex to a man.
But even though those statements could be correct, do you know what, HuniePop is actually a damn good game in its own right. A statement that even surprises me as I type it I have to say.
You see it all lies in the incredibly addictive match 3 puzzle sections.
This is no simple Candy Crush wannabe. Its a game that requires patience, focus, strategy and just in case, a box of Kleenex.
These match 3 puzzles are actually reasonably challenging experiences, and the reward you get for completing them only gives you even more incentive to actually complete them.
I approach the game similar to a collectible card game, that I don't want to stop playing until I have collected every picture of every girl in the game. Its not a healthy collection I know, but its one of the best motivators in a game I have seen in a while.
So to all you anime fans who are after a puzzle game that gives you a reward you can take your time to appreciate, HuniePop should be your first port of call. As for those of you who think this kind of content is wrong and shouldn't be shown, don't play it, don't look it up, forget its entire existence. But for the rest of you, its a great budget title...even if its not exactly safe for work.
HuniePop – 7/10
+Incredibly Addictive Gameplay
+Well Drawn Anime Characters & Environments
+The Rewards
-Occasionally Awkward Dialogue
-Repetitive
-No Replay Value
