It renewed my interest in visual novels in general and eventually led me to the mobile market to further whet my palate.For those not aware, “otome gēmu” (pronounced “OH-TOE-MEH”) means “girl game” and is basically a dating simulation in which you play as a female character romancing various available male (and sometimes female) characters.It’s like backwards-engineering a narrative database -- and you may be surprised to find how much the story changes when you focus on a different partner each time. Hakuoki is a period piece, taking place in the Bakumatsu period of Japan at the time of civil unrest between the Emperor and the Shogun. Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all, but their number one criteron make sense to us: an emphasis in profile questions on mutual interests and honest self-representation over looks and sexual prowess.I suddenly felt silly for not pursuing the idea earlier and was spurred on to give them a go. I knew (rightly, it turns out) that the stories would have the same main female character and the same basic archetypes of male characters.

Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.” Sex in adult visual novels isn’t fairly treated in their own medium, either.

While all you need to be “good at” is reading and making choices -- don’t worry if you don’t normally play games -- there are some important things to know about how these games work.

Generally you meet several characters, and will have to choose one to court.

In Japan, dating sim characters are referred to as “capturable” -- whether that means you capture their hearts or their bodies depends on the game.

But you’ll need to focus, as playing the field can result in an unsatisfying ending, and no one likes that.