Internet dating in visual novels?

[Rinima]

I was just wondering, but do you think it's possible to do a visual novel based completely around internet dating?

Or is there one already out there about it that I don't know of?

[LVUER]

Don't think about if it's a good idea or if it's been done by someone. If you think you have a good idea around that theme/issue, just go for it. Make it a short VN first, consider it the pilot episode.

[SundownKid]

That is a perfectly legitimate topic to do a VN of. It will need a little finagling to make the online chat portions interesting, maybe a split screen view or just a view of the computer screen. However there is no reason not to.

[KittyKatStar]

I've seen games that had an online romance as an option (http://www.longstorygame.com/) but never a VN that was entirely based on online relationships/dating.

I think it would be interesting, but probably tricky to pull off (i.e. will you ever get to meet the people, how much distance considered, dating site first, or did the cast meet over a video game forum and it went from there, etc.)

Don't Take It Personally Babe's cast was all in person, but it heavily used a facebook-like social network in its game.

I say go for it. A lot of people do the on-line dating thing, or have fell in love with someone over the internet. =) Probably start off with a short demo/game since I have a feeling the GUI would be tricky, and how the whole 'talking online' portion would work.

[Asceai]

Two eroges from 2000 did this.

Pure Mail, the second title by 0verflow (the School Days developer) used it really well- the protagonist and main heroine were already intimate online, but only knew each other by pseudonym, even though they were going to the same school and knew each other. The protagonist finds out the identity of the main heroine pretty early, but she still has no idea, and the imbalance there is exploited in pretty much every direction you can imagine over the many routes.

sense off also used this, albeit only for the final/true route, and it has a more philosophical take on the subject. Too spoilery to go into because I want everyone to play sense off eventually. =P

[LVUER]

One game stuck in my mind; May Club (http://vndb.org/v190 -> caution, NSFW)

[Greeny]

Undoubtedly, a Visual Novel about internet dating would be a Horror story.

Because online dating is Hell.

/personal experiences

[Asceai]

One game stuck in my mind; May Club (http://vndb.org/v190 -> caution, NSFW)

"Developer: Desire & Haoh"

Didn't Haoh also make that game about that group of people that met online and decided to meet IRL at a remote forest and then kill themselves?
I guess that's.. sort of related to online dating too!

[Rinima]

Undoubtedly, a Visual Novel about internet dating would be a Horror story.

Because online dating is Hell.

/personal experiences

Hahaha, where they really that bad?
I enjoy it (so long at the other person isn't a jackass, but that goes for rl as well so...)

But yea, I was just wondering if I was the make one, how to go about it....

[SundownKid]

Well here are some ideas. Personally, I think it should start online and continue to the real world later on. The interesting part being when they meet and the person turns out to be either just what they expected, or completely different.

1) Person meets someone online. They are completely different in real life, and it becomes humorous and a happy ending when he/she falls for them anyway despite their nerdier tendencies than they claim.

2) The above, but they find out that they hate each other when they meet in real life. Either humorous or just dramatic.

3) Person meets someone online, and they hit it off. Just a romance story with a lot of it happening online, with no misrepresentation involved.

4) The online dating happens during an MMO instead of a dating site. Both are completely different than their avatars, or are the same as them. Part of it happens in virtual fantasy land. (re:Alistair sort of did this, with chibi versions).

5) Like the above, except it's literally a virtual world.