What exactly is Ren'ai?

[n9261andvari]

WOW!!! Awesome place here. I actually found the links to the games on a search engine because I wanted to play a dating sim game in English. The ones I play is in Japanese so I wanted something new and easily understand-able. That's when I found Moonlight Walk and decided to visit the site. So...what exactly is Ren'ai? This is the first time I've ever heard about it.

[Quin]

I wouldn't be so bold as to try to define what a ren'ai game is on my own ^_^ but I'll point you toward a couple of great resources to answer your question.

Perhaps the best starting point would be the "about" page at Ren'ai Games, a site run by one of the forum members here. Once you absorb that, you might want to explore some of the articles on that site as well — I especially recommend Mikey's article titled "Game Recognition Handbook."

Once you've seen these, you might also read the Wikipedia article on ren'ai games. The page itself is a bit thin, but it has further links to even more information.

NOTE TO MODERATORS: I couldn't find a sticky thread in the forums here that answers this question. I'll casually suggest that it might be a good idea, then run away really fast before anyone can accuse me of volunteering. ^_^