dating sim recommendations request!

[nidorina]

dating sim recommendations

hey there!! so i'm new to the vn scene just kind of in general and i'm hoping for some recommendations for dating sims; i've gotten an idea for a project in my head but i need to do some more research and expose myself to the genre more before i get too excited. my preferences/requirements are:

• my hardest requirement is that it be true to the genre instead of a subversion or something that plays with it; no doki doki literature clubs, hatoful boyfriends, etc.

• the shorter the better tbh; my attention span only goes so far lmao

• i'm a lesbian so my interests are relevant to that of course: f/f or f/non-gendered-protagonist is much better than f/m. m/m is also better than f/m for me too!

• fantasy genre stuff is [chef's kiss] (and also the genre i intend to work in, so)

• any system (not just ren'py) is fine!

• paid and free games both fine!

• i can play on pc/in browser or on the switch. anything i can access via mobile (android) would be FANTASTIC so i can play on the train

obviously feel free to recommend your own games as well! thanks so much!!!

[parttimestorier]

If you're just looking for any visual novels with romance in them (rather than necessarily something with the stat-raising and stuff that I'd really call a "dating sim"), I've got plenty of F/F recommendations!

Kindred Spirits on the Roof is a bit of a longer one, but it's a very sweet story about setting up several different lesbian couples at one school in order to help a pair of ghosts learn more about love and relationships.

My Dear Prince is a cute short one about a teenage girl who previously thought she was straight coming to terms with her feelings for a cute butch girl who comes to visit her family for vacation. The developer, ebi-hime, is one of my personal favourites and has a ton of other (mostly pretty short) visual novels across various genres that you might want to check out if you enjoy this one—the other two cute F/F ones that come to mind are Blackberry Honey (which has both adult and all-ages versions) and Strawberry Vinegar.

Heart of the Woods is a fantasy story about a pair of supernatural investigators exploring a mysterious village, and features two F/F couples who get together as events progress.

Mermaid Splash: Passion Festival is an extremely adorable short one about mermaids, and it's pay-what-you-can!

And finally, to shill one of my own games, Take A Hike! is another short one about angsty queer teens on a school camping trip!

[nidorina]

thank you for these!! i definitely am more looking for Traditional Dating Sim Content with stat raising and different routes and all rather than just romantic visual novels but i'll put a pin in these for just personal consumption at a later date perhaps

[Zelan]

Butterfly Soup isn't a "traditional dating sim" in terms of routes or stats, but it's one that got quite popular and it includes some cool stuff like point-and-click sections, which you could look at if you do end up wanting to veer away from the typical VN. (It's also F/F so it's right up your alley c:)

Cute Demon Crashers! is rated 18+ so please be aware of that before deciding whether or not to play it. The protagonist is female, and most of the love interests are male, but one is female. This one has a pretty simple structure for getting your preferred route/ending, could be useful to emulate in a more basic game.

Sooooooooo I know you're looking for traditionally structured dating sims and not stuff with weird structures lmfao but I'm such a huge fan of games that play around with the genre and also this is F/F so I think you'll like it :> her tears were my light is one of my personal favorite VNs, and if you played and enjoyed Mermaid Splash: Passion Festival (seconding that recommendation, by the way) this game is by one of the developers who worked on that. (I'll try to keep the rest of the recommendations to traditional structures now sorryyyyyyy)

Loan Wolf is rather short, F/F with two love interests, each with two endings.

... honestly, going through my list to put together these recs for you has made me realize that I really don't see a whole lot of stat raisers compared to how many purely text VNs there are, and I haven't played a lot of the stat raisers that I have seen.