It begins as each Japan-set courting sim value its salt does — with a switch pupil.
It is Aya’s first day on the ominously-named ‘Love-Love All-Ladies Excessive Faculty’, they usually’re (understandably) just a little nervous. Shy and socially anxious, they hope they will handle to make a pal or two. Seems their classmates are keen – maybe just a little too keen – to get acquainted. Aya is about upon by a stampede of besotted younger girls, however Aya does not have romance on the mind themselves. “I Simply Need To Be Single!” they yell. Cue chirpy acapella theme music.
I Simply Need To Be Single!!: Season One, just lately launched on Steam in Early Access, is a recreation you would be forgiven for overlooking on a Steam Retailer that right now is full of visible novels from Western indie devs. A handful carry a reverence and understanding of the medium (the superb VA-11 HALL-A, for instance), however many take a mocking, ironic method, or exist primarily to titillate, such that followers have grown cautious. Tsundere Studio’s debut, I Simply Need To Be Single!! stands out from this crowd.
Billed as ‘aromantic, asexual, and nonbinary’, I Simply Need To Be Single!!’s participant protagonist, Aya, is a mirrored image of its mononymous lead developer ‘m.’. “I am nonetheless figuring issues out about myself and this recreation is an extension of that,” m. tells me over Discord. “The story on this recreation is essentially about discovering your self and who you need to change into.”
Aya’s doubtlessly aromantic id is mirrored within the mechanics and presentation of the participant’s conversations with their classmates. On the prime left of the sport’s snazzy however unobtrusive UI, two meters might be discovered. The primary of those, the ‘Favorability’ meter, fills as much as a complete of 5 hearts. There is a separate meter for every heroine, color-coded to their monochrome paper-cutout designs. Choose the ‘right’ (i.e. emotionally clever) response out of your dialogue choices and a coronary heart might be added to the Favorability meter, your dialog accomplice’s face lighting up with heat and recognition.
Courting sims are sometimes maligned for his or her core mechanics — saying the ‘proper factor’ to obtain romance is a philosophy that sits uncomfortably with many. I Simply Need To Be Single’s conversations really feel extra lifelike of their push and pull, and sharp writing renders everybody’s desires and needs recognisably three-dimensional. “I actually like the concept that on this story, you might be enjoying as an unnoticeable side-character, and everybody round you is a protagonist or major character in their very own story,” says m. “Every of them are going by means of developments and having adventures. You are merely alongside for the experience.”
That is to not say that the style’s beloved character archetypes aren’t nicely represented. Your tutorial verbal spar is with ‘Random Lady’ (pink), the sexually-aggressive stalker kind who actually desires to get to know you. Subsequent, you are launched to Kaede, the category rep (orange), who adjusts her glasses and exhibits you round college. Pulling classroom doorways open, we encounter: Katsumi, the idol; Akane, the athlete; Mika, the gyaru woman; Shizuka, the artist; Chloe, the robotic; and, sneaking up behind you, Nozomin, the delusional ‘chuunibyou’ character.
“I wished to make them look as totally different as doable, however nonetheless interesting,” explains character designer Tsungelique. “I gave Akane a extra muscular physique. She’s a sporty woman, so her physique kind ought to replicate that. With Kaede, I wished a softer determine. It is uncommon in anime for a chubby, or not-so-slender woman to be seen as engaging. We knew we wished a darker skinned character, and having Mika, who’s a gyaru, but in addition half-Japanese was necessary to us.”
Aya can solely deal with a lot. The opposite meter is their ‘Stress Stage’, which fills as much as a complete of ten skulls. A cranium is added every time your dialog accomplice will get just a little too aggressively flirtatious, combative, or offended. It is a sensible method of translating social anxiousness right into a recreation mechanic, crafting empathy by threatening the participant with a state of affairs that they will equally need to keep away from.
For a debut recreation made by a tiny staff, I Simply Need To Be Single!! is remarkably polished. Menus are responsive, and full of amusing wordplay and sight gags. Conversations are damaged up by manga panel interludes that function the sport’s cutscenes. The sport’s humour is self-reflexive and winking, paying homage to outsider indie hits resembling Undertale. Its construction and aesthetic method take clear cues from Danganronpa. Nothing right here feels overly by-product, however the recreation’s elements match collectively neatly and confidently, contemplating style forebears quite than merely copying them.
Visible novel courting sims are often clearly delineated and divided by their characters’ genders and sexuality. The standard classes embody bishojo (wherein a male protagonist courts girls), otome (wherein a feminine protagonist courts males), and yuri (wherein a feminine protagonist courts girls). Right here, the vibes are enjoyably ambiguous, I Simply Need To Be Single!!’s flirtations and conversations span the tropes of each bishojo and yuri, and transcend them. “Most courting sims are closely focused in the direction of both particularly feminine or male gazes and I wished one thing that might work for each,” says m. “Making the protagonist nonbinary permits much more folks to think about themselves contained in the footwear of the character, together with those that do not feel snug with their id.”
It is a remarkably healthful and regarded consequence for a venture that began as a joke that they’d made in a Discord server through the pandemic — “what if there was a courting sim however the aim was to not date anybody” — full with a tongue-in-cheek brand bearing the title that may finally grace the Steam retailer. The sport’s advertising and marketing as an ‘anti-dating sim’ is a savvy elevator pitch to get gamers’ consideration, but it surely undersells the nuances of Tsundere Studio’s style intervention. “It is easy to make a recreation that’s ‘anti-romance’, however this is not that type of recreation,” they are saying. “There are nonetheless some mechanics that are not absolutely revealed but. I am within the relationship side of our recreation. What does it imply to be in a relationship? What does love imply with out friendship? I would like the participant to search out out the reply to these questions and check themselves.”
The sport was efficiently funded by way of Kickstarter in March of 2022 and the neighborhood has been engaged and excited in Tsundere Studio’s Discord server since. “I used to be moved by the quantity of people that stated that the sport helped them really feel represented not directly,” displays m. “This recreation has been the end result of my self discovery over the previous few years, each by way of the story and the characters and in how a lot I’ve modified over the course of improvement. We have needed to face many challenges. I am glad we have come up to now.”
Within the recreation’s present launch, solely the prologue and first chapter can be found, their whole playtime spanning a few hours. Two main content material updates are at the moment in improvement, every including a brand new chapter. Tsundere Studio hopes to finish Season One throughout the yr, however they’re eager to not put a stable date on it. The Early Entry method feels becoming. I Simply Need To Be Single!! remains to be determining what it desires to be and the way it suits into the world. For these of us going by means of related journeys, Tsundere Studio’s recreation is a welcome mirror of empathy and chance.
