My head hurts AKA Huniepop discussion

[Haerthan]

i hear the puzzle game part of it is actually pretty challenging and good.
supposedly the design mantra was "gameplay first".

ofc the main reason anyone knows anything at all about it is because people complained about it...

also you managed a worse "review" than hardcore Christians...
https://www.christcenteredgamer.com/index.php/reviews/pc-mac/5810-huniepop-pc
which might be worth pondering...

Dude it is called having an opinion. Reviews are opinions. They aren't something that is quantifiable or in any way shape or form as objective.

OT: Dude if you don't like, don't look at it beyond your initial research to see if you would like it or not. Oh wait. you said you don't dislike, the writing just seems base. Well the only thing I know about it is that the original writer left, so you are kinda stuck with that kind of writing. I haven't done any research so I don't really have an opinion on it.

 

[Weaver]

I bought the uncensored version and I think it's pretty fun.

It's a dating sim mixed with a match 3 game.
It's not a visual novel.
Most importantly, eroge VN's are - by and large - not dating sims.

If you've never played a dating sim, they're kind of basically similar. Part of the challenge of the game comes from optimizing conversation, knowing what to max out first, and has a ton of things to memorize about the characters making the game partially trivia based.

It's superficial, but the point of the game is to have casual sex with people while playing a puzzle game.
I don't think the dialog is THAT bad to be honest. In fact, several of the characters in the game remind me of real life people I know, though perhaps a bit more extreme.

If you were expecting a romance VN I'd look elsewhere.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I'm playing it right now. I like Nikki, antisocial twerp that she is.

But yes, the writing isn't stellar.

 

[Lunar Templar]

*shrugs*

I wanna get it BECAUSE it looks as stupid as it does.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Eh, from what I've seen of it brings out a good non-PC laugh. It's meant to be a rowdy comedy style of writing, and it does it's job well. It makes a good accompaniment to the porn and Bejeweled with panties.
I'm probably going to pick it up myself actually. The reviews are hilarious, and I could do with a game with crass humour.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Pretty sure people have made first impressions like op did when they looked upon Katawa Shoujo with good reasons too.

Thank your deity of choice that the blue-haired chick with the glasses in Huniepop is not a terrible person.

 

[Brittany Vincent]

So, while bored on the internet, I managed to find a Destructoid post [http://www.destructoid.com/poppin-with-hunies-my-virtual-dates-in-huniepop-286773.phtml] about a new "erotic visual novel puzzle hybrid" called Hunie Pop.

Now, the initial article itself is not problematic; Britney Vincent, the writer, seems to have a passion for visual novels and eroge so she knows what she is talking about. The problem is that when looking up some clips and details on this game, i've come to the conclusion that it's completely juvenile.

Hi Izanagi009! My name is actually Brittany, not Britney. Thanks for checking out my piece. I actually have written here at The Escapist so I'm happy to see someone gravitated toward something else I wrote. Awesome to see.

I purchased the game on my own and did not receive review code, so I didn't write a "traditional" review. What I did instead was begin playing the game and I decided after being surprised at the quality puzzle segments within to write a piece about my experiences. I enjoy VNs, dating sims, eroge, and other games of that ilk, and if HuniePop's writing didn't suffer so often, I think it could be an excellent game, even more fun than it already is.

I've spent hours on it already, and plan to go back. This is after initially viewing the game in a negative light before playing it. Once I found that six hours had passed after I had booted it up, my feelings changed completely. And I'm not ashamed to say it's one of my favorite experiences so far this year in gaming. I love camp, and it's got it in droves; however, there are some extremely problematic aspects to the game that really could use some work.

Oh, and I should add that Nikki's my favorite.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I'm actually tempted to play this now off the back of Brittany's Destructoid article and the comments in this thread. X-D

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

So, while bored on the internet, I managed to find a Destructoid post [http://www.destructoid.com/poppin-with-hunies-my-virtual-dates-in-huniepop-286773.phtml] about a new "erotic visual novel puzzle hybrid" called Hunie Pop.

Now, the initial article itself is not problematic; Britney Vincent, the writer, seems to have a passion for visual novels and eroge so she knows what she is talking about. The problem is that when looking up some clips and details on this game, i've come to the conclusion that it's completely juvenile.

Hi Izanagi009! My name is actually Brittany, not Britney. Thanks for checking out my piece. I actually have written here at The Escapist so I'm happy to see someone gravitated toward something else I wrote. Awesome to see.

I purchased the game on my own and did not receive review code, so I didn't write a "traditional" review. What I did instead was begin playing the game and I decided after being surprised at the quality puzzle segments within to write a piece about my experiences. I enjoy VNs, dating sims, eroge, and other games of that ilk, and if HuniePop's writing didn't suffer so often, I think it could be an excellent game, even more fun than it already is.

I've spent hours on it already, and plan to go back. This is after initially viewing the game in a negative light before playing it. Once I found that six hours had passed after I had booted it up, my feelings changed completely. And I'm not ashamed to say it's one of my favorite experiences so far this year in gaming. I love camp, and it's got it in droves; however, there are some extremely problematic aspects to the game that really could use some work.

Oh, and I should add that Nikki's my favorite.

1: I have corrected your name in the opening post

2: yeah I can understand that the camp factor of the game can be fun but something about this camp makes me cringe. Lets put this into perspective, I love Kill la Kill and that thing is so crazy and over the top that you might as well get merit badges by watching it.

3: if you read anything that i post in anime threads, you will know that I have said over and over that I really don't tolerate stupid fanservice or pandering. If you write the character to be more than a fetish, I am much more lenient but if they are just there for TnA, I have no mercy. I don't know if the girls are better than what the promotional material states but some people say they do so I guess that's soemthing

4: I am a big writting person and if the writting makes me headsmack over and over, I would probably not enjoy playing the game even if I do get a good match 3 and cute characters

Spoiler

I think that there is a cat girl in the game as a secret and I admit that I am a huge nekomini fan

5: yeah, Nikki is my favorite from what I can tell though I still would not put her above Rin Tohsaka in terms of favorites

Edit: as for the whole humor angle. Yeah, I am not exactly a person to laugh a lot. I can laugh at referential humor (Carnival Phantasm), I can laugh at ridiculous (Panty and Stocking) and I can laugh at rapid fire (When Supernatural Battles become Commonplace). Stupid though, feels like it pisses me off more than makes me laugh and even the examples of the types of humor I like are very rare.

 

[VectorSlip]

Hello there. Reporting in 30 hours of playtime, 93% completion, and an avid fan of this game and I have to say that this game deserves a lot more credit than its being given.

Huniepop did a lot of things right. First and formost the puzzle aspect of the game is pretty spot on. Its fun and challenging and filled with a surprising amount of depth with all of the special tokens and the date gifts that alter how you play the game. Secodnly the voice acting is actually very good. One of the few thing I ended up saying to myself multiple times through my playthrough when a girl would talk is "wow, she sounds so normal." Save for a few of the more over the top characters like audrey the VA's do a wonderful job of lending an air of reality to the girls. And while they do tend to fall into archetypes sometimes the girls all have their own distinct personalities and life situations that make you want to know more about them.

Now the writing doesn't go as far as it could have since this game was approached with a gameplay first mindset and is a dating sim but the depth of the writing show through less in what is talked about and more of what is show. For example Tiffany and Jessie are two girls you meet in the game. Jess is Tiff's mom and they don't really inteact at all in the game But we know that Jess had tiffyny at a young age and basically was forced to go into porn to support her daughter. When Tiff grew up she grew estranged from her mother because Jess never left porn and indulged in the lifestyle and this fact is reflected in the game. You later learn that tiff was born late December before christmas and about the same time find out that jessie's Unique gifts are all christmas themed and that her favorite time of the year is winter. So we find out that despite not being close to her daughter jessie still loves and cares for her and wants to have as many reminders of her as possible. And this is largely a story told through items and 1 line dialogue boxes! But I've gone off and started wall of texting.

HP definitely does have its issues. The intro had a lot of story set up that isn't really explored. There is no real sense of closure after the sex scenes or once you've "beat" the game. It just goes on forever. There's no manual save system and no way to advance time. Some of the systems aren't explained very well (Like the fact that more food gives you more turns or buying the girls drinks gives you more sentiment to use date gifts). Its also really easy to reduce the girls to spreadsheets after a certain point due to the aforementioned lack of closure and 100%ing the game is really hard especially with the secret characters because their trivia questions appear far to often.

But for all of its faults HP is a really solid game with some great girls and some surprisingly good VAs and with a fun puzzle component. I had never played bejeweled before this game and Im glad this was my first. To call HP juvenile is, I believe, an uniformed statement. The game's ultimate goal may be to bed all of the girls but that does not negate all of the very real substance, work and effort between the book ends.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Hello there. Reporting in 30 hours of playtime, 93% completion, and an avid fan of this game and I have to say that this game deserves a lot more credit than its being given.

Huniepop did a lot of things right. First and formost the puzzle aspect of the game is pretty spot on. Its fun and challenging and filled with a surprising amount of depth with all of the special tokens and the date gifts that alter how you play the game. Secodnly the voice acting is actually very good. One of the few thing I ended up saying to myself multiple times through my playthrough when a girl would talk is "wow, she sounds so normal." Save for a few of the more over the top characters like audrey the VA's do a wonderful job of lending an air of reality to the girls. And while they do tend to fall into archetypes sometimes the girls all have their own distinct personalities and life situations that make you want to know more about them.

Now the writing doesn't go as far as it could have since this game was approached with a gameplay first mindset and is a dating sim but the depth of the writing show through less in what is talked about and more of what is show. For example Tiffany and Jessie are two girls you meet in the game. Jess is Tiff's mom and they don't really inteact at all in the game But we know that Jess had tiffyny at a young age and basically was forced to go into porn to support her daughter. When Tiff grew up she grew estranged from her mother because Jess never left porn and indulged in the lifestyle and this fact is reflected in the game. You later learn that tiff was born late December before christmas and about the same time find out that jessie's Unique gifts are all christmas themed and that her favorite time of the year is winter. So we find out that despite not being close to her daughter jessie still loves and cares for her and wants to have as many reminders of her as possible. And this is largely a story told through items and 1 line dialogue boxes! But I've gone off and started wall of texting.

HP definitely does have its issues. The intro had a lot of story set up that isn't really explored. There is no real sense of closure after the sex scenes or once you've "beat" the game. It just goes on forever. There's no manual save system and no way to advance time. Some of the systems aren't explained very well (Like the fact that more food gives you more turns or buying the girls drinks gives you more sentiment to use date gifts). Its also really easy to reduce the girls to spreadsheets after a certain point due to the aforementioned lack of closure and 100%ing the game is really hard especially with the secret characters because their trivia questions appear far to often.

But for all of its faults HP is a really solid game with some great girls and some surprisingly good VAs and with a fun puzzle component. I had never played bejeweled before this game and Im glad this was my first. To call HP juvenile is, I believe, an uniformed statement. The game's ultimate goal may be to bed all of the girls but that does not negate all of the very real substance, work and effort between the book ends.

I would be lying if I said that the game doesn't interest me in some aspects but the cringe-worthy dialogue choices seen in screenshots are what make me smash my head because there is socially awkward and then there is just a level of stupid that takes me out of it. I mean who says "i'm buying lube for our date tonight" to a girl you meet for the first time? I would punch someone if I was in their position.

Though I suppose that there are details to each girl that the painfully short profile ignores and I suppose that my evaluation is only made due to surface details but I suppose the lack of emphasis on writing is probably the killer for me given that I prefer stuff like Fate (even if that gets way too wordy at times) which are pure narrative but again, to each their own.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

So you wrote all that just to say that "this game doesn't interest me because reasons". Woah. There are plenty of games that doesn't interest me either. Maybe I should write some forum posts about them.

 

[VectorSlip]

I would be lying if I said that the game doesn't interest me in some aspects but the cringe-worthy dialogue choices seen in screenshots are what make me smash my head because there is socially awkward and then there is just a level of stupid that takes me out of it. I mean who says "i'm buying lube for our date tonight" to a girl you meet for the first time? I would punch someone if I was in their position.

Though I suppose that there are details to each girl that the painfully short profile ignores and I suppose that my evaluation is only made due to surface details but I suppose the lack of emphasis on writing is probably the killer for me given that I prefer stuff like Fate (even if that gets way too wordy at times) which are pure narrative but again, to each their own.

And I would be lying if I didn't say I agreed with you at least when it comes to the story aspect. I wish, I WISH there was more story to HP. Interacting with the girls left me craving for a more detailed exploration of their characters and that they interacted with each other more. And that there was an overarching plot that was going somewhere. But I wouldn't have cared if the girls were nothing but vapid delivery bots of cringe-worthy dialogue. Yeah there are some lines that might not make sense in a real world context but works well in the game (For instance when you first meat Aiko in the park she's having a rough time and you want to make her laugh to cheer her up. One of the dialogue options is to walk up to her and say "Fuck these birds am I right" Just something completely stupid, but then you get to hear that wonderfully genuine laugh of hers with your snowplow of an ice breaker.) But really things like that would only work with Aiko or Kyu whereas the line you posted would probably get you punched in the face by one of the girls. And alot of the sillier dialogue is just hilarious because of its implementation(Kyu's previously mentioned "thanks for the sex homie" and "Come on, seduce me with your sexy puzzle skills") HP had me cruled in my chair from laughter far more than it had me cringeing.

Ill admit, I thought the dialogue would be cringey as fuck and that this game would just be another western piece of garbage (Im a connoisseur of many an eroge and H-rpg and seeing western attempts at that have normally fallen flat) But HP took me by surprise and I did not think I would enjoy it as much as I did. Again though HP is very gameplay first so it eschews an overarching narrative and plot, but its very darksouls-esque in the way it tells it story through the profiles and items and certain dialogues that you get with the girls. That might not be enough for some people, It definitely wasn't enough for me or many of the people i've talked with about the game but that didn't stop me from really, really enjoying what was there.

Huniepop isn't what its early screenshots suggest it would be and to judge them by that is doing a major disservice to the game itself. Huniepop may ultimately be a dating sim with some bejewled attached but it is one of the best, funniest and most genuine of them that I've played in the last decade.

 

[Jiffex]

I've played this and I have to say it seems pretty obvious it's supposed to be a joke. I mean how can a game be asked to be taken seriously when one of the questions you can ask right after meeting her is "I gotta know, what cup size are you rocking?" I found the game itself to be pretty funny and the match 3 system is well done and I think they're adding free updates in the future.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

From reading your OP, it seems that this is a game that you are interested in, but some things appear to not be quite as you would like them to be. Thank you for gracing us with this invaluable information.

I bought this thing off the back of Jessie Cox's play through and subsequent discussion with Dodger on the Co-optional podcast.

I found the puzzle game element to be very good, the writing to be endearingly stupid and only about half of the voice actors made me want to jam pencils into both my ears (fortunately I discovered I could just take my headphones off before I actually did that). I actually quite like it, and normally animu makes me involuntarily projectile vomit all over the place the second I see it.

There you go OP, I hope your life has been suitably enriched by my riveting tale.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I bought this thing off the back of Jessie Cox's play through and subsequent discussion with Dodger on the Co-optional podcast.

I missed the last Co-optional, what exactly did Dodger and Jessie say and how did they react because I can see Dodger getting into it because she is the type to like dating sims but I'm not sure Jessie would be able to sit thorough the dialogue just to get the TnA.

 

[Silence]

I bought this thing off the back of Jessie Cox's play through and subsequent discussion with Dodger on the Co-optional podcast.

I missed the last Co-optional, what exactly did Dodger and Jessie say and how did they react because I can see Dodger getting into it because she is the type to like dating sims but I'm not sure Jessie would be able to sit thorough the dialogue just to get the TnA.

Dodger hated the voice acting and muted it. But she played a fair portion of it.

Jesse said, it basically is the game he would develop if he would develop a dating game. He loved it.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I missed the last Co-optional, what exactly did Dodger and Jessie say and how did they react because I can see Dodger getting into it because she is the type to like dating sims but I'm not sure Jessie would be able to sit thorough the dialogue just to get the TnA.

Well, it's already been answered, but I shall add that there really isn't a huge amount of dialogue, it's mostly gameplay and what dialogue there is is primarily used for gameplay. You ask a question, you are given answers and then at some point you will be asked what answer was given and if you can remember you get points to spend on stats that give boosts to the puzzle game score. Occasionally you will be asked a question on your attitudes to various things and given a choice of 3 answers and if you pick the right one for the character in question you get more points. There's a little bit of flavour text with each question/answer, but really, it isn't dialogue heavy.