Tag Archives: love

“Hot Date:” Realistic Pug Conversation Simulator

Hot Date 2015-06-30 18-36-20-86I’m not fond of pugs. They seem like the kind of dog that PewDiePie would own. But then I’m a cat person rather than a dog person, which means I would rather have a creature vomit on my floor than drool on my face. But I understand the appeal of pugs, if only in an academic sense. If neoteny, or immature looks, plays a strong role in our love for pets, then pugs are Dr. Moreau’s attempts at dog-babies: all bulging eyes and lolling mouths.

Hot Date” lets you speed-date them.
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Benmergui’s Three Views of Love

A screenshot from 'I Wish I Were the Moon' of a man on the moon and a woman looking up at him from a boat.Daniel Benmergui, the creator of “Night Raveler and the Heartbroken Uruguayans“, has been releasing three games, one a week, for three weeks. They were created for an event called Sense of Wonder Night at the Tokyo Game Show, and they each deal with a similar mechanic of moving or duplicating things in the game world to change the game’s situation.

One of the things I love about Benmergui’s recent games is that he deals with themes that are underexplored in most digital games: namely, love. “I Wish I Were the Moon” is based on a story by Italo Calvino, and relies on the player shifting elements around to affect a tragic and bizarre love triangle. “The Trials” actually has you taking Polaroids of game elements to create duplicates and solve several puzzles, including one that puts me strongly in mind of “Raveler.” Finally, “Storyteller” has the player rearranging the position of characters in three periods of time, to affect the final outcome: who lives, who dies, and who loves whom.

Check these games out. They’re short, they’re cute, and they’re very clever.