Hooked On You seems to hate the people who play it
Maybe more will come out in the coming weeks about Hooked On You's various easter eggs and secrets, but after playing a couple routes it really feels like this game is a big joke at the expense of people who got excited about it. It's as if the devs are filled with a lot of self-loathing they haven't really worked through yet.
The "hidden trickster route" is just a gag that gets tired after a couple times of the narrator openly mocking you for finding Trickster attractive.
The writing teases at the dark complicated backstories of the killers but swerves out of the way of any emotional depth in favor of meta "haha i can't believe you're playing this game!" jokes
You rub lotion on spirit's feet because now spirit canonically has a foot fetish I GUESS
I think the thing that makes me the most disappointed is that the game continually hints at there being secrets but after a while I have to conclude that it's all a big joke about how dating sims sometimes have "true routes" or grand secrets that you have to make a series of complicated decisions about.
There's just nothing there.
Comments
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It's a dating Sim. Of course nothing is there.
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One bit i found funny there is a second island in the game that's mentioned multiple times. Called "IP Island" likely where all the licensed characters are at.
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Did you really expect Hooked On You to be a serious dating sim? I expected from the start that it would be very tongue-in-cheek.
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It was always meant to be a meme rather than a serious VN/dating sim. If it wasn't obvious already, you'd notice if you checked what the last game the dev made was : I Love You Colonel Sanders (the KFC VN).
I wasn't expecting much honestly
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I hate to say this, but I'm pretty sure that this was a joke to begin with. A $10 joke, sure, but at least it's not as expensive as Getting Over It.
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Dating sim "satire" games aren't a real satire of dating simulators, since most of the developers probably have never played one and it shows. They're just a platform for awful 'self-aware' jokes and bad meta stuff (blame Doki Doki Lit for this). If you ever wanted a real emotional experience from one, even the mediocre True Love from the 90s, one of the first ever translated into English, is still better than these 'satirical' ones, where the only real jokes are that someone made and that someone spent money on it.
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haha i can't believe you're playing this game!
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I don't know. I think the game is cringey and funny and it doesn't have to be that deep.
I do think none of it should be considered canon regarding actual DBD lore, as the Killers' personalities were altered to fit fun summer love tropes.
The meta jokes might be a bit heavy-handed, and it's not outside the realm of possibilities that a proportion of the developers found the game cringe themselves and inserted these self-depreciating jokes.
But it's still a good laugh, and isn't that what matters?
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Yeah, it's hinted at during a dialogue that at least Ghostface is there, haha.
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Yes the game definitely hated me after that ending. Made me feel miserable for the rest of the night.
Let’s just say it isn’t BHVR’s decision whether or not Spirit and I love each other, nor is it anyone else’s :)
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Someone on the subreddit was complaining yesterday that trapper made them feel cucked.
The devs of this game are correct to mock those who take it seriously.
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You are playing a dating sim that was made by the same people who made the KFC dating simulator, why did you expect it to be serious
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ngl i was massively disappointed with the game, feels a bit annoying, can't run for some skill checks for some reason
and you know we have people getting their bones broken, tongues getting ripped, harpoons going up the mouth, but can't put the slight bit of nudity in a dating sim.....
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Please tell me you weren't expecting high art from the serial killer dating simulator.
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I mean your sorta expecting a lot from a joke game
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What the ######### did you expect?
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Yeah ok i didn't know these devs made the kfc dating sim, now I understand what I'm dealing with and I was foolish to expect a game that respected what I enjoy about the complexity of the characters behavior created.
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I wonder if you would have felt this way about the KFC dating sim not taking rubbing lotion on the fried chicken seriously. :P
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The difference is that I don't regard The Colonel as an emotionally complex character. When Behavior asked me a year ago what genre of game I'd like to see in the dbd franchise I said Dating Sim because I thought it could be an entertaining mix of humor and horror while preserving the elements of the characters players find interesting and appealing.
I didn't expect the resulting game to feel like sitting at a school lunch table laughing with a group of friends and slowly realizing everyone else at the table is laughing at you for thinking they're your friends.
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Harland Sanders has more than 80 years of backstory and character development above any non-licensed character in Dead by Daylight.
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every knowledgable gamer could of seen this from miles away, i really don't understand how people can't see this...
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I haven’t played it yet because I don’t have Steam (or a PC :/) but it was something I was genuinely looking forward to as a guilty pleasure game. I NEVER thought they would actually make a dating sim so when they announced it I thought “wow they’re really putting their pride aside to give us what we want? No matter how ridiculous it is? They’re actually doing this?” and was excited to see what they came up with. But what I’ve seen from others’ playthroughs is that it spends too much time being like “lol look! Now you can rub lotion on the Spirit’s feet lol!” rather than truly having you form a deep connection with the characters. I get they’re literal serial killers, but if you’re gonna go through the time, effort, and money to make a dating sim just go for it and be serious about it. Some of the jokes are genuinely funny (like IP Island), but there are so many meta jokes that it takes away from what a dating sim should be which is forming bonds with the romance options. They hold Trickster (undoubtedly the most thirsted after male Killer in DBD) and tease this secret route that will probably never happen as a “gotcha!” moment for players who thought they could finally bang him. It makes you feel like an idiot for getting your hopes up. And these characters brutally murder innocent people in horrific ways…..but Entity forbid if there’s a smidge of nudity? Mmmk. I feel like they focused too much on being meta and breaking the fourth wall and not enough on actually forming a relationship with the characters which is the whole point of a dating sim.
But maybe I’m just a stupid clown who needed to manage their expectations. Judging by the other responses, it seems the latter is the correct answer 🙃🫥
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The problem I have is that it feels like the humor is written for a 13-year-old, not an adult who plays DbD. Plus, when adults write dialogue and humor like they're hip young people it often reads very cringe-y.
It also feels like some of the jokes are passive-aggressive jabs at the DbD playerbase. It's not a good look.
In terms of secrets, has anyone discovered a purpose for getting the Up The Ante perk at the beginning of the game? Or is the entire thing a joke about the perk being "useful"? I assume the latter, but the coins you collect do have a use, there is an achievement for getting the Trickster ending a bunch of times (warning/spoiler: it also erases your save file), and if you eliminate Trapper when dating a certain other killer then it can actually cause you to die when you otherwise wouldn't, so you never know.
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Ooof... Really? I do not need THAT experience in my life. I was contemplating getting it and sure I'm not interested in any of them in 'that' way since they are fictional characters (no judging anyone who is into that sort of thing, just saying I'm not) and I didn't expect it to be anything serious despite the fact that the characters would theoretically have that potential, but actively mocking the player for playing it? Yikes.
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