What is Super SimLove Tactics?

What is Super SimLove Tactics?

Super SimLove Tactics is a game I'm working on with Plufmot and PostElvis, with a little extra help from my friends ToonToonToonToon (ToonyRab) and Paniswag who've helped me out with character design and animation respectively.

Gameplay
Gameplay-wise, it's heavily based around old board games like chess and checkers.
If I had to cite any similar video games as far as gameplay goes... maybe Advance Wars would be the most direct comparison? To be honest it's not really designed after any other video games (unlike a lot of my other projects), so it might be a little hard to make any direct comparisons.

The goal is to keep things much more quick-paced than other tactical games, so the movement of characters functions similarly to in chess:
The player has one "king", a main character who has a special ability he can use once per battle but whose destruction will cost the player victory, and four "pawns", which act as basic soldier units. You move one unit one "tile" per turn, so when combined with the relatively smaller map size, it keeps things much more quick-paced than other tactical games.

Aesthetics
Aesthetically, it's meant as sort of a lighthearted parody of early 2000's-era Japanese gaming: which featured (amongst other things):
>Unnecessary information about blood types
>Strange dating sims
>References to very specific pop-culture events and trends, which nowadays comes across as randomness
>Uber-charming artwork and character designs
>Strange localization changes

All of these are things I'm aiming to recapture with Super SimLove Tactics! It mainly serves as a bit of a parody of the weirder side of the dating simulator sub-genre, though I'm aiming to make it more of a "general satire" of early 2000s video gaming as a whole.
In terms of specific games which influenced the aesthetic, there are a lot. Several of these are alluded to in the character design, specifically Love! Brother-kun, Pico Sim Date (to a slightly lesser extent), and Hatoful Boyfriend, but there's also a few maybe lesser expected aesthetic influences: such as Final Fantasy II, Super Meat Boy, WarioWare, and Space Channel 5.

I'd say out of all the influences it leans most heavily into both WarioWare (which is especially evident in the character designs) and Pico Sim Date: it's intended to have that kind of fluidity with the characters and settings.

Hopes/Goals for the project
SimLove Tactics is something I feel has the potential to do very well.
It's not being made with the intent of being uber-popular, I believe that most games made with that in mind generally end up falling short, but I'm treating it right now like everything is going to be nit-picked in the same manner as a popular game: so I'm spending a lot of time refining everything and smoothing out character designs to look good. I remember showing ToonyRab the first draft of Big Bro, the printer rival, and him commenting that it looked "Whitty tier bad" so especially with the characters, I'm always careful to make things look just right.

Characters
This is all well and good, but it's about time I showed you something tangible, right?

Playable Characters
Much like Super Meat Boy, SimLove will probably end up featuring a handful of guest characters to play as:

Eikichi Sekksuman: The default protagonist unique to SimLove. A young man with strange psychic powers he uses to seduce women.

Pico Asshole: Alleged to be the descendent of a legendary samurai, Pico believes himself to have been sent on a romantic mission by his future son.

Montrell Saint-Luc/Beetle Ninja: A mystic ninja from Point De Garu, France who wishes to translate his hand-to-hand combat skills into his love life.

From my experience in the indie scene, I think a lot of people tend to go after cameos and guest appearances as the primary "draw" of the game: for my generation of indie developers, it seems to be a big focus of the game development experience.
For SimLove, I decided I only really wanted to use characters from games by my friends to avoid this stigma, so the most well-known character in the game is probably Pico from Pico's School, who consequently was mainly included because of Pico Sim Date (otherwise I probably would've chosen Samurai Asshole or something).

Rivals
At the risk of being cliché, "rivals" are the primary opponents you'll be facing throughout Super SimLove Tactics. Armed with immense charm, they'll stop at nothing to defeat our hero!
Here's a small handful of the "rivals" you'll be expected to meet throughout your conquest:

Justice Moon: a flashy pop star, whose groupies are known to be a bit pushy and violent.

Hateno: a punkish, yet devilishly handsome parrot who impresses women with his smooth voice.

Big Bro: eternally invested in his studies, would probably bury himself deep in work if he wasn't constantly attracting women.


Random/Links

Plufmot's devlog blog: https://www.bennyrenya.com/devlogs/super-simlove-tactics
Music preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI6KC54ddZ8&lc=UgyYEPJQk3iUH8qEyxl4AaABAg

I'm very excited to see how this project turns out! It's been a blast to work on so far, and I'm hoping that translates into a game you all enjoy playing.