Boyfriend Dungeon Review: Kitfox Games’ Tackles Dark Issues With Sincerity and Care

The sincerity with which the developer Kitfox Games enters Boyfriend Dungeon Is it contagious. Otherwise, it would be easy to dismiss the game as a joke, a concept that is crazy just for being crazy. I mean, it’s a dating sim where you date people who can be turned into weapons, which can then be used to fight through monstrous dungeons. But it is a concept that is seriously executed, with consideration and care that underpin the otherwise implausible world. It was easy to follow. So yeah, the game is about dating people that you will also use as weapons to combat your insecurities. What about her?

Boyfriend Dungeon It begins with the player character moving to a charming seaside town called Verona Beach, after a short customization stage where the pronouns, appearance, and name are all adjustable. The story is this: you are a person with no dating experience. Spending the summer on the beach in Verona, together with your matchmaker cousin Jesse, means learning to love. Jesse sets you up on your first date, and things spring from there before the monster fight starts. In the dunj, short for dungeon, is where you learn that there are some people on the beach in Verona who can become weapons. And it turns out that you are willing to handle them.

Image: Kitfox Games

Dating is mixed with sessions at the dunj, which is also a place where you can meet new people. You go out in places around the beach of Verona and complement those dates with sessions in the dunj. Bringing people (weapons!) To the dunj means leveling up a love rating, which is essentially a power rating – this is how you gain new abilities and increase your stats.

But to get there, you have to have an appointment. Dating occurs in a visual novel style, with interactions taking place in real-time conversation options. Between dunj and dates, you also build these relationships through text conversations. There are seven different romance options, and thus there are seven different weapons that can be used to blast your way through. Boyfriend DungeonThey are two dungeons.

The initial concept of combining dating and dungeon crawling seemed natural to me: I got to know the people around me. Y find out which weapon best suited my play style. It worked as a conceptualization of dating. Balancing dates, texting, and intimacy throughout the game felt comfortable and never overwhelming.

Image: Kitfox Games

Boyfriend Dungeon’s the central narrative recently brought in developer Kitfox a round of speech. One of the first dates you will go on is with a guy named Eric, a condescending store owner who quickly turns into emotional manipulation and stalking. The controversy surrounding Eric is over whether Kitfox’s content warning was strong enough and whether players should have been able to opt out of interacting with him. Kitfox has since updated its content warning early in the game to better describe these interactions, but Eric is still an integral part of the story. And that’s for good reason: Boyfriend Dungeon it is a game that is silly, sexy and also serious. It encompasses many of the good things about dating, but also some unfortunate realities. Interactions with Eric in Boyfriend Dungeon they are really uncomfortable. But they are represented in a way that does not rid you of your behaviors. That said, it is it is It’s good that Kitfox updated the game with a more descriptive content warning, because the narrative does delve into traumatic themes.

Boyfriend DungeonThe story also addresses scary themes, such as fear of change or intimacy. Dungeons, specifically, are about those fears, and monsters come to life as representations of each other. (For fear of change, the dunj mall, you will fight old stylized technology; in the club, it represents the fear of intimacy, you fight cocktails and lips.) Each of the people you can date has their own stories and themes related to very real anxieties, each of which is handled with care. Kitfox is sending a very heartfelt message about overcoming those fears and ultimately using that progress to absolutely wipe out Eric.

It worked for me because of the seriousness and care with which Kitfox tells this powerful queer story. It is not always pleasant to live, but it is a story that left me satisfied with the result.

Where Boyfriend Dungeon The stumbles, however, are in how quickly the story progresses through the two dungeons and the quotes throughout. My character went from awkward and insecure to expert flirting in no time. I felt like I could instantly woo dates from left to right, with everyone clamoring to date me. That may be part of the fantasy, but the system made it so easy to speed dating that much of it felt shallow. All of this was compounded by how quickly I was able to get through the two dungeons as well. It felt satisfying in the moment of hacking and cutting my way through the levels, but each of the great fights came and went without much difficulty. Better pacing, I think, would have helped make room for deeper relationships with each of Boyfriend Dungeonromantic options, because what is offered it is convincing. Plus, more dungeons!

However, despite these issues, I liked most of Boyfriend Dungeon; I got caught up in the fantasy of it all, finishing the game in little more than one session. I just didn’t want to quit the game because I wanted to learn more about the people of the world (and the cat, yes, you can befriend and fight a cat, but no Really fell in love). It would be so easy to create a concept like this that gets lost in a sense of irony, to make the whole thing feel like one big joke. But the Kitfox developers reached out Boyfriend Dungeon with such genuine faith in history, and that’s ultimately what stuck with me after I finished the game.

Boyfriend Dungeon It was released on August 11 on Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a pre-launch download code provided by Kitfox Games. Vox Media has affiliate associations. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.