Hooked On You A Dead By Daylight Dating Sim | Review | PC

Developer: Psyop
Publisher: Behaviour Interactive Inc.
Release Date: 03/08/2022
Price: £6.99 / $9.99
Review Copy Provided By Behavior Interactive Inc

Introducing Hooked On You A Dead By Daylight Dating Sim

Pretty much everyone knows what Dead By Daylight is at this point, but just in case, it’s an asymmetrical horror survival game featuring grizzly murder and horrifying killers on the loose. So, naturally, things being what they are, the good folks over at Psyop turned it into a Dating Sim. In case you need a mental picture of it, Dating Sims are usually visual novel-style games that feature characters you can romance, and in some games, um… have sexy fun times with. Now, are those two things mixing in your brain? Congratulations, you’re now caught up with the Dead By Daylight fandom, circa 2016. So how did the makers of the also long-windedly named, KFC Presents I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator, do with bringing the beloved murderers to life? I’m dying to tell you!

Stand Back While I Whip This Out

As with most porn dating sims, the plot can be a little thin. In this tale, You, who has no gender nor identity of any kind save for a name you decide, have washed up on a tropical island only to be greeted by a severed head, the spiritual voice of the ocean, and The Narrator and must try and find out exactly what is going on. In short order you find yourself trapped here with four of the OG Killers from Dead By Daylight: The Huntress, The Wraith, The Spirit, and The Trapper. So, you’ll notice they keep things fair, two female killers and two male ones, and wonderfully enough, everyone is Bi and horny for you! This is absolutely within the realm of the Dating Sim Genre and I would love to think this was a Meta commentary on the whole scene, but we’ll get into that in a sec.

The reality is that you need to find a way off this island (if there is one) and try to remain intact while doing so, while of course trying to romance the killer of your choice and be gifted an image of them in all their glory. You’ll also be helped along on these tasks by special guest stars, and OG Survivors, Dwight and Claudette as well as a few other guest appearances, but – No Spoilers!

What Would The Entity Think?

To say there is any gameplay in Hooked On You (we’re calling it that from now on) is to overstate. 90% of the time you’re moving the text forward to read the next block. There are a few segments that offer a touch of gameplay via a spinning circle with a hole in it that you have to land on whatever icon is representing the situation at the time. The icon and situation change, but the actual game mechanic never does. However, I don’t think I’m overstating when I say that no one plays Dating Sims or Visual Novels for the gameplay. We’re here for that sexy stuff!!

Show Me The Goods

And sexy stuff it, well, sort of has? The art style is actually great for the material and is arguably the best thing about it. Each of the four characters has several pose/outfit cells and each is presented in an awesome cartoon style that befits the presentation. As a fan of the beefier side of things, I can say that The Trapper was very well done and I really love his “happy ending” shot (above). Just like they did for the good KFC Colonel, they manage to pull the cute out of all of the characters.

I wish I felt as passionate about the audio, but there really isn’t any. A repetitive song in the background and a handful of silly sound effects is about all we get. There are no voices, which I can understand (most are silent or nearly so in the original game), but there was nothing memorable going on in my headset.

Beaten to a Bloody Pulp

The game is less demanding than a phone app, so I can’t imagine running into issues with performance no matter where you’re playing it. It offers the typical assortment of Auto Save and Manual Save, and there’s not much call for accessibility on this one. However, I do think the title suffers from one large misstep. The subject matter and presentation are well-trodden paths at this point. Anyone who is a fan of the original game already knows that there are literally tons of images and slash fiction about these and all of the killers and other survivors that making a tongue-in-cheek game about it really falls flat. The KFC game worked so well because it wasn’t a sexualized market. There were very, very few who looked at him with lust in their eyes and on their drawing tablets before that game.

But, with Dead By Daylight, the Internet has had almost 7 years of user-created lurid stories and it just doesn’t pack the same punch. Once you get past the initial OMG moment of there being a dating sim from Dead By Daylight, the fun and the shock quickly wear off. This really is a case of the Internet doing it first and they don’t hide the jiggly bits.

Conclusion

With subject matter that’s already old hat and humor that tries to be funny but mostly misses the mark, I’m not sure any of us expected this one to take Game Of The Year. The true standout feature is that it’s only about 4 hours long. It’s not horrible, it’s a solid title, but you could get more fun out of a Google search for fan fiction and images of your favorite killers or survivors. I wanted this to be as fun and wonderful as their prior (and free!) KFC Dating Sim and it just did not land the same. Comparison truly is the thief of joy.

PROS

• Clean, professional art of the characters
• Easy gameplay
• Doesn’t overstay it’s welcome

CONS

• Tired premise
• hit and miss humor mostly misses

Verdict
Cute if you want to add it to your library for the lulz, otherwise get your Dead By Daylight jollies elsewhere.

Scoring Policy