HuniePop – dating sim, tile matching, puzzle game, adult game

You may have seen this game already if you subscribe to Markiplier on Youtube. I picked it up on sale from Steam this week and have been playing the crap out of it. HuniePop is a puzzle game and dating sim. It shouldn’t be so fun, but I can’t stop playing.
Basically, you play the part of a virgin with no game, which becomes dreadfully apparent when you see your only dialog choices. After blowing it with a brunette at the bar, return home to be visited by Kyu, a Love Fairy. She was the brunette at the bar and decided you really needed her special assistance, because you utterly fail at talking to women. Her goal is to help you hook up with as many chicks as possible (of the limited selection in the game, of course).
You can play as either male or female, it makes no difference unless you install the uncensored patch. The only difference then is how…um…messy (lol) your reward pictures are. If you don’t install the patch, you just get lots of pictures of anime girls in panties.
Before you meet any of your potential dates, you watch a dialog between two of them. There are honestly only a handful of them that you’d want to date, but to finish the game you have to hook up with all of them. The dialog at the beginning will give you an idea of what they’re like so you can choose the best answers to questions. Correctly answering questions adds to a pool you use to purchase trait upgrades for your character. The traits will only affect your performance during the dating puzzle, which is sort of like Bejewelled, but not quite.
Let me pause here for a moment and say that, as raunchy as the dialog is, this game actually passes the Bechdel Test. No joke. It totally objectifies women (and at times is even racist) but all the characters are female and they rarely discuss men.
I definitely have a favorite. Nikki is an artist/gamer chick who works at a coffee shop. She’s antisocial and a huge nerd, but she refuses to go to college. Obviously she took priority over the others.

Aesthetically, it’s a gorgeous game. The setting backgrounds are detailed and the character art is top notch. You can even mix and match hair and clothing. I’m a sucker for game art, and find the art style in this game inspiring.
I think it would be fun to run this game as a sidekick to The Sims games to fill in the obvious gaps. Sims: chat, chat, tell a joke, chat, flirt, flirt…blah blah blah. Hook up with a stranger after one conversation. HuniePop: flirt, buy gifts, get to know personal details, date at least four times before they’re even ready to go home with you. We’ll just pretend that all that happened during the one Sims conversation and go back to playing.
Yeah, I’m giving this game a 4 out of 5. It’s fun. It’s tacky. The art is great, but the dialog is cringy. I wish it had different kinds of puzzles, but I still go back for more. Damn it, HuniePop, I have so many better things I could be doing, but there you are!