Though we’ll inevitably call Christine Love’s new game ‘Ladykiller’, and in Twitter arguments ‘LK’, this is the news – and in the news we like to stretch our legs a bit, because the truth sometimes needs to be tripped up before it gets away. Its full title, then: My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress As Him And Now I Have To Deal With A Geeky Stalker And A Domme Beauty Who Want Me In A Bind!!
It’s an upcoming visual novel set to break previously undiscovered character count limits of digital storefronts near you.
If you’ve played a digital novel ever, it was most likely Love’s Analogue: A Hate Story. Released in 2009, it somehow turned a series of binary conversation choices with an on-ship AI into a meditation on tradition and the treatment of women. If you played it, you almost certainly sought it out because those are subjects near and dear to you. If you’ve a feeling a patriarch might be an architectural feature on a Parisian monument, well – then Love probably passed you by, so to speak.
Ladykiller is less particular about its themes, at least on the surface – an erotic visual novel about “social manipulation”, which you’re likely familiar with, and “girls tying up other girls”, which you’re likely not.
Love told Polygon that the project was influenced by dating sims and the social mechanics of the Persona series, but featured a “much more honest portrayal”. Rather than paint manipulation as romance, Ladykiller will call it what it is.
“We’re just not going to pretend that it’s anything other than manipulation,” said Love. “It’ll have consequences.
“Sex is a pretty crucial aspect of how people in relationships interact, not just some arbitrary achievement at the end of a romantic arc,” she went on. “And what’s a better way to explore power dynamics than through kinky sex?”
What better indeed. Ladykiller is due sometime in 2015. Should I colour you intrigued, or is there another shade you’d prefer?
Thanks, Eurogamer.