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These days, Steam is a boundless ocean of visual novels, with dating sims as far as the anime eye can see. In most of them, you’re a guy (or occasionally gal) romancing strapping young lads/ladies/pigeons. Not so in Pub Encounter.




Pub Encounter does something that many visual novels on Steam—and games in general, really—seem hesitant to do: it puts the focus on older people. You’re a woman winds up at a bar frequented by “high-class older men” after a shitty day at work. The game’s a dating sim, so you probably have an idea of what comes next (hint: a lot of dialogue, tense moments of almost kissing, Dark Pasts, eventual sexytimes).

Admittedly, it still seems very much in the typical Otome dating sim mold, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Video games are often aimed at younger people, so their casts tend to embody youth or young adulthood. At best, we get the odd parent main character here and there (think BioShock 2, The Last of Us, The Witcher 3, etc) or the wizened older character who’s probably gonna die in a pivotal moment of heroic sacrifice. However, as gaming audiences and game creators have aged, that’s begun to change.


Now then, when can I date older pigeons?

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