I’ve never actually played a Western visual novel before. Honestly, I never thought I would.

And then there was HuniePop, a game by HuniePot that was funded through Kickstarter, fully in English.

First of all, the game is multiplatform. I usually play my games on a PC, but this time around I played on a Mac (and I’ll admit, not the best idea on my part). Secondly, like previously stated, it is western made. I was a little skeptical at first since I’m used to only playing dating sims produced in Japanese. However, when I first opened the game I was excited. The start screen had upbeat background music and a great display of almost all of the girls available to date.

The game gives you a choice on your gender. I originally started it off as a female because, well, I am one. I was also interested to see how it would change up the dialogue options. Author’s note: I switched halfway through because the dialogue options were more suited for a male. Anyway, the game throws you right in with you meeting a girl named Kyu.

After conveying how sucky you are in the dating world, you find out Kyu is a love fairy who is destined to help you date all the girls in your town and becoming the master playboy or playgirl. Fortunately, this is without DNA^2’s Junta’s allergy to girls. As time goes on, you are introduced to the dating world along with aliens, nekos, and Greek mythology. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?

To start off your girl hunt, Kyu asks where you think is the best place to pick up chicks. Depending on what you say gets you to meet one and then two of the girls you can date. From there you can weasel your way into the girl’s situation, which is followed by a series of conversations and then, of course, a date.

The game mainly runs off of a two different point systems. You have Munie, which is the currency in the game to buy your dates gifts. And then there’s Hunie, skill points to increase your traits, which gives you a better chance of winning in the mini-games. Each girl has an original personality, and you would be wise to pick up on it in order to score additional Hunie points through conversations.

A neat thing about this dating sim, as well as an annoyance, is the realistic aspect it has when it comes to the dating world. In conversations the girls will ask you specific things you two have talked about beforehand, so you have to actually pay attention to what they are saying. Personally, I found out I’d make a terrible boyfriend. Luckily, you can access all of their information through HunieBee, your cellphone. It includes everything from the girls you’re dating to the settings.

As you start actually dating these girls, you must play a minigame that is awfully a lot like Bejeweled—or Candy Crush for the newer generation—in order to succeed in a date. It follows the same concept of Bejeweled down to a T with a few minor changes. You can date up to four girls in one day during the morning, afternoon, evening, and night. However, you can only date the same girl once in a day. After the third successful date, by the fourth night date you’re about to get lucky.

At this point, everything is riding on you winning that last Bejeweled game in order for you to get some. So, things get a little tense and you’re making every move you take count.

And here comes the disheartening part. The game doesn’t have any sex scenes. So, if you go into this wanting to see a hentai-inspired sex scene like you would in Princess Waltz or most eroges for that matter, be prepared to be disappointed. Unfortunately, all you get is a half-naked date on the side of the screen that will give a moan every time you make a match on the puzzle (which is kind of sad, really). The worst part about this is the strategic part of the minigame is thrown out of the window. The goal at this point is to just match as fast as you can until her climax gauge is full.

Remember how I said it wasn’t a good idea for me to play this on Mac? Well, I want to extend that comment to laptops in general. Using a touchpad makes the “match-three or more” puzzles a tad bit annoying to piece together. This is especially evident when trying to fill the pleasure meter, sticking it to your date.

With that being said, this game is strictly a dating sim with a puzzle mini-game attached to it. There is slight visual novel elements through the conversations you have with the girls, but that’s about it. Sadly, the dialogue choices are mundane and stereotypical. Additionally, the writing for the girls is pretty vanilla and only the voice acting made me not want to click through the conversations—when they weren’t repeating themselves, that is. To sum it up the game doesn’t have story and the plot is watered down.

You are instructed to go out on dates with all the girls in your town and to woo them so well that they sleep with you. And after sleeping with them … that’s it. Yeah, you can rinse and repeat your dating process with the girls, but after you unlock the lite sex CGIs there’s really nothing else to it. I cannot say this is what I expected. What I wanted was amazing sex scenes with a few basic story elements here and there. Instead, I got Candy Crush with the reward of an adult anime CGI I could’ve googled.

HuniePop was reviewed using a code provided by Huniepot. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here.

The Verdict: 6.5

The Good:

The mini-games are very much like most matching games.

The imaging is amazing. Kudos to Ninamo-chan on DeviantArt!

The voice acting is pretty decent. The moaning was believable too.

The Bad: