Release Date: 08/02/2021
Played On: Win
Available On: Mac / Win
Time Played: 13h 01m
Progress: Completed
Developer: HuniePot
Publisher: HuniePot
NB: The screenshots used in this post are from the game’s Steam page.
After experiencing the match-three phenomenon that was the original HuniePop, its sequel ended up being one of my most anticipated game releases of 2021. All I wanted was more of the same and that's ultimately what I ended up getting, but there have been a few tweaks and improvements made along the way. Strap yourself in, because this one may be a little NSFW.
Although, I find myself wanting to say something about the way that we treat different types of adult content in our culture. It's not restricted to video games, but other forms of media seem to have matured a little more than where gaming currently finds itself. In fact, with the prevalence of violent content in most games every made, it still shocks me that any mention of sexual content is met with suspicions and disgust.
Don't worry, this isn't going to be an essay about moral philosophies, but I can't talk about a game with sexual content without at least making the point. After all, there are countless games released that feature gruesome and hyper-realistic depictions of violence, but nobody ever seems to give it a second thought. However, release a game with a bit of nudity, or some kind of sexual content and everyone loses their minds over how obscene it is. The point though, is that I'd rather encourage people (including children) to learn about sexuality and human relationships, before I want them to know how efficiently a range of real-world weaponry can kill a crowd of people.
Of course, not all games are created equal and there are terrible examples of violence and sexuality in many games, as well as every other form of media out there. Similarly there are shining examples of media that deals with these sensitive subjects well and have the ability to educate and evolve society around us. For better or worse, HuniePop 2: Double Date, fits somewhere between those two extremes, as it no more holds a mirror to society than it reinforces unrealistic and harmful stereotypes.
However, this is part of the genius of the HuniePop games, as neither one attempts to be anything more or less than it is. Right from the start it's obvious that the sexual content is there as something of a parody and a piss-take. Not that it's hidden or coyly pushed aside, as everything is firmly front and centre with no excuses or allowances made. These games wear their inspiration on their sleeve and firmly establish themselves as self-aware and self-deprecating in a way that I doubt anyone could take seriously.
If you've never seen a HuniePop game before, the concept is simple. The gameplay is a mix between dating sim, and match-three puzzling. You essentially talk to a cast of women to find out more about them to raise your relationship status with each one. Once you are high enough, you can ask someone on a date, the success of which is measured by how well you are able to play a match-three game and score well before you run out of moves.
Let's focus on the match-three gameplay for a second, as it's perhaps the most compelling part of the HuniePop games in general. Unlike a simple match-three, there's a purpose to every move you make here, as each colour on the board represents a trait like romance, wisdom, and sexuality. Each woman you can date has a preference of which traits they enjoy and which ones they dislike. So if you're on a date with someone who prefers romance over sexuality, then you'll benefit by matching more orange romance tokens than red sexuality ones.
The main goal for each match-three date is to reach the target score, within the amount of turns allocated to you. With the default allocation of turns this can get a bit tricky, but there are ways that you can augment your chances with each outing. Before and during dates you can give gifts to your partner which buff stats and shift the odds in your favour. Sentiment tokens can be collected during dates, and spent immediately to give gifts which will remove bad tokens from the board, raise the likelihood of good tokens appearing, and even giving yourself more turns to reach the goal. There are many others to unlock as well, but each potential partner has their own likes and dislikes when it comes to gifts, so it's best to prepare a little before each date.
Additionally, while talking to the women outside of the math-three date system, you can give them food and gifts to boost how much energy they have and how many turns you will have to succeed in a date with them. It's a system that's complex enough that you have to think about what you're giving to each potential date, but straight forward enough that you'll be able to min-max everything to your playstyle easily enough.
In many ways, HuniePop 2 is just more of the same that was on offer in the first game, except in this one you're always talking to and dating two women at a time. Most of the other systems are the same, except they have all been tightened up and improved significantly. Gift giving and figuring out each date's preferences was a little more confusing in the first game, and I found myself guessing a lot of the time. In the sequel it only took a couple of conversations to get the hang of it again and everyone's desires are spelled out from the start. It's ultimately a very similar system, but overall it feels like there's much less busy-work to be done this time around between dates.
Perhaps the devs decided to ease up on the dating sim side a little, as the match-three dating mechanics have been ramped up and are a lot more difficult to master, thanks to dating two different women at any given time. Now you have to keep track of both of your date's likes and dislikes, and switch between them as you play in order to avoid disappointing them and failing the date.
This becomes challenging when you consider that each partner has a limited supply of energy, which drains with every move you make on them. What's more, they each have independent passion levels, which are essentially score multipliers and are raised by matching heart tokens on the board. In the first game you only had to match enough for a single date, but this time around there's twice as much to farm and match in order to get the highest scores possible.
I found myself starting off with the same strategies I had learned from the first game, but quickly forcing myself to unlearn everything I knew. It wasn't long until I was starting to manage both women differently, usually appealing completely to one and using the other as a way to regenerate energy and soak up unavoidable negative outcomes. This might not have been the intended way to play, as the game tried to encourage you to make both women happy at the same time, but it's easy to look past the theme and break down each date into a series of if/then/else procedures that will dictate what the best course of action is at any given time.
Somehow I think this is the real achievement of both HuniePop games, as they quickly become much more than their theming, and offer an interesting and challenging puzzle game experience. However, I will be the first to say that the theme and humour elevate the puzzle aspects above and beyond what would otherwise be boring mechanics and systems. Call me crazy, but there's something inherently fun about succeeding in a game and having your date give you feedback and literally ask for more.
For anyone out there who might be thinking that the sexy cartoon ladies are weird and shouldn't be taken seriously, I completely agree with you and so do the developers of the game. The dialogue is constantly tongue-in-cheek and just about every line is some kind of lewd self-aware joke about the fact that you're playing a dating sim and essentially trying to bang everyone in the game. HuniePop 2 leans even further into the joke than the first game and offers up some of the most crude and inappropriate humour I've ever encountered in a game. It's as if everything that's suggested in a Leisure Suit Larry game is just blatantly said out loud.
To further emphasize this, each potential partner in HuniePop 2 now comes with negative traits that will work against you during dates. Someone might be a moody bitch, making all the bad matches on a date count as good ones, while someone else might not like perfume, so you can't give it to her as a gift and miss out on those buffs. However, I feel like the parts of HuniePop 2 that will really put people off are the more blatant parts, like the character who has a hygiene problem and her smelly genitals will spawn more bad tokens on the board, or something like that.
There's no doubt that the humour in HuniePop 2 is aiming to be crude and shocking as much as possible. Along with the blunt sexual dialogue, there's also a lot of swearing, and even a character who will like you more if you get her drunk. Suffice to say, this isn't the kind of humour that will land with everyone, and I have to admit that it didn't always land with me either. There were countless moments and lines of dialogue where I just clicked on through and rolled my eyes at how crude the writers had managed to be. Except none of that was a barrier for me, because what I enjoyed more was how HuniePop 2 didn't pull its punches at all. This is a game that knows exactly what it's trying to do, and it goes all out to get there.
Besides, humour is one of the hardest things to write on a universal level. I'm not sure I know of any comedic media that appeals to literally everyone on the planet, as even the most popular humour is boring and try-hard to a good portion of the population. The fact is that we all have different senses of humour and it's really hard to make everyone laugh at the same joke. Hence, even though the humour in these games isn't always to my taste, I enjoy how hard the writing leans into its own style, which is enjoyable in itself.
There certainly isn't anything wishy-washy about HuniePop 2, as it even makes the first game look a little confused by comparison. Instead it feels like the developers took everything they learned from the first game and made nothing but improvements for the second. HuniePop 2: Double Date feels like a vast improvement in every way, as it comes with more of the good parts, and a lot less of the boring busy-work that bogged down the original. To that end, this is one hell of a sequel and if you enjoyed the first, it should be a no-brainer that you need to play the second.
Plus, I would encourage everyone to put the embarrassment aside and talk about games with sexual content more. At the very least I've had some good laughs with my friends over the absurdity of some sexual scenarios in games, but I can't remember ever cracking up over a particularly violent sequence during a game of Battlefield or Call of Duty.
We could all do with lightening up a little when it comes to the social discourse on sex and sexuality, and I think games like HuniePop 2: Double Date are doing their part. It may not be precisely your cup of tea that tickles your funny bone, but it's a fun parody with compelling gameplay systems that make it a joy to experience. Surely there's not much more that any of us can want from a cheap little bit of entertainment.