Update Three Hundred and Fifty-One: 17 November 2019

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Hey, remember Homestuck? If you do, great! If you don’t, don’t worry about it!

Hiveswap Friendsim is a piecemeal friendmaking-sim where you meet roughly forty new trolls (or, uh, aliens) across twenty sections of DLC, two trolls apiece. You play as a clumsy, goofy, nondescript human (with nice legs) who crash-lands on Alternia and is just hankerin for some friendship.

Each individual route is short, some only feeling like they’re ten minutes long with the longer ones feeling closer to a half hour or forty minutes. With forty trolls to base routes around, it’s not a complete surprise that some are just straight up one-note gimmicks (the one who likes hotdogs, the one who’s an old-timey news anchor pilot, the communist one), though it’s a little bit of a disappointment every time it happens. Homestuck has always blended irreverent humor with genuine emotion, though, so when the goofiness recedes and you catch glimpses of some Real Shit it’s lovely and, for me, a bit nostalgic.

As the game continues, some bigger picture shit starts getting a little teased, but it pales in comparison to just getting to know some (couple dozen) quirky, goofy assholes. It’s light, funny, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and the sprite art is a style I enjoy. I found myself looking forward to meeting each new goofy bitch, a level of engagement and enjoyment I haven’t felt for a lot of games lately.

I’m… NOT going to put this on my masterlist, though, despite enjoying it!
The masterlist is supposed to be about games that’ll be good for anyone looking to get into VNs, and I don’t think this is it. I don’t think playing this game without having read Homestuck would hit the same way.

Next up:

See you soon!