Independent games publisher DreadXP announces that the 90’s anime-inspired visual novel Sucker For Love: Date to Die For launches on Steam on April 23rd, 2024! Developed by Joseph “Akabaka” Hunter, this iconoclastic take on the traditional hand-drawn visual novel concept presents a different approach to the usual dating sim tropes, starring Stardust, an asexual woman not driven by love but instead driven by a desire to escape the rural town overrun by fanatical cultists.
Sucker For Love: Date to Die For is a sequel to the highly popular cult-favorite Lovecraftian dating simulator, Sucker for Love: First Date, and introduces a new protagonist, new abominable love interests, new occult rituals, and a whole lot of heartache. The game lets you explore the 360-degree hand-drawn environment in a first-person adventure game navigation style and is a love letter to Lovecraftian horror that focuses on the often neglected aspect of stories in the genre: the madmen and monsters under the thrall of the gods, rather than the eldritch gods themselves.
Sucker for Love: Date to Die For subverts the typical visual novel dating tropes by putting the spotlight on Stardust, an asexual woman who finds herself as the one pursued in a tale of dangerous escape. After investigating mysterious disappearances in her hometown of Sacramen-Cho, she ends up kidnapped and trapped deep in the creepy labyrinthian woods, equipped only with a copy of the cultist’s spellbook. She notices the instructions for summoning The Black Goat of the Woods, Rhok’zan, the casting of which sets in motion the events of a different kind of dating novel.
Features
A fun four-chapter visual-novel romp through Lovecraftian mythos, inspired by classics like “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth”.
Introducing Rhok’zan, The Black Goat of the Woods: a new dateable entity!
Multiple endings determined by player choice.
360-degree, hand-drawn 2D environments!
Nostalgic art style reminiscent of old-school anime and classic dating sims!
Despite our name, no scares this time, we swear (perhaps a bit horrifying, but that’s it).
Scott Adams has been a strong lover of video games, mainly RPGS, for 20 years. He typically writes about the video games he loves, also reviews many of them, and he is a regular on the Nintendo Entertainment Podcast.