Valentine's Day is the Perfect Time to Try These Dating Sims

Dating games are often simulators, although there are plenty of games across other genres that give you the option to date characters. This tends to be an optional part of those games, and one that isn't required for you to reach the end. However, dating games revolve around dating, even if you actively avoid romancing the options, which kind of defeats the point anyway.

With Valentine's Day coming up, it's the perfect time to explore virtual love through dating games. These games range from sweet and heartwarming to funny and even horrifying in some cases. In a way, there's a dating sim for every type of player.

5 Dream Daddy

Find Love as a Single Father

Dream Daddy is a heartwarming story. You play the single father of your adopted daughter, who believes that it might be time for you to try finding love again. The opening is a bittersweet experience, as you learn that your previous partner, the one who raised Amanda with you, has died some time ago.

The game follows the standard dating sim formula. As you go through your daily life, you happen to run into potential love interests. The interests you run into depends on the choices you make, and how interested they are in you depends on what you pick for dialog options with them. Each character has a distinct personality that you uncover the details of the more you interact with them.

4 Hooked on You

Dead by Daylight Re-imagined as a Dating Sim

This is a spinoff that shouldn't work, but somehow does work in the best ways. Hooked on You is a spinoff of Dead by Daylight, which is an asymmetrical horror game. However, Psyop decided to take the enemies you can choose to play as when you're the solo player and make them into love interests in a new game.

Instead of being frightening, you get to see the monsters of Dead by Daylight in a new light through Hooked on You. While they might scare you in the original game, they come off as fun and flirty in this dating sim version of their lives. It's fun, lighthearted, and not at all what you'd expect from a Dead by Daylight game.

3 I Love You, Colonel Sanders

Fried Chicken Won't Steer You Wrong

Maybe you don't want to buy a dating sim, but you're willing to try one out for Valentine's Day in the spirit of love. If so, then I Love You, Colonel Sanders is the perfect choice. KFC worked with Psyop to create a dating sim surrounding the face of fried chicken, Colonel Sanders, and the secret recipe that would make him famous.

Maybe it's the magic of Psyop's development team, but I Love You, Colonel Sanders is surprisingly entertaining. The characters are fun, although extreme at times, and your professor is a dog. It's unusual, but because of that, it's a refreshing take on a dating sim that you wouldn't expect to see. Between this game and options like Hooked on You, it seems like unexpected premises are what make the best dating sims.

2 Doki Doki Literature Club

A Horror Hidden Behind Dating

This game is a classic dating sim, but also a title that comes up when discussing unique horror games. What seems like an average dating sim turns dark in Doki Doki Literature Club. You feel like you're playing a normal high school romance visual novel at first, but it becomes increasingly unsettling as it turns into a psychological horror game.

There are warnings throughout the game that something isn't right, and it's meta in the way that the characters you talk to aren't talking to your character, but rather the you who's behind the screen and playing the game. It grows more unsettling as you play it multiple times, and it turns out that the only way to win is to delete some files from the game's location on your computer.

1 Monster Prom

A Dating Sim to Play with Friends

Monster Prom is one of the few dating sims that lets you play co-op. You can invite up to three of your friends to join you in this supernatural high school romance. The goal is to find a date to prom, but that's easier said than done, especially when you're working on a time limit.

Another unique element to this game is that you have to level up your stats and improve your character to increase your odds of landing a date for the upcoming prom. You don't generally think of dating games as a genre that you would play with friends, but it makes the experience for Monster Prom a lot more fun. If you've played Doki Doki Literature Club, then you might need to run through Monster Prom to raise your spirits.

Dating games can be a fun genre, but it's also a genre that's oversaturated by rushed games and games that are incredibly explicit in their content. Therefore, it's difficult to find dating games that balance the value of building a relationship with having a storyline and personality for your character and for the characters you interact with throughout your journey. Luckily, there are still games from the past and occasionally new options that show how masterfully done dating sims can linger with you long after you finish them.