At first I’ll admit, I was a bit of a tsundere towards The CVGS blog; I went about my days laying low on the radar and commenting under other people’s posts instead of making my own. However, everything changed when the game devs Ash and Patrick encouraged us to go out and write our own blog post narrative; thus, my journey in the emotional rollercoaster that is the CVGS dating game began.
First, I want to talk about key elements of this game that make it such an immersive experience. The patches and updates are insane as new content gets released in real time with each day providing one or more new posts that players can sink their teeth into. The game really thrives here as this means each week there are even more romanceable options added to the game! Think about it, at the bottom of every blog post there is a profile icon that can transport you to the author’s page; thus, creating a new romanceable option you can pursue! The game is brilliant as it feeds you information in the form of their profile bio and the other blog posts they have written or responded to. This feature makes these authors feel like actual real life breathing people, a task that is hard to achieve in most games! The diegetic operators—present within how your written blogs and comments that are controlled by the player make an impact within the narrative of the game—in play here are fantastic as the advanced AI is capable of intellectual volley on another level.
A common criticism of this game that I see get brought up within the game reviewer site—UChicago Course Feedback—is that it lacks accessibility to those confused by the complex mechanics. Although I do admit that there is a lot of high technical processing going on here, the game still greets its players with classic dating simulator archetypes that make it easy for everyone to understand the basic premise of each character. The different types of romance available can actually be seen right on the starting screen!
For example, the Theoretical Reading category contains waifu and husbando writers of the kuudere variety, staying calm and cerebral as they lecture you on the pedagogy and morality. The Continuing the Discourse romantic options are tsunshun as their critical and confrontational shell on the outside is just a mask for their more reserved and melancholy nature on the inside.
The Retro Review will give you your classic and older romanceable options; however, please note that this archetype is still in early access with a full release slated for November 5th. And of course, Uncategorized is for the more progressive players who feel that these character archetypes only help to propagate an outdated notion on partnerships that promote unhealthy submissive tendencies and relational power dynamics. Making it the perfect game for everyone!
While I have yet to be successful in my quest to achieve the game’s win condition of securing a date to watch the MetaMedia Metagames YouTube premiere with, I am excited to continue to keep playing The CVGS Blog, the game that just keeps on giving.
P.S. stay tuned for the huge week ten update! Apparently, the developers said that everyone always waits until that week to write a blog post or something…(drop best girl category below).
I think you might be onto something here Steele_Citrone. As we discussed in class last week, meta games and narratives seek to subvert existing forms, which you have illustrated here with the CVGS course page.
The only question I have is whether the “authors” of this “game” need to define it as a metagame or at minimum be purposefully commenting on existing mediums for it to be counted as a metagame? Can we retroactively define games as fitting metanarratives based on our interactions with them? And at what point have you become the “author” of the metagame itself once the fourth wall is broken between player and game?
Wow Steele, this was such a fun interpretation of our CVGS blog! I wonder if considering the blog writing requirements we have in this class as a game actually holds any weight. From the writer’s perspective, I would say at best it could be argued that the CVGS website is an interactive fiction game where you have branching paths depending on the week you choose to write a post and what topic you choose that week. However, as a blog post reader, I can see how the interface lends itself to being similar to a dating sim LOL. And I found Waffe’s question about who has the power of authorship when defining a metagame to be interesting. I feel as though this post itself serves as an example of making a medium meta through the player’s POV and form of engaging with it.
The CVGS Blog is indeed the best dating sim existing right now! It not only gives you the experience of interacting with new people every week which adds to the romanceable options available but also composes a mixed reality experience of dating sim in the sense that the player has the ability to find the person behind the profile picture in real-life! And when the players find out that the kuudere they were chasing after was not that “kuu”, and the “tsundere” was not as “tsun”, the players then recognize the implicit critique about the fixed archetypes. The CVGS blog, like DDLC, is here to tell the players that the archetypes are just a product of fantasy, while people in real life are more complex and diverse. And thus when the players go back to the blog and play again, they are encouraged to interact with more writers in different sections without the lens of archetypes. What a masterpiece!
Dear Steele,
I am very intrigued by your delineation of the CVGS Blog as a dating-sim. I wonder from a production stand point, is there a way to bring gamification into this? Perhaps as an assignment, or discussion session workshop. How could we gamify the blog? Could there be more levels of interaction between course participants on the platform?
Then thinking about the critical-ness of gamification, what benefits could the gamification of the blog afford the class? How could students mod or rig-up the site? Is there embedded functionality for html code to be brought into the blogposts? I’m interested in your opinion with more computational experience whether something like this would be possible?
The “blog” as a lab component of the class. Perhaps instead of a blogpost, or maybe instead of the final, everyone must make 2 minigames on the blog? Perhaps the blog can be a virtual space for game design discourse to happen in a sandbox format?