Hatoful Boyfriend

The best fucking dating sim I've ever played. Me and my friends almost cried, please play it. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE

i can never look at birds the same way again.

very interesting, so many possibilities

update: i definitely almost cried during the ending

Hardly a game...Hatoful boyfriend is more of a life changing experience. Peak in it's truest form

Come for the 'haha pigeon dating sim' goofs, then stay and have your heart torn out, atomised and scattered for the birds.

ayo wtf. i did not expect this game to do all that. just when you think its over, it goes even further beyond. prepare to be taken on a rollercoaster

i love the birds but the birds dont love me
would romance again 5/7

I cried

please god let us be living in the hatoful boyfriend timeline

I'm going to be honest- the game is a pretty weird little dating sim featuring you as the only human girl at a school for fancy pigeons, and it really only drops hints to you for most of your time about why that's normal and fine. You can choose humanised forms for your love interests (if you're a coward), or you can play as god intended and flirt with these strange little bird boys for the duration of your experience.

You're only going to get an idea of what on earth is happening when you've unlocked enough content to reach that stage. All I can say without spoiling it is that I did. I laughed, I cried, I threw up, it changed my life. Play the game.

Hilarious and ridiculous premise that hides secretssss. Definitely play this to completion. Be aware that you do need to run through this game with all the characters' endings in order to get to the best part of it and the quality of life features are sparse (skip button but that's it, no auto-stop for unread text, though the game will take you off skip when the day changes automatically, no log to read previous text if you happen to skip past it). Some of the choices that unlock the routes are opaque in context and you may have to complete other routes in the game in order to trigger one of the birds to appear.

Despite all this (or maybe because of it), when the birdshit hits the fan, I was completely hooked. If you like weird visual novels, this is a must-play!

This game is like seeing a red herring and then the herring beats the shit out of you. If you're looking for the rollercoaster of your life and you're willing to sit down and play the game thoroughly, I can quite literally never recommend it enough. Do not google it, do not search it up, do not watch a playthrough, just play it.

The one thing I will say is a trigger warning for suicide is needed.

found this game on a twitter post saying that this game changed their life. thought they were joking but out of curiosity decided to play it blind. lo and behold this game did in fact change my life.

10/10 cried multiple times over fucking bird pngs

surprisingly peak although the game technically is kinda wonky, some of my saves randomly don't work and barely has any QoL features

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT

This game makes me so mad. I started playing it because of the ridiculous premise and now--more than three years later--I still think about it as an influential game in my life.

Absolute cinema, I wish I could date the doctor

Genuinely one of my favorite visual novels as a teen. It's such a fun ride and goes beyond just a silly pigeon dating sim! Although the silly pigeon dating part is half the charm

Its a very silly but fun dating game. The pigeons are adorable, and the romance varies on weird to sad to happy. Its all over the place, in a good way. A fun way to spend an afternoon.

PLEASEPLAY THIS GAME i cannot stress enough how good a purchase this is. do not let the visuals fool you

Get through the absurdity of the birdie dating sim to discover the ACTUAL story of Hatoful Boyfriend.

Pigeon Dating Simulator

embrace pigeon

Its like a fever dream. 10/10

this game restructured my brain chemistry for a little bit in my sophomore year of highschool

You start the game thinking 'oh that's funny, they're birds' and end the game crying over some of the most beautiful story telling you've ever read. Play this while it lasts.

Dating birds has never been easier nor sexier!

i like birds :>

The true ending got me- I adore this game and gab about Oko-San and Ryouta's endings to people often Great game and well worth the price

that was peak... i guess

The story was good until it wasn't, I felt the true ending was longer than it needed to be after doing the common routes. The dating part should've been taken out of the equation since in the long run it never really mattered.

Recommending this game probably isn't the... Word I would use. But it's the closest option it's giving me out of the two, I suppose...

I felt obligated to finally play HB as a veteran of VNs and a lover of the absurd. However, this may be the first game that's left me thinking that these are 11 hours I won't ever get back.

Um. I don't think I... Regret playing it?

I was impressed by how committed to its own narrative it was, by the complete end.
The first half of the game certainly feels more like a parody piece. I worry that the majority of people who feel "bored" by this game are a majority of which who haven't gone deeper with this game and seen what it really has to offer; I could still understand feeling that way.
I was a middle grounder as a participant; I had several points of giggles. Although I easily lost count to what I kept saying to myself, 'what the flap am I flapping even playing!?'

I'm glad I chose to play this during Christmas. I will happily declare this to be a Christmas game, and I hope you play enough to find out what I mean about that - there's a tasty treat for those who do find out what I mean!

Honestly to be blunt with my beak, I struggled working through its system due to it being birds with proper Japanese family names. On my first few organic endings to see who I got I based it on purely by the birds I found easier to remember or identify, and I did enjoy those.
After those for a good 1/3rd of my birdtime I had to take notes to aviate some other endings, just because I really couldn't connect with some of the birds/narrative properly - I think it was worth it, but it's feather ruffling, and the game has a pretty sudden punishment system for narrative errors. That easily removes a couple seeds from me

I kept on enjoying some mental considerations between how I would typically treat these games when you have them truly as humans by design VS the birbs. Especially for the truer endings I found myself compartmentalising the situation better if I just mentally pictured this as a more human experience - although sometimes it was also beneficial the other way around. I appreciate it for giving me this interesting exercise

My least favourite thing most of all however was the interface of this game. Simple features like settings for dialogue or even choosing text were really badly designed and limited. I couldn't even access some of my saves. This was also the first VN that has ever crashed on my gaming PC -more than once- - which to me is actually impressive.

I've seen other birds complain about this also. I've played some really, really small budget VNs that are either free or pennies that have a better interface. It made me quite frustrated at several points that it has a price tag that doesn't budge but suffers from this really basic issue.

Most importantly however, no birds were harmed in the making of this game!

seems like a silly game at first! dating birds and pigeons? because while they do have human portraits, theyre still birds in the end

admittedly i did not enjoy how repetitive it was to get all the routes and endings. this is an older game and there's no flowchart or anything to make it a bit easier to go through it all. there is a skip button, but you might accidentally skip unread text. so i have to dock a few points from my overall rating for the repetition. if you need specific endings, don't be afraid to use a guide!

but oh my god. the bonus storyline (referred to as BBL) at the end of it all though. i was NOT expecting that at all and actually really enjoyed it. i recommend unlocking all the endings and then going into BBL for the maximum experience. you get so much information about all the birds, their backstories, and their motives during BBL, and even get to see some character development as well

i have to recommend the game solely for BBL alone. and the great art ofc!

best game EVEEEEEEEEEEER the final playthrough is a playthrough with twists and turns you don't even see coming and once everything is done and over, you can't even nitpick any plotholes it has because it wrapped the entire story up in a beautiful ribbon YEOOOOOOWCH

A game for everybirdie, by everybirdie, of everybirdie <3

Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel where you checks notes date pigeons.

Wait, don’t leave! This game is worth your time, and I’ll tell you why.

As mentioned, this game is a visual novel where you date pigeons as a human high school girl. It’s honestly one of the most unique setups for a game I’ve ever seen.

You’ll meet many pigeons, each with their own routes. Each route can be completed in about 2 hours, and even less once you’ve played the first two and can skip the initial setup. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of overlap in the routes, and the way the game is set up makes it difficult to revert to saves easily, as free period classes change things just enough to break that method. That said, the game is short enough, but I recommend using a guide to get all the routes.

You might be tempted, as I was, to just play one or two routes, but hear me out—play them all. When you do, you get access to a final route that makes it all worth it. The length of this final route, the payoff, and the knowledge of the previous routes all come together nicely to create what I honestly feel is a route that I never expected to be as good, considering the routes before it. Because of this, the game is one of those “play for X until it gets good” types. That isn’t to say it’s not good up until that point, but I wish the final route was how the rest of the game was.

Overall, I am very glad I played this. I was far more surprised than I expected, given the game’s setting and premise. Definitely a “don’t judge a book by its cover” type of game.

Oh! a quirky VN about dating Pigeons, I hope nothing bad happens :D

this game ruined me and my friends life
12/10 you gotta play it

For the time this came out it was funny to many but it's very dated nowadays even down to how poorly constructed the game is. i.e. this wasn't necessarily designed for a mouse as choosing options is noticeably bad vs using the keyboard.

I dunno I just got tired of visual novels but I can't blame this than more so, some publisher that's notorious for churning em out constantly with the same dumb themes with the same title.

Unironically one of the best dating sims I've ever played.

This game is absolutely wonderful. Super silly and fun

I'm not gonna lie, I did not have developing strong feelings towards a fictional pigeon on my 2024 bingo card.

Very deep. Shuu is my favourite rn

I fucking love pigeons

The BBL ending had no business going that hard

An absolute gem of a game!! I love the characters and plot <3<3<3 I still think about the characters years later!

Nice

Hey! So I bought this here for shigs and gits and left absolutely flabbergasted, jaw-dropped and emotionally conflicted. If you had spoiled me beforehand, I definitely would have laughed in your face ngl. The story line, characters, and content was an emotional roller-coaster to go through, and indeed a cinematic masterpiece.
I WILL be playing this again with unsuspecting friends. 10/10

If someone told me the Bird Dating Sim was going to have an actual storyline plot I don't know if I would've believed them.

10/10 would recommend. I love pigeons