Vampire High School Dating Sim
A narrative that aims to play with the expectations that come with the Dating Sim genre. Available on itch.io.
Solo Project
Made for a Narrative Design class, with all art, writing and code done by me.
2025
10 weeks of development.Released on October 19th.
Godot
Affinity (Designer), Aseprite & Krita.
Summary & Overview
Vampire High School Dating Sim was made for a Narrative Design class, which I ended up really enjoying. I used this project to familiarize myself with graphic design software, and tell a small story that had been floating around my mind for a while.
The game, while small in scope, does leave an impact. I enjoyed working on the UI and visuals, picking out the music, and for once aiming not to create a game, but an interactive narrative.
This page is still work in progress.
Subverting Conventions
The main love interest is cursed when it comes to love, as an immortal being, she outlives all of her lovers.
Playing with Expectations
The game presents itself as a generic, sloppy, high school dating sim at first, with all of the tropey expectations that come with the genre. The game's intro scene then recontextualizes this, showing that pursuing her would be... morally questionable.
The goal here was to make the player rethink, and feel conflicted about, their original goal, which would generally just be going after the girl.
Tonally Clashing Visuals
I employed multiple different fonts and styles, intentionally tonally clashing and creating contrast through visuals.
The somber intro avoids using color and uses a simple flat pixelated style.
The title screen right afterwards uses a bubbly font and high quality vector art.
I aimed to cause a feeling of whiplash when going from the somber intro to the colorful, cute and happy title screen.
Character Creation
With the intro scene still fresh in the player's mind, I have them create their own character, aiming to immerse them back into the "dating sim", and to create internal conflict on which side the player wants to choose.
Do you help your own character find love, or protect the vampire girl?
I implemented a minimum character limit, poking fun at long and generic visual novel names.
Dating Sim Elements
I used some dating sim elements in skeuomorphic ways, like the structure of three dialogue options, which I styled the "date" around. I flipped the idea on it's head though, with you blocking dialogue options instead of choosing them yourself.
I spell it out pretty clearly in the "tutorial".
The date, where you get in the way of his compliments.
I originally sketched it out like this, the "dialogue options" visuals came later.
Feedback and Iteration
I prioritized getting the game fully playable quickly, with a generous amount of time left before the deadline, this left a lot of room for testing and improvements.
Refining Relations
Seeing as I play with the expectations of the player, this sometimes caused confusion on who the player controls, and where they stand in all of this.
I improved upon this by adding a few extra slides to the "tutorial", to more directly communicate that the player is an entity separate from the boy or girl.
I spell it out pretty clearly in the "tutorial".
The date, where you get in the way of his compliments.
Despite my best efforts, however, even in the final version it wasn't immediately clear who you control to some players, seeing as you're introduced to the girl and make "your character" before ever meeting the "player entity". If I redesigned this, I'd try to mitigate the problem by maybe introducing the player entity before either of them.
Room for More
There's a lot of things I'd like to change or experiment with when it comes to Vampire High School Dating Sim. You could argue there aren't really any meaningful choices or player agency in this final version, and there is only one ending.
The date starts off happy and energetic, but you're here to sabotage it!
The boy slowly gets demotivated, choosing his dialogue options more slowly.
If I were to redesign the entire thing from the ground up, I think it might be interesting to keep the same intro scene, but then have it transition into an actual generic dating sim afterwards, leaving the player to feel conflicted outside of the game itself, with the only thing I directly do being recontextualizing the main love interest.
Post Mortem
The ending screen, after successfully ruining the date.
I quite enjoyed working on a game like this, despite it not being the most ambitious title ever. I was able to create a varied and creative experience and narrative efficiently, and I'm interested in developing more interactive narrative titles.
For future endeavors, I'd like to explore giving the player more agency over the narrative, and incorporating narrative design elements in more traditionally "gamey" projects.