Late March brought us the most recent iteration of PAX East in the east coast of the United States. An amalgamation of all things gaming, dropped into the historical city of Boston. Myself and my better half, GSC Editor Candy, were feet on the ground at this convention. A convention where I received the amazing opportunity to speak with someone behind a recent series that I have grown to adore. The creator behind the Sucker for Love series – Joseph “Akabaka” Hunter.
Akabaka was at PAX East this year, in conjunction with Ukiyo Studios. Specifically, he was here to promote the third title in the Sucker for Love series, Sucker for Love: Crush Landing.
I had the chance to speak with Akabaka on the opening day of PAX. Additionally, I got to try out the demo for the upcoming Sucker for Love: Crush Landing. We were away from the hustle and bustle of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Akabaka and I talked about the Sucker for Love series and what we can expect in Crush Landing. We also chatted about anime and Dungeon & Dragons (having both recently finished the Vecna: Eye of Ruin campaign).
Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me, Joseph. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for the upcoming launch of Crush Landing. The first thing that I have to ask is what inspired this blending of Lovecraftian horror and dating sim?
It’s funny that you ask as it actually wasn’t my idea. I was originally working on something else and, before Sucker for Love, something completely new to me. I was kind of a weanie so I couldn’t really do any horror games.
I’m going to say I’m the same – don’t worry!
So I was presenting my main other project, Chromatose, which is this RPG visual novel at a convention. Somebody that was working at the publisher that would publish Sucker for Love 1 and 2 had played my demo for that game. I guess they thought that I might have horror chops and invited me into what was the Dread X Collection. This was a curated list – it’s actually almost like a gamejam? But they picked who was doing it, and it was paid.
So we had about 10 to 14 days to make a playable game. The theme was “love crafting” . So, the premise is that it had to have love mechanics, crafting mechanics and Lovecraftian horror. Crafting – I could have spent 10 days just making a crafting system because it’s so complicated. I thought “What has items that you can create and also love mechanics? Dating sims!” So the only piece missing was the Lovecraftian horror.
I found myself here, shoulder-to-shoulder, with the people who made my favorite horror game of all time, World of Horror. He was also in that collection, along with David Szymanski – you might know him from Iron Lung. All these people that I had a lot of respect and adoration for. So I really leaned into what I knew and what I liked the most. I also spent a lot of time researching Lovecraftian horror, as it’s not something that I was familiar with. But I wanted to ensure that I did the medium justice. I think that I came up with something that, despite not having much experience, a pretty respectable first shot. And I was eventually able to refine this down to what you know as First Date.
Knowing that you had built First Date as part of this game jam, were you expecting it to take off?
Noooo! I expected it to be the weird one! We had so many of these other incredibly talented folk in the room with these games that were Lovecraft horror. Straight up – lots of horror, lots of dark color pallets, and then you had mine, which was bright pink. I was really nervous about that, and I did think mine was going to stand up, but in a bad way. You know, here’s the guy who doesn’t know anything about horror. You know, doing a really satirical, dating sim thing where I’m making fun of Lovecraft and anime and dating sims.
I was really hoping it wouldn’t come off that way because it was a love letter to all of those things. But no, I was absolutely not in any way expecting the reception to be a break out. It was so crazy because the actual numbers on it were wild. People were beating Sucker for Love twice as frequently as people were even opening the second most popular game in the collection. I had no idea that that would happen. And when I got picked up for a full series, I was just in shock. I didn’t think that people were just going to go with this kind of crazy, hear me out game.
I do think there is that always subset of a population that enjoy when the genre is basically taking its eyes and inverting it back on itself. Like “I know exactly what this is and I appreciate it. You did it a couple times in the games, where the sentiment was “We’re very aware this is a dating sim” and having that self-awareness is a great homage to the genre and a dedication to this content. We know there will be people who enjoy this.
You got it exactly right. I use the phrase love letter to describe my relationship with dating sims, 90s anime, Lovecraftian horror. Just because I feel like games that are love letters will almost always convey that contagious amount of genuine appreciation for the media and you see these smash hits. Like Stardew Valley, being a love letter to those farming sims. It ended up completely eclipsing the popularity of the ones that actually inspired it.
Harvest Moon walked so that Stardew Valley could run?
Exactly! I do hope that that continues to come across with each of these games. Even though I am poking fun at each of these mediums. I am still coming from a place of “I love all three of these things” and that I’m trying to take my favorite parts of each of them and put them into one living breathing thing.
The aesthetics I love. I’ve been an anime-head since I was a wee young individual, got bullied in school for it. There is this interesting resurgence of anime that are going back to the 90’s style. I just never thought that I would see this style come full circle again in the public…zeitgeist, for lack of a better term.
It’s starting to resurge because at this point, it’s nostalgic. You even see all these mood boards and lo-fi hip-hop beats and I’m sitting here like “I just watched this show”. You don’t need to put a lo-fi beat over it! Hhailey, that girl [gestures to screen with Crush Landing demo] was largely inspired by Lum from Urusei Yatsura. If you saw a picture, you would know exactly who I’m talking about.
I guess to pivot then, obviously as a game developer, you do spend a lot of time on things with games. Do you still get to play games in your free time now?
Yes, that’s one of the ways I stay hungry, as I make sure I consume a lot of things that I like and I enjoy and that can show me new things to do with the medium. One of my favourite horror games is World of Horror – I play a lot of that. I play a lot of stuff that is off-genre, like Deadlock as well – it’s a MOBA that was developed by Valve. Also, not just video games, but I’ve been reading [Haruki] Murakami, who is an author that writes these surreal stories.
But in general, I just try to stay hungry. I have to have this appetite for new ideas, mechanics, new stories and characters, because it’s very easy to get stuck in a room, looking at your project and nothing else and then kind of forgetting why you love this kind of genre to begin with. And so one of the ways to make sure that this stays a love letter is to keep me in love with things.
Is it safe to say that you’ve read some Junji Ito as well?
Yes, definitely! [We then proceeded to have a drawn out conversation about Junji Ito’s Tomei and the struggles and lugging an anthology book in your travels.]. Tomei is a very good one and probably one of my favorite substories in Junji Ito’s universe. One of the other ones that I’ve read is The Enigma of Amigara Fault, which is very Lovecraftian at the end of the day and you never really “see” what you’re supposed to fear. If you’ve never played World of Horror, I cannot recommend it enough – it’s like playing a Junji Ito story for yourself. It has the pacing of a book, because it’s a turn-based roguelite “choose your own adventure” style of gameplay. There’s no jump scares, no “oogah boogah” – it’s a 2D point-and-click which resolves off your choices and stats.
I’ll have to check it out, as my biggest difficulty with horror is getting jumpscared. That’s not scaring me – that’s just startling me, which isn’t hard to do.
It’s like tickling someone and saying “Ha, I made you laugh – I’m a comedian”!
Thank you so much for the recommendation. I guess as we wrap up the more formal questions, you have obviously created so many of these characters – who has been your favorite to create?
It’s like asking who your favorite child is! I do love all of them and I love them for different reasons. I would say Nyanlathotep is too hard to forget.
Auntie Nyan?
Yes, she was originally an April Fool’s character. I was making Sucker for Love: First Date and it was April Fool’s and I wanted to make a prank and I thought “What’s a really stupid, Lovecraftian pun?” What about if it’s not Nyarlathotep but Nyanlathotep and it’s a cat girl – sounds good! I was like “Hey everyone, the future Sucker for Love games are just about Nyanlathotep – haha!” And the Tweet did numbers and I was like “Oh God”, so now it’s a rule for the Sucker for Love dev team that we’re not allowed to do anything as a joke because it will become canon – absolutely 100% canon. It’s really funny to see her rise out of the blue as a joke character that turned into the most lusted after character in the entire IP.
That’s such a funny turn that I was not expecting! I think, despite noting that Nyanlathotep being one of the most lusted after characters, Sucker for Love always has toed that line between being PG and smutty. Like, we’re going to be coy about this, but not go hard into the smut that other dating sims do.
Yeah, that’s one of the things to try to keep the game endearing, is that the finish line for almost all the games is a kiss, and that’s incredibly chaste in terms of a dating sim.
I think that’s the great thing because as you said it’s a love letter.The goal is not to bed this cosmic horror – it’s just like I want to be able to kiss you, knowing full well this will bring about my demise in the process. Thank you so much for meeting with me. I’d love to get a chance to check this out as well [referring to Sucker for Love: Crush Landing].
Once again, many thanks to Joseph for meeting with me and to Ukiyo Studios for scheduling us during this incredibly busy weekend! I’ll be writing up some initial impressions around the Sucker for Love: Crush Landing demo in the near future. Speaking of, you can try out the Sucker for Love: Crush Landing demo on Steam now!
Anything you wish that we could have spoken about to Akabaka? Leave a comment below or join us for even more talks and friendly banter over at the Gamer Social Club Discord!
