Gaming News Sweet Love: What is this dating game that ignites streamers on Twitch?
More than 10 years after its release, a strange flirting game has popped up on Twitch. You probably don’t know Amour Sucré, but this western otome has brought together tens of millions of players. Back to puberty with this phenomenon that has ignited teenagers around the world.
Ma Bimbo, Studio Quiz, Equidea… If you were a teenager in the 2000s, these names will surely be familiar to you. These browser games have enlivened the evenings and weekends of many young gamers. And if that were your case, you’ll no doubt recall with nostalgia the moments spent answering questions from the arrogant host on Studio Quiz, tending to your favorite horse on Equidea, or headed to Ma Bimbo in a nightclub to flirt. And speaking of flirting sessions, one of those games had made it the heart of its storyline and gameplay: Sweet Love. The latter is still available more than ten years after its release and has even made its way to Twitch. streamers such as Maghla or The last actually spent many hours playing this free live dating game. The opportunity for us to come back to this French otome that left a deep mark on a l arge number of adolescent girls.
summary
- Sweet love what is this?
- An otome like the others?
- A love story that stays
Sweet love what is this?
Let’s start at the beginning so in March 2011. On this day, the young author ChinoMiko presented her browser-based flirting game with Beemov. We play a young teenager (named Sucrette) who has just moved to the town of her childhood. Since then, she has hardly known anyone, so she will have to make new friends at Sweet Amoris High School… and sometimes very close friends. As a dating game, it is indeed about doing whatever it takes to seduce your crush while making friends and surviving the petty attacks of certain comrades. In short, pretty standard high school life.
Everything happens in the form of a point’n’click, where the dialogues are of great importance. Depending on the choices you make, you will actually increase or decrease your Lovometer with the different characters. When the latter is at its lowest, it is impossible to pick. If he’s at his best, the prom invitation and first love will be yours. Still, making the right choice of dialogue is necessary to progress in a pre-written scenario. So you have to be patient. Don’t expect to kiss your loved one before the final months of high school.
Especially since the Action Points system is particularly nerve-wracking. With every new daily connection, you get some for free. If you’re lucky, it’s possible to win back a (very) small handful thanks to small games or certain rewards. Once these valuable points are collected, you can wander the rooms of Sweet Amoris. Each move then costs a few points. But that was before! After an update, it was the lines of dialogue that ate up player action points. And since the game is very in-depth, there was reason to be very frustrated. This is where the economic model comes into play as it is possible to buy action points through the bank.
Now you understand why a free game like this has survived all these years. Today the game is updated with new episodes to discover. And it must be said that he was able to forge a solid community. 10 million registered in France, then a launch abroad that allowed him to add 55 million players to his price list. You may have never heard of this game, but with numbers like this, it is certain that at least one person around you has played it. But then why such a success?
An otome like the others?
First off, what is an otome? Well, it’s a genre of narrative video games mostly dedicated to young girls. Very often you play a young girl who is looking for love and therefore has to flirt with the suitor of her choice.
It is this observation that prompted ChinoMiko to start developing their own otome, designed more for a Western target, a major novelty at the time. This allowed French players to discover characters with a style and attitude reminiscent of real people they met in high school or college, and which perhaps they had more or less fantasized about. The school rocker and his natural nonchalance, the misunderstood artist and his unique way of seeing the world, the nice nerd with everyone, the athlete with a soft heart or the equally beguiling and charming girl who loves everyone (it’s actually rare, a homosexual relationship to suggest in an otome)… The icing on the cake: the babe we love to hate, reminiscent of teenage movies such as Lolita despite me.
Add to that the different stages of life explored (high school, college, adulthood) and you get a sense of connection with the characters that defies all logic. On paper, we have to admit that they all correspond to very specific and sometimes very cliched archetypes (the bad boy, the nerd, the nice guy, etc.). And then there’s the action point system that we talked about above that really pissed off the early players. And yet, a large part of the players could not avoid restarting Amour Sucré to discover the rest of the story of Castiel, Priya, Nathaniel and the others. Characters that some have finally grown up with in those eleven years.
A love story that stays
If the Amour Sucré adventure began in high school, La Sucrette’s life continued well after high school. Campus Life and Love Life have greatly expanded the content of this otome. And you can add the Alternate Life episodes, which allows you to find characters that have been put aside over the course of the episodes (Lysander, Armin, and Kentin). All in all, there are no less than 79 episodes that today make up the adventure Amour Sucré, and only if we talk about the game: the love adventures of La Sucrette have in fact been translated into manga. This has resulted in five volumes covering the game’s voting system and characters (plus one unpublished one). The pilot of a cartoon looks Lou was also made, but this new adventure stalled. Despite everything, this shows a desire to make Amour Sucré more than just a game and that has allowed many players to remain interested in the game.
Amour Sucré is more than an otome, a community. The game’s forums have allowed many players to share their experiences and lives. This also allowed the creator of the game to make herself known and exchange ideas with her audience. In the small world of Amour Sucré, ChinoMiko is someone. So much so that some players have followed him to new adventures on Eldarya, another otome. ChinoMiko isn’t the only one who moves in the sphere of sweet love. Many content creators have continued to bring this dating game to life on Youtube (Tiboudouboudou, Dooms…). Today, the title has even infiltrated the valleys of Twitch through its doorstep, slipping into the stream of some of France’s biggest streamers Maghla etc The last. The opportunity for new players to discover the world and the Amour Sucré community, which surprisingly, despite the years, does not seem to be dying.