Originally created by PigeoNation and published by MIST[PSI]PRESS, this visual novel was first released into the world in 2011 as an April Fools joke as a Flash game. Due to it’s immense popularity it’s now available on Steam for $10. There are fourteen endings, some more easily discovered than others, and each ending is pretty fun to experience.
Embark on the journey to find somebirdie to love!
Essentially you play the lone human at a high school for pigeons. You are a hunter-gatherer going to high school and interacting with various types of pigeons, easily identifiable by their plumage and attitudes.
Obviously this is the base line for any good love story and the best part is there is no bird sex!
You can choose your potential mate by choosing classes that up certain stats that are necessary for some love birds’ story lines, engaging in activities that force you to interact with a certain fowl, and by making choices that endear the bird you want to you.
Before you start the game you can choose to have new characters introduced with a human portrait or not. I highly suggest doing so. It ups the humor of the game and made it so I could connect with the characters more. It was much harder to connect with just a bird, for me anyway. Shuu was a personal favorite for me when it came to seeing bird versus human portrait.
For being a dating sim for pigeons, this was actually really entertaining. Depending on who you choose to pursue romantically, if anybirdie, there are quite a few funny moments, like comparing a haunted house to a ninja house, or my favorite moment that I posted above from when I was attempting to fly the coup.
Speaking of humor, there is one bird in particular who loves… or hates pudding. Seriously. He fights pudding. HOW CAN YOU NOT PLAY A GAME WITH A BIRD THAT FIGHTS PUDDING?! …or at least he stomps on pudding. Use your imagination.
The game just has so many little things that are hilarious. I like how each bird has his or her own personality and none of them are boring, there is something compelling about each of them. It truly surprised me that I wanted to go back and play it again and again for the different stories, funny lines, and new endings. Apparently dating pigeons is extremely addictive.
The puns are great in this game, and very much add to the humor without overwhelming it or coming off as trying too hard. Hatoful pokes fun at other games of the dating simulator genre and it does it exceedingly well. For a game that started out as a joke, it really has taken flight.
Through out this game I learned many odd little facts about pigeons that I had never thought to know before. Did you know pigeons reach sexual maturity after the first year of their life? Should that make me feel weird? How old are these pigeons I’m courting?
My favorite little Easter egg was Brian Pigeon. The game actually tells you to google him, allowing you to go look this pigeon blogger up before continuing. I’ll make it easier for you to find him– here is his Pigeon Blog and here is his Twitter account which has about three thousand five hundred and fifty more followers than mine.
This is a great game and I recommend throwing $10 at it and seeing where it takes you. Why not see if you can engulf the world in pudding and/or find somebirdie to love? This is a bird game for anybirdie that everybirdie can enjoy! Nobirdie could resist playing this; it’s funny, full of puns, and just long enough to be amusing and not annoying. Explore your weird side and get in on this!
“The most splendid and greatest academy of the pigeon, by the pigeon and for the pigeon.” – Hatoful Boyfriend
English