#and the gimmick of having vague resembelance to some youtubers doesnt really help

[tumblunni]

I was gonna (finally) continue playing Dream Daddy, and that just made me think.. does anyone else remember.. I think it was ‘Ahego Academy’? *googles* Okay, Asagao is how its spelled, alright oops.

But like.. the Normal Boots dating sim, whatever it is?? Wasn’t that such a WEIRD THING?

I know that Dream Daddy isn’t really made by the game grumps alone, they just published it and supported it and helped out. And it was obviously never intended to be an actual ‘date the game grumps’, so I dunno why it even reminded me of asagao but like... Still I kinda see it as a success story of what Asagao failed to be. Like.. in an abstract sense, as a game licensed by some famous youtubers.

Cos like.. Asagao was so WEIRD because it.. marketed itself as a normalboots dating sim, was so OVERWHELMINGLY buried in normalboots licensing, yet then didnt really deliver on the normalboots part. All the characters aren’t really the members of normalboots?? Like, they have their names and vaguely similar appearances but then their personalities are just various standard anime tropes with barely any resembelance beyond like.. catch phrase in-jokes and one guy has a robot bird. And without that... like.. its really just... any other generic ‘trying too hard to be fake japanese based on anime alone’ western VN game. Even more generic its a high school one... And its so WEIRD seeing these half-assed high school au versions of everyone! Why do they still have full giant beards?? Actually, why did they even make the decision to have the protagonist be underage and like.. reimagine everyone else underage too? Wouldnt it be simpler to just have the protag be someone in college dating the actual real normalboots members, without the ‘reimagining’ having to go so far that they barely resemble the original?

It honestly feels like some sort of other game that got a weird sponsored makeover at the last second. I don’t know the real history behind it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case? like, did normalboots actually make this game themselves or was it similar to dream daddy? cos thats what I mean about the comparison. Dream Daddy is a project published, supported and even voiceacted by the game grumps, its an official Game Grumps Games (tm) Game, but they weren’t really over the top and restrictive about getting their license on it. Honestly you wouldn’t even know it was published by them if not for the big PUBLISHED BY THEM sticker on the title screen and like.. recognising one voiceactor or one or two little affectionate visual gags to running jokes from the show. Its really just an unrelated game that these youtubers really liked and decided to support. And Asagao feels like it was also one of those, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t! Like, it would be an extra double fail if it was made by the normalboots club themselves and somehow failed to contain very much of them. (Nah, I mean, its not that bad, I don’t HATE it and I dont think it was unsuccessful or anything, it just wasnt what I expected...)

Also like... Dream Daddy just seems so much like the GGs were actually passionate about it? It doesnt seem like a cash grab. It wasn’t excessively plugged on their videos and like.. when people were like ‘oh the game grumps are making a game’, the game grumps themselves tweeted to clarify the actual writers and programmers, and were constantly supporting them through the game’s troublesome release schedule issues. And I dunno, I guess it just raised my opinion of the GGs a lot, and also because this is a really great and inclusive gay dating sim with so much genuine soul in it. I actually initially got scared away from buying it just because it was ‘a Game Grumps Games (tm) Game’, when it was first announced I was worried it would be some sort of joke project. And like.. when it was clarified it was a gay game in particular, i was DOUBLE worried it was gonna have some bigoted jokes n shit, like holy hell! And like even if it wasn’t offensive, it’d probably be a JOKE, right? I mean they do so many jokes about gay flirting and stuff on the show. But like.. they actually went and proved that they’re like The Only People On Goddamn Youtube that GENUINELY are ‘just making jokes’ and do really care about their LGBTQ fans. (Cos seriously who expected this to even have transgender representation too??? I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANOTHER GAY DATING SIM THAT INCLUDES TRANS CHARACTERS, EVER ) its like.. this is why I roll my goddamn eyes at shit like the jontron and pewdiepie controversies. they never do anything to genuinely apologise for what they do, and they CERTAINLY dont do anything to prove that they’re not bigoted! All their apologies are like ‘no stop yelling at me but also let me go back to continuing to act exactly the same every day’. And like.. when have they ever really done anything to aknowledge those parts of their fandom even exist, let alone given a huge shoutout to minority fans LET ALONE supported the release of a WHOLE GAME about gay and trans men AND VOICEACTED IT. I mean obviously they aren’t perfect, and I’m still uncomfortable with those kinds of jokes and I don’t find them funny, but still its reassuring to finally know what these guys actually feel about queer people, yknow? And it doesn’t feel like a shoehorned-in fake effort or anything, they were really involved in making the game and supporting it and like.. either they got the feels about the lines they were voiceacting or they’re just REALLY good actors, yo. I didnt know they could do really serious scenes too?? i didn’t know this was even gonna HAVE serious scenes, i thought it’d be one giant horrible gay joke aimed at the lowest common denominator of their fans, instead of such a genuine project aimed at the fans who feel kinda left out. So like.. yeah. I ended up starting to watch more game grumps again after this game came out. Good job, guys. (Tho seriously still I would prefer less of the lowest common denominator jokes, or at least like try and make more of a statement about like.. the OTHER minorities you joke about, too. The audience legit cannot tell whether you’re joking or you really believe that shit, considering how many other youtubers are doing legit bigoted stuff like every damn week nowadays.)