I just finished playing a game on my cell phone called Love Triangle: Dating Challenge, developed by Longtail Studios. It's a very short dating sim challenging would-be lovers everywhere to navigate the dialogue tree as stereotypically as possible. I assume it's aimed at girls, since the only character you can play is a girl and the gameplay centers around guessing what a man wants. This isn't about cultivating a successful relationship, mind you, as the game ends when you and your man agree to go out together.
The dialogue occasionally made me laugh. Unfortunately, it's pretty linear. Insulting one of the two characters you communicate with leads to a Game over, Try Again screen. The characters were shallow, and there wasn't much room to explore them.
This game would work great with multiplayer. I can imagine creating a profile online with my own questions and answers and custom avatar that other people could access through their phones if they'd like to try to date me. Then, as a profile Creator, I would love to see how many people tried to date me and whether they succeeded and whether they have avatars I could try to date. Even better for the game's developer, user generated content would extend the life of the game significantly without adding content creation costs to the development budget. If I'm paying a subscription, that's a lot of extra revenue.
