After a few jokes about the horror movie atmosphere, I check the power box, which is weirdly empty - there are just two cords, one leading up to the attic and one to the cellar. I’m in an isolated house full of friends, rented out over the years by an eccentric writer, when the power unexpectedly cuts out. I assume the role of Emily, a young woman with agoraphobia - an isolating, suffocating fear of leaving one’s safe place and awkward, embarrassing, or uncomfortable experiences. Homebody, published by Rogue Games and developed by Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator studio Game Grumps, tends toward the latter.
This exploration of the relationship between players and the game highlights how gameplay facilitates desires, how elements like agency and fictionality encourage certain responses from players, and how the genre ultimately functions alongside earlier, predigital objects of affection.Horror is a vast genre, ranging from blood-soaked slasher films to strange and cerebral campfire stories. The scope of this analysis extends beyond the game itself to consider the physical responses of its players-as made visible in game tutorials and walkthroughs distributed online. While addressing a number of popular titles, the article highlights one offering in particular, the 2017 release Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator. In taking up this thread, this article examines how tokens of desire are compressed and passed through the specific video game genre of dating simulators. The media theorist Sandy Stone has referred to flattened and digitized modes of communication in terms of “tokens,” using this framework specifically to address the ways in which we employ technology to compress, send, and receive desire.
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