Dating simulator girlfriends reject human boyfriends’ kisses due to game/heartbreaking bug

LovePlus error turns fans into losers in the game of love.

When you think about it, there’s something especially strange about dating simulator video games: their stories end at the part where a real relationship starts getting fun. In keeping with the ideas of game structure, most dating simulators end once the difficulty peaks, with the confession of mutual attraction taking the place of the final boss battle. That means that after spending hours pining after their digital crush, the player doesn’t get to enjoy the blissful happiness of a stable, out-in-the-open relationship.

However, developer Konami’s LovePlus series bucks that convention by being a dating simulator with no completion/endpoint. Once you and the 2-D target of your affection become a couple, you can stay together until the end of time, with the game cycling through seasonal date scenarios for you to enjoy, just like a real relationship.

▼ Trailer for LovePlus Every

However, players of LovePlus Every, the franchise’s most recent, for-smartphones iteration, recently experienced a less lovey-dovey dose of realism: the possibility that your girlfriend’s feelings for you might fade, an even disappear. During dates, LovePlus Extra gives the player a series of choices, one of which is “Try to kiss her,” but this week when players made that move, some of them were suddenly presented with a message saying:

“An error has occurred. Returning to title screen.
Error code: 0”

In other words, trying to kiss their virtual girlfriends broke the game, slapping them in the face with the particularly lonely-sounding “Error code: 0” and leaving their romantic desires unfulfilled. In some instances the error would also cause the image of the girlfriend and background graphics to disappear as well, suddenly plunging the player into a world of pitch-black isolation.

Twitter users reacted to the rejection with comments including:

“Well, I just got dumped.”
“My girlfriend doesn’t ant anything to do with me anymore.”
“Even in the virtual world, I can’t get a kiss.”
“Can’t get a girlfriend in real life, or in the game.”
“Does the game itself hate people who have an active love life, even within the game?”

Luckily for all the human halves of LovePlus couples, Konami became aware of the problem and shut down the game’s servers for 45-minute maintenance session on the evening of December 23 after which no kiss attempt-triggered errors have been reported. Still, this is a reminder to treasure your virtual lover while you can, since your relationship may not be as permanent as it first appears.

Source: Twitter/@loveplusproject via Otakomu
Top image: YouTube/KONAMI公式
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