The forkheads.info thing is a cheat code, right? randomamv. I typed it in because the game, this Love Hina dating sim quest visual novel whatever, it just sits there. Naru punches Keitaro. Screen shakes. Same sprite, same three dialogue boxes. I wanted to see if the code unlocked a scene where Motoko’s sword isn’t just for show, you know? It didn’t. It just gave me max affection with Shinobu. Shinobu. The shy one who cooks. I didn’t want that. I wanted to break the thing, see the seams where the hentai is stitched onto a half-baked RPG maker skeleton.

The dating mechanics are a slot machine with a smile. You pick a location, the RNG decides if you get a panty shot or a bowl of miso soup. I grinded the hot springs area for an hour, my brain leaking out my ears, just to trigger a scene where Kitsune, drunk, falls on the protagonist. Her boobs are just circles. Flat circles with a single highlight dot. I’ve seen more erotic tension in a captcha test. But then, and this is the part that gets me, there’s a quest where you have to find a lost turtle. A fucking turtle. And the way the dialogue tree branches if you find it in the girls’ bath versus the garden, the slight shift in Naru’s text from “baka” to “...baka,” it’s so stupidly specific it loops back around to being almost genius. Almost.

The RPG elements are a lie. You don’t level up, you just accumulate “promise” points that unlock the same CGs you can find by clicking the gallery button from the main menu. I wish the combat system from the Love Hina fighting game was in this. It’s not. It’s just clicking. Clicking on Shinobu’s apron strings. Clicking on Mutsumi’s watermelon. The sound design is a single mp3 of a summer cicada that loops so badly it stutters, creating this accidental industrial noise track that’s more interesting than the actual sex scenes. Those are just loops. Two frames. A text box that says “Ahh... Keitaro...” and then it’s over. You’re back in the inn. The cicada is still screaming. I never did find out what the forkheads code was actually for.