Love And Deepspace Gives The People What They Want

Love and Deepspace, the romance mobile game from Infinity Nikki maker Infold Games, has a new update today, Lingering Lust, that's very likely the spiciest one yet. It's so spicy that Infold Games released censored trailers on social media—one starring stick figures and another that's just thrusting text. For two weeks, Love and Deepspace players will roll on the gacha system to unlock sexy memories from a visit to a lush hot spring. There are other things to unlock, like outfits, but the real appeal will certainly be these scenes.

The censored versions of the scenes are already exceptionally popular. My personal favorite is the gentle Xavier's text-based teaser trailer. Posted on the Taiwanese Instagram account, the video is literally a bunch of text, written in Chinese, on a black background. The text is arranged in such a way that it almost resembles a body. In fact, the parts of the body are labeled—nose, leg, mouth, hands. There's a whole lot of thrusting, which culminates in the Chinese character for water raining around and over the two human-ish shapes. Who knows what that represents!

Anyway, Love and Deepspace rules. It's a visual novel and dating game with a combat mode where you fight with guns, swords, and magic. You almost never hear about the battle system, because the romance and story is the real draw. Your character starts on the first day of a new job fighting all sorts of different monsters and protecting the world. This character meets all these love interests throughout the story, which is exceptionally complicated. Seriously, human experiments and alternate realities are involved. The place where all these unlockable gacha pulls come from, called Banners in-game, are essentially memories from these alternate universes, and they're quite inventive. For instance, the guys were once literally feral and locked in cages. There's another where you hold a gun to one of the men's heads before heading to the bedroom.

Outside of the fantastical story, you also have a home your character lives in, decorates, and hangs out with their man in. When your character is sleepy, they can literally fall asleep together. With your phone next to your pillow, he'll breathe, maybe snore, while you do that too in real life. Once you've awoken from your nap, maybe you'd like to garden, or read a book. It's a pretty robust system that's also somewhat confusing.

It's also wildly popular. Love and Deepspace has more than 80 million players globally. It's created a dedicated fandom community that gathers frequently for in-person events and celebrations. On the five boyfriends' birthdays, fans purchase billboards and ad space in train stations. Often there are cosplayers to meet and take pictures with. They're passionate because men are hot, but also because Infold Games takes their needs and desires seriously. What Love and Deepspace has that a lot of games with sex don't is that it treats its story and characters with care: it prioritizes the female main character, who the player is supposed to see themself as. It makes sense. Infold Games is one of the rare big budget studios where women make up a big part of the development team. 

You can see this really clearly in the memories like the ones in Lingering Lust. The player is not treated like an object; it's her pleasure that's prioritized. Often, there's consent involved. Sylus, in particular, is the community's consent king. (He is also a dragon, which is why he is my favorite.)