Pickup Artist Puzzler Huniepop Is “A Social Justice Warrior’s Worst Nightmare”

Huniepop, a new game available on Steam this week, has been described by its creators as a “Dating Puzzle RPG” and “a Social Justice Warrior’s worst nightmare.” And oh lord, do they hate it. Some SJWs have tried to get it banned from Steam for its nudity. (Steam told them to screw off since lots of games on that service have naked women.) Some have written reviews filled with outright lies about the game, and some have resorted to simply begging people not to buy it.  But what is about Huniepop that sends them into a gibbering monkey-like frenzy?

A PUA-Inspired Dating Sim

Huniepop is half dating-sim, half puzzle game. You play as a man (or woman, if you enable that option) who’s so hopeless in love that a “love fairy” finds him and takes pity on him, teaching him how to meet girls and eventually sleep with them. This has been a common plot in video games and movies for years, but what makes Huniepop unique is that it draws a clear inspiration from the pick-up artist community. Instead of being told to “just be yourself” and “the right girl will show up,” your love fairy sends you out to malls, campuses, coffee shops, and bars, where you’ll meet girls and attempt to persuade them to go out with you.

Regular readers of sites like RooshV.com and ReturnOfKings.com will instantly recognize many of the techniques that you’ll use. Most conversations with new girls begin with what’s called an “indirect opener,” asking an innocuous question to open a conversation. You can ask a cheerleader on campus where the student union is, or commiserate with a girl at a coffee shop about the lousy service. From there, you can develop into a smooth, natural-sounding conversation that ends with her agreeing to go on a date with you.

One particular example that brought a smile to my face was the game’s use of “agree and amplify”. When a girl accuses you of something, or is rude or upset, one way to respond is to agree with her in an outlandish way that makes her laugh. At one point in the game, one of the girls you can date wants to know if you’re dating someone else. Here’s how the conversation went for me:

Girl: “You’re not like… seeing anybody right now, are you?”

Me: “Yeah… but only like, 7 other chicks.”

Girl: “Yeah, right… you wish!” (Big bonus points)

The game designer actually posted a video of him doing “field research”, that is, going to a college campus and picking up girls there in a fashion somewhat similar to that found in Huniepop (In the game you’re generally much less direct). He actually does pretty well for himself!

The comments on that Youtube video are illuminating as to the SJW mindset: chatting to girls in broad daylight in a crowded area is “creepy”, and indicates that the person might be a “serial rapist.” (Serial rapists being, of course, well-known for their love of daylight and crowded spaces.)

Why do they hate it so much?

There are a lot of different girls in Huniepop: a black flight attendant, a Japanese university professor, and even an alien, but they all have one thing in common: they’re happy to see you, happy to talk to you, and, if you’re good enough at the game, very enthusiastic about having sex with you.

This, more than anything else, is what makes the social justice warrior type so upset that he’ll lie, manipulate, and outright beg to stop you from playing the game. It’s not the game’s nudity; Puzzler The Void had fully rendered naked women when it came out in 2009, and nobody complained then (Hell, there’s some nipples in the official Steam trailer, and that’s been there for 6 years). It’s not the dating sim aspects: Nekopara, a more typical Japanese dating sim, was released in early January and didn’t attract nearly this much attention.

No, what makes them so mad is the idea that a guy can talk to a woman and she might actually enjoy it. She may even (gasp!) enjoy dating him, talking to him, or sleeping with him. These people are the Junior Anti-Sex league from George Orwell’s 1984, permanent scowls etched on their flabby faces, quaking in fury at the idea that someone, somewhere, is engaging with the opposite sex in a way that violates party doctrine.

After all, if a guy plays a video game where girls are happy to talk to him, he might want to try it in real life. He might even want to talk to girls in real life. And even worse, the girls may like it! For a movement that’s bent on criminalizing any contact between two strangers in public as “street harassment,” the idea that a girl might enjoy being spoken to is a Thoughtcrime that must be stopped at any cost.

But what’s odd about the animosity towards Huniepop is how anti-woman it is. In the review I linked above, SJW reviewer Lucas White called the women in this game “targets”, and your conversations with them “stalking” and “intrusive”. The girls don’t feel stalked, nor do they react like “targets”, in the same way many of the girls in the video I linked above are smiling and laughing. But this doesn’t matter to him. He’s decreed that they are nothing more than targets, and so targets they shall be. The development team for Huniepop is, according to its Kickstarter Page, over 50% female. They might not have thought they were making a stalking simulator, but he knows better. These women aren’t “real” women, and their thoughts, opinions, and feelings don’t count, because they don’t agree with him.

As I’ve said before, there can only be one response to this sort of nonsense: ignore their pleas and laugh at them. Mock them relentlessly, at every available opportunity. And if you really want to piss them off? Think about buying a copy of Huniepop.

I’ll have a detailed review of the game itself coming later this week. Short version: dating sim aspects are good, characters are good, overall story is a little bland, and the puzzle aspects are amazing. Best puzzle game I’ve played in years. A buddy of mine bought a copy at my urging, started playing at 3:30 AM and didn’t stop until 1:30 PM the next day. I haven’t seen him so into a game in over a decade.

Note: The developer of Huniepop very graciously provided Reaxxion a review copy upon my request.  He also stated that he was well-aware of our site, and was a fan of site owner Roosh, which was nice of him.

Read Next: How The Game Destroyed My Love For Video Games