Manipulate friends, tie girls up in Christine Love's Ladykiller in a Bind
Christine Love, the creator of visual novels Analogue: A Hate Story and its sequel Hate Plus, is currently working on a new game called Ladykiller in a Bind. This new erotic visual novel focuses on "social manipulation and girls tying up other girls," Love wrote on her blog, though an interview with Polygon thankfully sheds more light on the game's manipulation hook.
"Really, dating sims are inherently about manipulating other people – pick the right dialogue choices based off what you think they expect, learn about their interests so you can give them perfectly tuned gifts, make decisions based off whether you'll impress them or not – but like to pass it off as being about romance. Well, fuck that. You can still do that in Ladykiller in a Bind; we're just not going to pretend that it's anything other than manipulation. It'll have consequences."
Sex is another big aspect of not only the game, but relationships overall, Love argues, and she's striving to "get that right" in Ladykiller in a Bind. "Sex is a pretty crucial aspect of how people in relationships interact, not just some arbitrary achievement at the end of a romantic arc. So I feel like I really want to get that right ... and what's a better way to explore power dynamics than through kinky sex? Framing it in a BDSM context just makes it more explicit."
Ladykiller in a Bind is due some time in 2015 and could possibly be Love's last visual novel, she told Gameranx. The author admits she's becoming worried that she "focused too much on making the same sorts of games" and that she needs to take steps toward increasing her range as a developer.
