Where Did That Campus Dream Go?
Huh? Where did it go — the campus life that was supposed to be overflowing with dreams and hope?
For a title whose naming sense made you wonder if it was even trying, The Relationship Octopus Project was a genuinely excellent raising simulation.
So what kind of game was The Relationship Octopus Project, exactly?
Six years of elementary school, three of middle school, three of high school. Twelve years lived without a single friend — and the game opened on its protagonist swearing that college would be different. Really, truly different.
For the record, a considerable number of viewers developed headaches at this part.
Anyway, like every other raising sim, The Relationship Octopus Project had a schedule, stats, a spread of events, and endings.
Of course that alone wasn't remotely enough to understand the thing. Put simply, with an example: choose Review while planning your schedule, and the protagonist's Academics stat goes up.
Academics then influences the result of a fixed event called Midterms. Your GPA changes.
Even so, spending your schedule on nothing but stats was not a good option. You had living expenses to worry about, and besides the fixed events there were others you could only see by meeting the right conditions.
Those events could affect other events, and which ones you saw — and with what result — could change your ending.
Parameters could change the ending, too. Grind nothing but part-time jobs to cover living expenses, wreck your stats, and botch your events on the way to the credits? You got an ending where you never landed a real job and scraped by day to day on part-time work, barely keeping food in your mouth.
For the record, I didn't see that ending myself. A viewer told me about it.
And beyond all that: events laced tightly into one another, an enormous menu of schedule choices and stats, and a wide cast of characters.
When I started a first run just to get a feel for the game, all of those pieces jumped out at me, and I couldn't help coming away with the impression that this was a solid game.
So. My review, after playing what had been a perfectly decent game up through the mid-to-late stretch of run one:
For the record, that was not a joke and not a bit. I meant it.
This game, I was starting to think, was no joke.
It was no joke specifically in how lightly it brushed aside an otaku's pure heart, their sense of romance, and their common sense.
"Okay! I'm starting to get a feel for what kind of game this is. It leans hard into how bitter reality is, yeah?"
I said that, then dropped out without a second's hesitation. A dropout ending was there to greet me. The dropout ending was every bit as spicy as the part-time one.
Maybe because it was an ending built to get under the skin of Marchen, college-dropout streamer, my brow furrowed hard. This game was vicious about sucking you in too deep.
No. Now was not the time to get sucked in. Focus. Focus!
"Today's goal isn't to make this kid live an honest life and watch a happy ending. All right! Jumping straight into the real run!"
Today's actual objective was an old saying made practical. A gourd that leaks at home will leak outside, too — and I was here to make sure it didn't.
To pull that off, I first had to manufacture a knockoff of the leaky gourd in question.
"I'm thinking I'll make the protagonist as close to Marchen Mk. II as I can.... There isn't a streaming route, is there?"
How were they this flawless about social norms only at times like this? I let out a long, heavy sigh.
"There's a Games option under Rest, so it's not like the possibility is zero.... Grinding nothing but games forever doesn't feel like it'll unlock streaming, though. ...Fine. I'll just do as much as I actually can!"
With that I clenched my right hand into a fist, threw it up as if I meant to punch the sky, and shouted with everything I had.
"A! A! O!!!!!!"
"...Ah, for reference, A-A-O roughly means 'you got this, you got this, let's go'——"
Production of Marchen Mk. II went smoothly.
It went so smoothly that when I joined the anime club and watched anime-viewing unlock under Rest, I became convinced heaven itself was helping me build Marchen Mk. II.
And so Marchen Mk. II was born, faithful to anime and games.
And then.
"No, this is just the game griefing me!!!"
Marchen Mk. II became a defective human on the spot.
It hadn't been bad. Not a lie — it really hadn't been bad.
Watching the protagonist join the anime club, grow close with the other members, and stack numbers one by one into a completely empty contacts list, I couldn't help feeling proud in spite of myself.
I'd made the protagonist practice drawing just to scratch a personal itch, and when that paid off at the festival event, I was certain beginner's luck had struck.
Yeah. It had been going well. So why did you suddenly floor it straight into a confession?
...Fine. Flooring it? I'll concede a hundred times over that maybe you floor it. The problem was confessing entirely on your own, getting dumped, and immediately losing your entire mind.
Huh? The kid breaks, and studying, part-time work, going out, contacting people — all of it locks, and the only thing left to choose on the schedule is Rest? I don't get to prepare at all for the fallout of a failed confession?
It was the moment I understood, with perfect clarity, why a stat called Mental even existed.
Do I just yell that this pot is a dud and watch the dropout ending? I've already poured time into it, though — wouldn't it be better to at least see some other ending? I was seriously weighing that when a donation came in.
A viewer showed up determined to get a rise out of me with a one-dollar jab, but unfortunately a certain thing I had said in the past meant that one-dollar jab didn't hurt at all.
So, with a mind of unbreakable diamond, I dragged that old line back out.
That line didn't contain a sliver of a lie, and our viewers would probably admit it had been sincere. ...Would I have been lying in a state so far gone I was in a maid outfit, squeaking pyon-pyon?
Besides, for something I'd said while alcohol had my brain about halfway gone, it was a line that struck the heartstrings pretty well. If I ever wrote an autobiography, that line was going in.
"I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking that if I ever wrote an autobiography, that line absolutely had to go in it."
"...Let's just see the ending and move on to the next run. If I finish fast, I think I can squeeze in one more round."
I said that, and I was just setting the middle and ring fingers of my right hand on the Enter key, ready to mash it—
I hesitated a moment, then opened my mouth.
"...A cautionary tale?"