‘I LOVE YOU, COLONEL SANDERS’ DATING SIMULATOR GAME
The popular dating simulator genre of video games puts users into choose-your-own-adventure romances where the goal is to win the favor of one or more characters. In I Love you, Colonel Sanders, the Colonel is the most promising and mysterious student in your class at culinary school—your goal is to catch his eye and, if you’re lucky, some insight into his secret recipe.
Writing the plot, designing gigabytes of artwork, and building out the branching narrative structure was an ambitious undertaking. But once it was all said and done, we sat back and watched the internet’s inability to resist the confusing allure of a handsome young anime Colonel Sanders.
The game contains hours of play time throughout the winding story variations, along with easter eggs and five different endings. It received upwards of 4 billion impressions at launch, thousands of unsolicited playthroughs from avid streamers, and sustained over 600 active users through its first year on the Steam store.
When Seth Meyers makes fun of you on his late night show, and people start showing up to cosplay conventions dressed as characters from your video game, you realize the thing you’ve made might be bigger than a well-disguised commercial.