Combining a dating sim with a narrative adventure and cosmic horror might sound too crazy to work, but in reality, Suckers for Love: Crush Landing might be the most fun I’ve had with a dating sim in ages.
True colors
Suckers for Love: Crush Landing is an indie comedy-horror narrative adventure developed by Akaba and the latest addition to their Suckers for Love series, a collection of standalone games that aim to put the Love in Lovecraftian. By blending classic dating sim elements with cosmic horror, they’ve created something delightfully bizarre. It’s no surprise, then, that they’ve partnered with Black Lantern Collective to publish this title. Known for bringing unconventional horror games to the masses, Black Lantern doesn’t confine itself to traditional publishing. In their own words: “They bring out the games that the freaks want to play.”
In Crush Landing, you play as a Japanese male nightlife worker, better known as a host (a man you can hire at certain bars to share drinks with, who showers you with affection in return). Our protagonist is heading home after a date when he sees a meteor streak across the sky and crash directly into his apartment. When he calls the authorities to report it, they ridicule him instead of helping, pointing out that meteors fly, while meteorites are the objects that survive the crash. Frustrated, he calls a friend, who knows some university students who might be able to help. They’ll be there in about 15 minutes.
By blending classic dating sim elements with cosmic horror, Akaba created something delightfully bizarre.
That could have been the end of this unconventional story, but this is cosmic horror, so of course, it’s not that simple. Instead, a rainbow-colored entity emerges from the meteorite. At first, it takes your physical form, but with the help of a conveniently placed swimsuit magazine, you manage to reshape it into someone resembling the model on the cover. Lucky you: there’s now a cosmic babe in your apartment, and she might even be interested in you. Here’s the catch: she bends reality.
Love is a spectrum
But there’s a darkness at the heart of your budding relationship with Hheily, your potential extraterrestrial lover: she needs to be fed, or she’ll die. You’re free to explore your apartment and the rest of the building to scavenge items to toss into the burning comet. Your primary goal? Find objects of different colors. After Hheily consumes one, she sucks the color out of it, and out of any nearby objects of the same hue. Depending on whether she liked the item, you’ll earn either a star or a cross in the top-right corner of the screen.
If you manage to feed her one item for every color of the rainbow, you’ll receive either a whole heart or a broken heart, depending on how many crosses you’ve collected. Feeding Hheily also triggers story events: NPCs who visit you or call from elsewhere, often bringing benefits like new feeding items or upgrades for your home. Since colors drain from the environment as you feed her, these encounters become increasingly vital for progression. It’s a simple but effective system that sometimes feels too basic, yet the character interactions more than make up for it.
Every NPC is beautifully hand-drawn and brimming with quirks. First impressions can be deceiving, and encounters can unfold in wildly different directions based on your dialogue choices. Take the shady salesman, for example. He seemed intent on scamming me, but I wanted to see what would happen if I demanded his services, so I let him in to repair the damage Hheily caused during her forced entry. Surprisingly, he delivered, though the repairs were shoddy, they were good enough. In a later playthrough, I refused to let him in, and the story progressed in an entirely different direction. The same goes for other small decisions: the more you replay, the more you remember, and the further you’ll get.
Play on repeat
And that’s what makes Suckers for Love: Crush Landing so addictive: the sheer abundance of choices and events. You commit to a storyline, progress until you fail, and then pivot your choices for the next run. The loop forces you to replay the game, but thanks to the variety of encounters and branching paths, it never feels like a chore.
That said, I would’ve appreciated an in-game menu showing the paths I’ve already taken. Still, the fast-forward function lets you breeze past familiar sections quickly. My shortest run lasted five minutes, because I decided to touch the meteorite with something other than my bare hand, and the game interpreted this as… well, let’s just say my character got creative with the space rock.
This was a joke ending, but there are plenty of other ways the game can conclude, each triggered by your (sometimes dumb) choices. During my time with Crush Landing, I: Got killed by the meteorite a few times, I accidentally murdered my alien girlfriend, sold her to strange men at my door, and successfully delivered her to the university students… only to accidentally kill her again… And these are only a couple of conclusions I got at the end of this mind-bending story.
Conclusion
Suckers for Love: Crush Landing may be simple in gameplay, but its execution is flawless. With excellent art direction, a soothing ambient soundtrack, and characters that feel multidimensional, even in their simplicity, it’s clear they all have hidden motives.
If you’ve ever dreamed of dating something resembling a murderous Tamagotchi from outer space, look no further. The branching story paths and multiple endings will keep you hooked for hours. Who knows? You might even find true love in the end.