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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

The developer of turn-based SRPG Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children has recently garnered attention for their “funny but sad” response to a Steam user’s request for a dating system to be added to the game.

Troubleshooter was created by Korean developer Dandylion. The lore-rich game takes place in an unstable free trading nation called Valhalla where civilians called Troubleshooters are tasked with investigating the rising number of crimes. Combat plays out like an old-school turn-based strategy game- but it is supported by a deep Mastery System that allows a high degree of customization and many potential strategies to take on each new challenge you face. Since the game’s 2017 Early Access debut and subsequent official release in 2020, it has garnered an impressive Very Positive rating (with 94% of 8109 reviews being positive).



Developer Dandylion has responded to almost all the reviews on Steam. This also goes for a short positive review submitted on May 5 by a player who has since clocked up over 350 hours in Troubleshooter. They praised the strategic gameplay- saying that it is “more complex than Xcom,” with their only complaint being that the game has no dating system. Dandylion’s frank response, which reveals that the team did not add any romance options due to a lack of real-life experience, has since gained lots of attention on X.

Many commenters on X found the response both amusing and sad- with some empathizing with the dev team’s lack of dating experience. Dandylion’s honesty for recognizing their limitations when it comes to creating a realistic and believable dating system also garnered much praise.

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children is available now on PC (Steam).The developer is currently working on a sequel, Troubleshooter: Banished Children.

Source - Automaton West

 

[GrayChild]

My uncle works at Nintendo and says that literally every game that lacks dating systems added to it is due to the same reasons.

Game devs just don't get coochie is all.

 

[SCB3]

Game devs just don't get coochie is all.

As a former Game Dev I beg to diff....

...Oh wait I got married AFTER I left it for Enterprise Dev, maybe you're on to something

 

[feynoob]

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children

Yet they have experience on abandoned children

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Ah you're fine. Your audience doesn't have any real life experience either, so they won't know if it's off.

 

[theStartupSound]

Like dating stories in games have anything to do with how real life dating is.

 

[Bring Back Scalebound]

I know this is besides the point, but why does every fucking game need that?

The guy that asked that could play literally anything else, because that waifu dating shit is everywhere.

I know this is shocking to a lot of people, but friendships are a thing, you know? Men and women can be friends too.

Jesus... Weebs want pandering trash everytime.

Respect to the developers though, for their honesty.
I hope the game does well.

 

[Labadal]

This is the one game that I have tried to spread the word of.

Bought multiple copies of it as gifts.

You guys should play it.

 

[SlimySnake]

Are korean women also waiting for Trust Fund, 6'5, Blue eyes, Finance Bros?

 

[Zannegan]

Ah you're fine. Your audience doesn't have any real life experience either, so they won't know if it's off.

My thoughts any time anyone laments the lack of romance options in a game.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Like dating stories in games have anything to do with how real life dating is.

Speak for yourself. One time my bitchy female friend since childhood “accidentally” saw me naked at a hot spring and realized she wanted the D. She is now my wife.

 

[Sethbacca]

Speak for yourself. One time my bitchy female friend since childhood “accidentally” saw me naked at a hot spring and realized she wanted the D. She is now my wife.

Dude just described that one onsen episode that happens in every anime and tried to pass it off as his life. We see you

 

[Js562]

Why you need dating simulator. Just weird people these days. Talk with your girl and take her out oh waitt.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Dude just described that one onsen episode that happens in every anime and tried to pass it off as his life. We see you

Hey man it’s just a case of art imitating life.

There was also this time when I hooked up with a 1000 year old dragon who took the form of a suspiciously young looking “18 year old” girl.

 

[Shut0wen]

Like dating stories in games have anything to do with how real life dating is.

My thoughts exactly

 

[The Cockatrice]

Had this game on my wishlist forever. Never bit the bullet for some reason. Maybe I should

 

[Doom85]

Resident Evil 9 has sadly been cancelled. When asked why, Capcom responded with, “sadly, it finally dawned on us that none of us have real-life experience fighting zombies, giant snakes, mold creatures, werewolves, etc. I guess we got lucky making these great games all these years without even realizing we have no idea what the fuck we’re doing, but I can’t imagine we can continue knowing what we have now realized. I suppose we could use our imagination, look into existing zombie fiction for inspiration, etc., but that sounds like a lot of work, so we’d rather not.

Also, Street Fighter 7 will now have an entirely new roster of people who can fight in the sense that they know the basic steps to throwing the most standard of punches. I mean, come on, we’re not boxers, martial artists, etc., what do you want from us? Also, no more Hadokens and such, that magical stuff is unusable by us so we don’t know how it works, so we have to cut that out.“

Okay, but in all seriousness, I do get people with no romantic experience might not want it in their game. And I’m sure the developers know it’s hardly a requirement to have romantic experience to be able to include it in a story and do it well (Stephen King’s book On Writing has a great section in explaining how to write about things in a story that you might have little to zero proper knowledge of, and used an example of when he wrote a main character who was a lawyer and King knew barely anything about legal practice but took steps to fix that to a necessary degree in a non tedious way), but rather they just feel more comfortable not having it at all. Totally understandable and I’m glad that most of the game’s fans seem to be understanding.