It’s an enchanting genre that I don’t see come up as often as it should. I would say my preference is towards exocolonist as it’s more forgiving, and the subsystem breaks up what might otherwise become monotonous.
A few of the things I like about the genre is the tangible growth and the impact your skills have on the story at large. Like the skill dialogues in fallout, but with more impact.
I also like the romance options and slow burn in exocolonist
For long live the queen at least, this is a whole sub genre of visual novels called stat-raisers. LLTQ was inspired by series princess maker. Princess maker 2 is available on steam and is probably the most popular one. As for games like exocolonist check out the rpg/vn hybrids made by Winter Wolves, she’s made a whole bunch of them and is in the process of running a kickstarter for a sequel to one of them.
Consider joining m/Otomegames, which full disclosure I run. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with otome games but it’s a genre of visual novels targeted towards women. The romance in games coming out of Japan tend to be exclusively girlxboy, but ones made in the west tend to let you pick your gender and allow both straight and lgbt romances. Most of them are straight visual novels without the stat-raising or RPG elements. Thus, the content on m/Otomegames will be mostly tangential, but both games you mentioned are considered otome adjacent, and I include games like them on my bi-weekly news round up.
I’ll check it out! I’m a guy but I’ll be damned if I’m not a sucker for a cute wlw love story
Sorry for being late. Aside from the obvious/ Hanako Games titles Royal Alchemist is an otome visual novel where you play as a tutor for three princes after the king gets assassinated. You have to raise both the princes’ stats as well as your own.
Funny, I was just thinking about this today as I was going through my Steam wishlist. I don’t even know what to call the genre but I want more of it. Haven’t heard of exocolonist before, so I’ll check that out. The only other one I can think of right now is Growing Up (Steam link), but that one is kind of shallow and not great for replayability.
Oh man, exocolonist has been great. You definitely won’t be disappointed. Try to stay as blind as possible to begin with! The art style is gorgeous and I love all of the love interests, so enjoy it!
Oh another one I remembered: Magical Diary Horse Hall (and the sequel Wolf Hall) - absolutely loved the first but never got around to playing Wolf Hall
You might be interested in “Magical Diary”. I wasn’t huge on the artstyle myself (it’s alright but didn’t strike me romantically(?) at all), but the rest of the game was awesome. The characters and story are good and the exams you go through feel creative and more interactive. You are at a magic school and have different solutions based on the classes you take.
Not sure if it would be a hit for you for sure, but worth taking a look at.
