TOLEDO, Ohio — A lovelorn man was surprised to see that he had been “ghosted” by Love Bubble Yeah!—a dating sim he had been playing on his laptop during lunch breaks for the past three weeks.
“Things were going well, I thought,” says 29-year-old SEO marketer Justin Wenk. “I met Miko at The Coffee Shop and we hit it off. After our first conversation, her Attraction Meter boosted all the way up to ‘Thirsty.’ I would constantly grind at The Office to earn extra money for flowers, chocolates, and jewelry to further boost her Attraction Meter, while repeatedly warding off the advances of my buxom raven-haired boss, Asuka.”
A few weeks into his game however, Wenk noticed some problems. “I’d go to The Coffee Shop to see Miko and her character model gave me a weird look. Her dialogue box would say ‘Oh… Hey…’ and the game didn’t provide me any reply options.
“The game claims to be realistic but this is a step too far,” he added.
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Thinking it was a bug, Wenk proceeded to play other levels such as The Library, The Love Dungeon, and The Ninja Academy to give Miko some space, but used a spoiler-free guide on Reddit to make sure he didn’t make any decisions that would offset his budding romance with Miko. Then one day Wenk was surprised to see that the game itself was no longer installed on his computer.
“Every day I had to re-download the game on Steam, but even that didn’t work,” explained Wenk. “After the download, I’d login and go to The Coffee Shop. Miko’s model didn’t even appear. After a couple of attempts, the game would delete The Coffee Shop from the world map and I’d have to re-download the whole thing again.”
Love Bubble Yeah! developers addressed Wenk after hearing about his dilemma.
“Dude, take a hint! She’s not interested anymore and your clingy behavior is wigging the game out,” exclaimed the game’s lead programmer, Miles Tilby. “Delete your file, cut ties, and move on. If you want to see her ending, just watch a ‘Let’s Play’ on YouTube.”
Tilby then offered Wenk a free download of the classic Tapper arcade game to drown his virtual sorrows with digital pints of beer.
Article by Erik W. Barnes @ErikWBarnes
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