The mobile app Tinder started a new way to meet people online. While apps OkCupid helped match people up based on their personalities and interests, Tinder started a trend of accepting or rejecting strangers based mostly on their looks via a series of pictures, though users can personalize a small description below the photos, but meeting people online through dating apps is more difficult with the ongoing global pandemic. Enter Tender: Creature Comforts, a dating app indie game.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons provided comfort to people in the early days of lockdown, skyrocketing the game's popularity past what it likely would have been without shelter-in-place procedures. Though the interactions might not be real, Tender provides a comforting way of living the dating experience while not actually having to commit to real dates in a cozy narrative mobile game.
What is Tender: Creature Comforts?
Tender isn't a real dating app, and therefore doesn't involve real people, but reenacts the same experience one would have using Tinder or Bumble. Much like Animal Crossing, the human player interacts with anthropomorphic beings in a sugar-coated imitation of socialization. Players will start off with making a profile by entering their birthdays, choosing an artsy profile pic, and choosing among a selection of words for their profile page. Players can also tailor their experience to feel more realistic, such as choosing whether or not they would normally capitalize any words in a sentence and choosing favorites among the phrases "omg," "lol," "thx," and "heh."
Then, they'll begin swiping on pictures of others, such as Kourtney, a fish parent, Paula, a creature with multiple eyes but is "only look for the one," and Aliyah, a plant-based Libra. When initiating conversations with other animals, players can choose between predetermined dialogue options or the keyboard. However, the keyboard is just for looks and making the player feel as if they're typing out the messages; the dialogue is still prewritten text meant to drive the story along.
Each character features carefully crafted and realistic dialogue with personalities that require navigation. Sometimes players will jive with characters, and sometimes they'll get ghosted, much like with the real Tinder.
And sometimes these conversations will even lead to dates, which happen in real-time just like Animal Crossing. Players will schedule them and are expected to check into the app once it's time for a date, or they'll upset the NPCs if they accidentally miss it, but some are nice enough to reschedule. The dates are much like visual novels, solely occurring through additional conversation like any other dating sim.
Why Play Tender?
Dating apps can be stressful, especially for introverts who might not consider themselves conversationally savvy but still crave social interaction. Like New Horizons, the social interaction isn't real and therefore relieves stress, but also provides comfort the way that many social simulators aim to.
But there's more to Tender than just fake social interaction. It's not a game that can be played in a single sitting. Much like the Animal Crossing series, it's meant to be played only a little bit per day, and the game will even limit how many right swipes are allotted per day, but missing out on days can mean missing meaningful content, and the NPCs will make note of it.
And for anyone wondering, the game is very LGBTQIA+ friendly. Oftentimes, gender and sexuality are unclear or not acknowledged, leaving room for fluidity and all different types of relationships, such as John and his partner looking for their "unicorn," whoever that might end up being. Similar to the way Animal Crossing views life through its comfy, pleasant lens, interactions on Tender will be realistic without being upsetting or hurtful.
Tender: Creature Comforts is out now via Android and iOS.