Boyfriend Dungeon is a brilliant little indie game where you date people who turn into weapons. I love video games, because I get to write absolutely serious sentences like that. Unfortunately, Boyfriend Dungeon saw its would-be celebratory launch bogged down by incessant “discourse”. At first, there were meaningful and reasonable requests for developer Kitfox Games to update the game’s content warning, as many felt it didn’t adequately convey the fact one of the game’s core narrative threads would revolve around stalking and emotional manipulation. This soon spiralled into people demanding this content be made skippable, as if it’s an easy thing to just rip out a chunk of your game’s narrative. This is, obviously, too far. Some people even decided to harass the voice actor of the stalker, showing a level of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that is frankly astounding.
I loved Boyfriend Dungeon. I’ll admit, I’ve never played a dating sim before, so I don’t have anything to compare the game to, but I found it to be a fantastic introduction to the genre. The art is gorgeous, the customisation is cool, and the soundtrack absolutely slaps - I’ve got it playing while I write this. I’ve seen some people - mostly on Twitter, so take their arguments with a pinch of salt - argue that the game isn’t queer, as it features a woman protagonist dating a load of boys with only one woman available to romance. This is nonsense. The game is queer coded through and through. You pick your pronouns at the start - he/him, she/her, or they/them. The romanceable options include three men, two non-binary people, and one woman. Your gender doesn’t affect who you can date, meaning every character is canonically queer.
I’m a sucker for queer media. Even things that aren’t gay, you can bet your arse I’ll find a way to make them gay. Being queer isn’t all sparkles and rainbows - it’s messy, complicated, and confusing, and our stories should reflect that sometimes. I’m a bisexual man, and I’m proud of that. I was excited to play Boyfriend Dungeon when I saw all the hunky men available to date, but I started to feel guilty when I found myself hung up on Valeria, an artistic and passionate woman who can turn herself into a deadly dagger. Sure, I flirted with Sunder and Isaac, and I went on dates with Seven, but from the moment I met her, I only had eyes for Valeria.
I seriously challenge anyone to not fall for Valeria. She’s exciting, passionate, driven, mysterious, and her dagger form is a fantastic weapon to use in the game’s dungeon crawler segments. As you raise someone’s love level by going on dates and completing floors of the dungeon with them, you unlock new abilities. Valeria’s include stunning enemies and landing more critical hits than you can shake a scimitar at. I’m sure the other weapons are great, but once I started to get used to enemies becoming stunned when I rolled away, I couldn’t just swap to someone else. Valeria suited my playstyle and my heart, how could I resist?
Every character in Boyfriend Dungeon is well written and all of the weapons have interesting combat mechanics, so it is genuinely hard to choose just one - this is likely why Kitfox Games opts for the polyamourous option and allows you to give everyone a go. The game contains more hilt and sword innuendos than I thought possible, but as well as the flirtatious dialogue, each character has a fully fleshed out story and personality. Despite all the amazing men and non-binary people available, it’s not my fault I fell for the fiery artist rather than the accountant with daddy issues - I’ve got enough of those myself.
Still, the further I went into Valeria’s story, and the higher I got our love level, the more my bi guilt crept in. I kept feeling like a fake bisexual because I was going for the only heteronormative romance available to me. This is a feeling I know a lot of bisexual people have felt before. It stems from being told we’re just confused, or on our way to being gay, or even being told we simply aren’t queer enough. I’m here to say: That’s a load of bollocks. Boyfriend Dungeon understands the importance of exploring sexuality, and at no point does it attempt to make me feel bad for being a guy dating a woman. Still, that guilt is a feeling I and other bi friends who’ve played the game have encountered. This isn’t the fault of the game at all. If anything, Boyfriend Dungeon allows us to celebrate our queerness even when in a more heternormative relationship.
As a man dating a woman in real life, I often find myself wondering if I’m in a queer relationship, and Boyfriend Dungeon brought that question up once more. I’m sure people will have different opinions on the issue, but I think being queer makes your relationship queer - even though I’m dating a woman, I’m still bi. Boyfriend Dungeon understands this well. Even as I get closer to Valeria, I’m still allowed to flirt with men and non-binary people - my sexuality doesn’t change just because I’m with a woman, and my terrible dancing with the devilish Sunder proves that.
Even though I’m allowed to flirt and frolic with every character I want to, something I love about Boyfriend Dungeon is the ability to just form platonic friendships. This is wonderful for aces, and it also helps me to shake off the stereotype that all bisexuals are sex-craved lunatics who’ll cheat at the first opportunity. As my character and Valeria got more serious, I felt bad going on dates with the other weapons, so it meant a lot to be able to tell them that I just wanted to be friends. Especially with Sawyer, who seems far too young for my character to be dating.
It’s important to remind ourselves that the B in LGBT stands for bisexual, and we’re a valid part of queerness. Boyfriend Dungeon brought up some familiar insecurities, but it did a fantastic job of helping me work through them. It doesn’t matter which weapon you choose to wield in the dunj, you’re still you.