Save The World, And Find A Man In Fantastic Boyfriends

Disclosure: I follow Fantastic Boyfriend’s English translator on Twitter and interact with her on a semi-regular basis.

All sorts of people play video games – and they honestly always have. However, it has only been in the last few years that companies have explicitly stated their desire to engage the full gamut of gamers with their products. Lifewonders is one such Japanese developer. Their first title is Fantastic Boyfriends. Designed for mobile phones, it provides a twist on JRPGs where you must save Midearth from demons. However, the all-male cast of characters you’ll get to join your quest can also become your hunky boyfriends!

Fantastic Boyfriends was designed with gay men in mind due to the male protagonist and party, but certainly other folks will be able to enjoy it as well. To me, the best thing about their pitch is the following line: “…we hope to expand our projects to appeal to players of every sex, gender, and sexual orientation.” If this campaign is successful, then they’ll know the LGBT market is something not only worth pursuing, but commercially viable for them in English-speaking markets.

The funding goal of $20,000 will facilitate version 2.0.0 of Fantastic Boyfriends which will be translated into English and run on Android and iOS. With that said, even if it fails, the translation will still occur! Funding will most certainly help speed that process up, though, as well as facilitate an advertising budget. You may have noticed there’s no reward tier for the game itself. The base Fantastic Boyfriends game is free, but like many mobile visual novels, you’ll use in-app purchases to grab additional chapters.