I Love You Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator is as absurd as one can imagine. That’s one way of explaining a dating simulator where players pursue a bishounen expy of the great Colonel Saunders himself (not that the Colonel needs a dating sim to bring out his masculine charm). On the surface, the game seems like a shallow marketing ploy, using the internet trend of personifying anything and everything into anime-esque characters, to bring attention to its franchise. But scratch behind that surface, players are in for a surprise with what they discover. Is the game gimmicky? Absolutely. Is it a light-hearted romp that’ll keep players amused for a good hour? Oh, hell yes.
Absurdity At Its Finest
I Love You Colonel Sanders! doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, something players can deduce almost immediately. The synopsis of the game follows the player as they navigate a three-day-long cooking school while pining for the snow-goateed fast-food icon. But they aren’t alone. Among the roster of classmates include Miriam, the player’s childhood best friend who specializes in making minuscule dishes, Pop, a slovenly and slow-witted kid who contributes virtually nothing to the plot, and the player’s rivals Ashleigh and Van Van, who create meals that are just as decadent as their egos. Oh, and their instructor is an adorable corgi named Sprinkles.
Plenty is going on in this game. For starters, the instructor is a corgi who speaks English and has somehow established himself as a reputable teacher. Then there’s Miriam, who mid-plot becomes involved with a classmate who happens to be a sentient steam cooker. Even their breakup scene (done in front of the whole class) is insane since it feels like such a legitimate quarrel.
The suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy this game is plentiful. Like, how does an accredited cooking academy only have three-day-long semesters? Or how did Sprinkles become the Remy the Rat of canines? And just how does Miriam immediately understand the R2-D2 beeps and whistles her new boyfriend emits as a form of communication? There are so many absurdist aspects of this game that are executed well simply because the player is playing a game that centers around their romantic pursuit of a fast-food chain mascot. And this is where the game succeeds, it doesn’t even try for a moment to be a serious dating sim.
The developers could’ve easily made a sim that could give players an emotional and psychological field trip. That was the case for dating sim parodies such as Hatoful Boyfriend and Doki Doki Literature Club. While there are a few red herrings here and there, none of them amount to anything, at least if players play the game safe and make it to the end of the game. What makes I Love You Colonel Sanders! different from these games is that it’s an actual dating sim, unlike the other two that belong to completely different genres and use the title of “dating simulator” as a cloak to hide their true natures. This game, by contrast, is a dating simulator that just happens to take place in a universe where logic is trivial.
Will There Be More Games Like This In The Future?
Anyone will pay attention to a wacky story. Just give it an amusing headline and people will read. Certainly, the internet is regularly exposed to these stories and titles, but something about the words “KFC” and “dating simulator” in the same sentence (in a non-ironic manner) are bound to garner attention– for better or for worse. The only thing I Love You Colonel Saunders plays straight is its quality as a game. The soundtrack is great and helps set the mood in certain scenarios. The character designs are unique and fun to look at, and the dialogue doesn’t come off as ham-fisted, at least by dating sim standards. And there are hours of gameplay, cooking games, and a secret ending. Pretty impressive for a game developed for a fried chicken chain.
Given these factors, it will certainly be amazing if this trend takes off beyond the scope of artists’ imaginations. Surely people would love to read a manga based off of the Wendy’s girl – even if it’s just to discover how smug she really is.
I Love You Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator is now available for free on Steam.
