Needy Streamer Overload is a visual novel game that simulates the journey of becoming a super popular livestreamer. More precisely, the player is the manager of his/her girlfriend Ame-chan, who is the star of the show. The game presents and parodies very nicely all the popular e-celebrity types, and brilliantly connects it all to the modern epidemic of mental illness.
The pixelized art is beautiful, the denpa music intense, and the length of a single playthrough exactly as long as the attention span of the people this game is about (that is, you).
I had grown so accustomed to westerners making visual novels now that I did not realize this was actually made by a small Japanese studio, and so played the game in English, hah.
I think the game is a gem among modern visual novels. It’s the right choice to try be original when your budget is limited.
I had this realization about the power of “lol” because I recently played the game Needy Streamer Overload. It’s a visual novel that has interesting “dialogue” mechanics where you can select among eight options but the choices don’t actually matter. The choices are represented as icons with the accompanying texts: “OK”, “OMG”, “:(”, “IDC”, “Sorry”, “IM DED”, “LOVE”, “THIS” (see image below). The are all the equivalent to old-school “lol”, that is it doesn’t matter what you choose, except that your psycho girlfriend will leave unless you reply her every post with one of these — any one.
