Super Seducer: How to Talk to Girls is one of those games that is so bad it’s good, and I use the word “game” loosely. Renowned seduction guru, Richard La Ruina has turned his life’s work of picking up chicks into a somewhat sleazy “choose your own adventure” video novel. Throughout multiple scenarios you’ll be tasked with various levels of seduction techniques to earn the affection of numerous women in an attempt to score a phone number or just plain score. No woman is safe as Richard patrols the streets, nightclubs and coffee shops looking for his next conversational victim.
I’ve never seen or heard of this Richard guy before and if I wasn’t being told he was a seduction guru I’d say he looks like something between homeless and unemployed. But first impressions are deceiving and the guy actually grew on me about three chapters in. He went from pervy stalker to unkempt and almost nerdish charmer, although the conversation options allow you to go either way, often with hilarious results. I admired the way he could start and maintain a conversation with strange women, subjectively way out of his league, until I remembered this was all scripted role-playing. While these tactics might work in front of a camera I have serious doubts how well they’ll work at my local pub, especially if you lack the English accent.
Game design unfolds much like any conversation-rich adventure game where you are given multiple opening lines and responses to keep the conversation flowing until achieving the desired result. As with most multiple choice tests, there are always one or two obviously wrong answers along with the correct response and sometimes an acceptable response that will keep the encounter going but not count toward your perfect score. Considering there are achievements for exploring all 520 conversation options, completionists can look forward to multiple return trips through all ten chapters.
Perhaps one of the more annoying aspects of the game is that Richard will break into the game after each response telling you what you did right or wrong. These clips are more amusing than annoying as he has recruited two girls from that Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” video to awkwardly pose on the bed with him and stare blankly into space. Fortunately there is no failure state, so if you do choose incorrectly you will get dropped back into the conversation to try again.
Some of the best content in the game is the unlockable bonus videos where you can watch the outtakes and blooper footage. You can genuinely see that all the participants in this project were at least having fun while making it. This bonus content is a great incentive for exploring all the possible paths of the main game, which might justify the $13 price tag; otherwise you might just want to wait for a sale.
Super Seducer is playable with a mouse/keyboard or a controller since you are never doing anything other than picking from multiple conversation boxes. The presentation is surprisingly good quality with a nicely balanced audio mix and superior video quality that looked remarkably sharp on my Sony 4K screen. The cast of women were attractive but some of the scripted conversations had them coming off as a bit shallow, and some conversations took a twist into the absurd.
Super Seducer: How to Talk to Girls is more of a novelty item, perfect for live streamer reaction shows and to stir up some controversial buzz during this #metoo movement. Honestly, does anyone pick-up dates in bars these days. I’m pretty sure you stay at home and swipe left or right to have your sex delivered to your door like pizza. Even so, there is some humorous content and female eye-candy lurking behind this entertaining game, and thankfully it all comes off more as satire than an offensive how-to guide.
