Hey Blerdy Tribe!! It’s Monday once again and I want to kick off the week with some melanin friendly games! If this is your first time here at Blerdy Otome, welcome!
Every Monday I spotlight video games that focus on stories surrounding more diverse casts of characters—for folks like me looking for a bit more representation in their games. Video games are for everyone, so shouldn’t their stories and characters be just as diverse as the people that play them? So I created this series to celebrate games that strive to tell much more diverse stories centering on Black and Brown individuals. But, I welcome all diversity and the series has expanded to include games featuring LGBTQIA rep and characters from other underrepresented groups.
So, if you’re interested in seeing previous melanin friendly games posts, click HERE. This week, I’m spotlighting the demo for the battle royale themed parody romance game, Battle Royale: For Your Heart, from LegendEx Games.
After watching SamuraiStriker, world famous streamer and competitive battle royale player, invite gamers of all skill levels to join him in LegendEx Games’ Fighter’s Cup, you decide to enter the tournament to try and win the highly sought after mystery prize.
The only problem? You are a complete noob, mistakenly entered the duos tournament as a solo player, have to scramble to find a partner, and attempt to win the competition!Select your avatar, player voice, gamertag, and possible duo partner, as you venture into an expansive virtual world alongside a colorful cast of characters.
It is up to you to decide how the game unfolds. Unlock hidden scenes, build a bond with your partner (or enemies!) and try to win the competition!-Battle Royale: For Your Heart | Game Synopsis
Battle Royale: For Your Heart! is a battle royale themed romance parody game chock full of all the trope-y goodness! Step into the shoes of a rookie player as they navigate the ups and downs of competitive play–from picking an avatar to meeting other players and everything in between. The demo kicks off with you picking your avatar and while you can’t change up their default look, you can choose between a male or female options and the voice you’d like your character to have. Customization is always a plus for me and in this case the limited options mimic those a new player would have access to when starting a new game—no fancy skins or items, just the bare bones.
Everything is experienced through your avatar, so basically the whole demo is like a “what if YOU were in an online battle royale tournament. The player character is completely out of their depth, they don’t even know about loading screens, and while I’m not THAT bad, a lot of their reactions felt pretty on brand. Which is great for someone like me that has zero experience with battle royale games or competitive online play, because a lot of the gameplay actions and jargon of games like that goes completely over my head. Thank fully most of the pursuable love interests are much more experienced and go out of their way to explain aspects of the competition to you before everything pops off–special kudos to Parker (aka Noob Male) for being a super helpful and non-judgmental partner in crime!
Since Battle Royale: For Your Heart is a game within a game, all of the characters you encounter are avatars of real players, so there is a lot of variety in the types of characters you’ll encounter. Some characters sport more traditional looks, like the noob player characters are just tanned humans wearing camo, while other characters like Midnight and TwinTails have more distinctive looks. Of course it wouldn’t be Melanin Monday without me mentioning the diverse cast and for what it’s worth, I really think having a diverse cast fits here, because the gaming community isn’t one homogenous group of people. So, its really cool to see that the avatars reflect those differences–like Midnight uses a blue anthropomorphic wolf avatar and TwinTails’s avatar is a bright magical girl fairy! ALSO, can we talk about how one of the BEST players in the tournament, HollyDay, is a Black woman?! Yes, please!
This game is a critique on common visual novel and anime tropes, and online gaming communities–so there are plenty of fun quips and jokes woven into the narrative. I know parody games can be a bit hit or miss for some, but I kinda like a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously! Sometimes I just want to play something that makes me laugh and Battle Royale: For Your Heart! had me in stitches! This demo was just a lot of fun and I am definitely to see how things turn out for our hapless protagonist.
The Kickstarter for Battle Royale: For Your Heart! will launch on January 25, 2021 along with the extended demo, so I highly recommend checking out both when they’re live. Also, a huge thank you to the LegendEX team for providing me with an advanced copy of the extended demo for this review!!
You can play the game demo on Steam and Windows and Mac!
Thank you for reading and supporting Blerdy Otome! Share your thoughts in the comments section down below! Got a Melanin Friendly Game you think I should spotlight? Send it to me!
Very interesting. Not going to lie, when I saw the title, I thought it was going to be related to the book/movie series of the same name AKA The Original Hunger Games.
LOL Same! I though it was going to be like the movie, but it’s definitely not–at least right now.