The talked-about dating simulator that got some people hot under the collar
House Party
House parties are often jam-packed with men and women looking to party all night, get wasted and occasionally find romance with fellow guests – or so we’re guessing from what House Party has taught us.
The comical dating simulator from Eek! Games pays homage to the days of Leisure Suit Larry, a tongue-in-cheek look at the world of how to whisk a woman off their feet and into bed with you. The game gives players the chance to chat with guests, pick a fight and go all-out to impress women to, shall we say, ‘get you rocks off’.
It was a PC game that sold over 35,000 copies in its first month on Steam, receiving ‘very positive’ reviews from gamers – so how did House Party manage to get itself removed from the online store after a promising and popular start?
Why was it removed from Steam?
The game was released in June 2017, but by July, House Party had been removed from Steam after a number of complaints about its nudity – with a request from Valve to modify the game with more censorship.
On their website, a spokesman for Eek! Games stated said “I didn’t get much detail about the nature of the complaints other than that the game includes ‘pornography’, and Steam told me that they will re-enable the game once the pornography has been removed. They didn’t specify anything in particular or define what they consider pornographic.
“I explained to them that I don’t consider the game pornographic as it’s not intended to titillate, but rather is intended to be a humorous and quirky game. Most of the game-play revolves around solving puzzles and humorous dialogues.”
They also said that “Of course this also brings up an issue of unfair censorship. Part of the reason I chose to write this game is because I didn’t want to do another tired old game about killing, violence and gore (though I suspect if I had written a game about that, nobody would have a problem with it because it seems to me as if it’s much more socially acceptable to engage in fantasy of killing another person in every perversion imaginable than it is to fantasize about having sex with another person).
“This hypocrisy is even more bothersome when you realize that my game is in the context of comedy, and most games revolving around killing take themselves much more seriously.”
But, after a few changes, House Party found its way back onto Steam – now with forced censor bars covering various body parts and sexual activities which occur in the game - an optional feature that could previously be turned on (excuse the pun) before via the game's settings. Funnily enough, despite the game being pulled from Steam and returning with censors, the developer released a patch update which – wait for it – allows players to remove said censor bars from the base game.
It seems some members of the Steam community have beef with the game’s graphic sex acts, but not if they’re added as an additional patch, strange. Anyway, House Party offers several storylines with different women at the party as well as puzzles to solve and the chance to place your 'junk' on a barbecue... so I guess there’s something for everyone!
Additional patches and updates
Released in November 2017, the House Party 0.7.7 update included a long list of bug fixes and additional features now included in the game – here are a few random and somewhat hilarious ones from the update.
- Player can now drink alcohol and get drunk
- Fixed an issue where you could still chat with an NPC if you DIED while talking to them
- Re-painted the house
- Fixed a bug that caused characters to spin with enthusiastic anger when they forget how to use a door
- Fixed an issue where you could escape Frank’s wrath by sicking him on Patrick (Sorry)
- Bolted down a lot of items that could get lost or move somewhere that hinders the story
- Removed Beer Pong Table and other “Party” elements so they can be re-introduced down the line as directed by the story
- Fixed an issue where characters won’t get redressed upon exiting the hot tub after loading from a saved game
- Adjusted the Steam censor so it only censors areas we absolutely have to. Bars no longer take up huge amounts of screen space during sex scenes.
