There's a new game out called
Courtship: A Dance With Love that I'm quite taken with. It's one of the rarest types of AVNs: a period piece that actually takes itself seriously and also tells a compelling story with good gameplay. It is set during the Regency era in British history. The player character, a member of the
You must be registered to see the links
, has just become the new Marquess of Hollow Hill following the sudden death of his father. He is forced to leave a careless life of pleasure-seeking on the continent behind and assume a role he didn't expect to fill for many years yet. His mother -- a quite formidable and status-conscious matriarch who is most definitely not a LI -- makes it very clear that his first priority must be to marry, and she knows exactly which noble or wealthy ladies he should focus his attention on.
Courtship is quite unusual because of its focus on marriage and the cultural standards of the period it is depicting will hopefully keep it from becoming too porny. Men and women (much like men and men or women and women) do tend to find ways to get together regardless of circumstance or time period, but in the world of the game chaperones keep a watchful eye on young couples, formal events provide opportunities for flirtation but no privacy, and courtship itself is a formalized ritual with intentionally limited room for spontaneous expressions of physical affection. I only ran into one sex scene in several playthroughs, and it was a rather furtive and interrupted blowjob that required some sneaking around to make happen. That said, the MC clearly will have opportunities for premarital and extramarital action -- not all the women in the game are marriage-minded, and he has already mused on the prospect of taking a mistress if he finds himself stuck in a unhappy union.
The LIs and other characters are quite interesting. I found myself at times wishing I could ask them questions or otherwise deviate from the Marquess' often carefully chosen phrasing. Among the standouts in my view are a widowed, plain-speaking duchess who appears to have zero interest in getting remarried, a proper and very sweet young noblewoman who worships her parents and seems to perfectly embody the values of her era but likely has both secrets and other suitors, and the unconventional daughter of a wealthy businessman who is the only commoner the MC's mother approves of as a potential mate (alas, mama probably doesn't know about her exhibitionist tendencies).
There are a fair number of choices in the game for a first chapter, and several have quite interesting ramifications. One of my favorite parts of the game occurs when the MC is attending a private party and must choose who to speak to. Talking to one character will go quite badly if you pick her first because the marquess approaches her in completely the wrong way. If, however, you choose to speak to another character first, he'll give the MC some advice that proves invaluable. The marquess will have a completely different conversation with the woman if you then choose to speak to her.
If you decide to give Courtship a shot, I recommend that you commit to playing it the whole way through. The beginning of the game is less polished than the rest of it and could use some editing...expect a few misspellings and mangled phrases. You may also run into a bug where a kiss that may not have happened gets referenced in a subsequent scene (the dev is aware and this should be fixed in a subsequent release). Additionally, the first LI you meet, Sally, is the romantic option I feel the uneasiest about...she works for the family as a maid so there's definitely a power imbalance there and a sense that the MC may be taking advantage of her if he opts to pursue her. On the other hand, the interest is clearly mutual and I get the feeling there might at least be a path where the marquess decides to to run off with Sally, his mother's and society's opinions be damned.
