D3 Publisher looking to capture the Xbox 360 owning Idolm@ster crowd is developing Dream Club. You don’t spend time training idols to stardom in this game, though. Instead you chat up hostesses and try to get them drunk so they reveal their inner feelings. Sounds like another dating sim, but the difference is showing up at a hostess club costs money.
You, the broke protagonist, have to work a part time job just to keep going to the hobby going. Should you spend your days working at a convenience store? Five days of work nets 20,000 yen, but if those days, heaven forbid, fall on a weekend you won’t be able to visit the hostess club. And the entire point of Dream Club is visiting the club to talk to the girls and make them sing karaoke. You get to play along by hitting the buttons to shake maracas or honk a horn. After spending oodles of cash on visits, snacks, and gifts you might get lucky and woo a girl — only after toiling away at a menial job. This is a real life scenario for someone out there, but Dream Club’s melancholy undercurrent of distilling a relationship into cold hard cash is a nightmare.
Now, meet your potential “dates”!
Amane – the generic shy and reserved type
Mio – an inventor from Kyoto
Setsu – she’s moody and spoilt
Reika – a professional bowler
Mian – fierce and not afraid to hit you if you say something stupid
Rui – by day she works as a teacher
Riho – an aspiring model about to get her break
Nao – a tomboy who also is an assistant teacher at a dojo
And here are some more screenshots. Don’t expect D3 to localize Dream Club anytime soon or ever.
