Building Relationships is "like A Short Hike but stupid" and it's the most wholesomely kinky dating sim I've ever played

(Image credit: Tan Ant Games)

When I walked into Summer Game Fest Play Days, I was not expecting my first appointment to involve a very strange game asking me whether I'm a top or a bottom. The developer sitting next to me was kind enough to pretend not to see while I answered, and while I'll avoid oversharing here, the encounter did immediately endear me to the delightfully quirky and wholesomely kinky vibes of Building Relationships.

You might've seen Building Relationships during the Day of the Devs broadcast, when developer Tanat Boozayaangool described the game as "A Short Hike, but stupid." And indeed, that's a pretty apt way of describing it - it's a light little platformer with an open-ended world to explore and loads of endearing characters to meet. It's just that, in this case, all those characters are extremely flirty pieces of architecture.

The highlights include Millie, the windmill with gentle dom vibes, and Mint, the apartment who's just kinda friendly to everybody. There's also Chester, the treasure chest in a polycule whose members help you unlock new abilities - and who asks you whether you identify as more of a "bottom floor" or a "rooftop." It felt like this choice might've affected some of the dialog from other characters that followed, but it's equally possible that I was just self-consciously interpreting that as a thing while feeling awkward about outing myself.

The whole vibe here is 'charmingly awkward,' and Building Relationships seems like it's managed to avoid feeling like it's simply weird for weirdness's sake. The fact that the characters are literal buildings undercut any of the seedy undertones that might otherwise accompany this sort of innuendo, and that gives the game freedom to build a world where everybody's openly horny without it ever feeling dirty.

As for the actual platforming and exploration, well, that's the part I want to see more of. The house you control has a delightful Katamari Damacy-esque tumble and getting around feels nice - it's just that the brief time I had with the game isn't really enough to know if the gameplay can match the charm of its personality.

TOPICS

CATEGORIES

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.