Serial Lover

Publisher: Sugar Slip

Developer: Sugar Slip

Platform: Microsoft Windows (via Steam and Itch.io)

It's always interesting to me to see what the first review of a given year will be...but very rarely is it something in the same vein as Serial Lover. I used to pursue dating sims pretty frequently since they always tend to be a lot of fun, but with Steam's complete abandonment of moderation in recent years, the genre has been reduced to 99% porn. There's maybe one or two actual games sandwiched in there sometimes, but it's not common. As a result, I simply haven't bothered looking for anything in the visual novel or dating sim genre for years. 

So what brought me back? Well, I recently started watching Kaif: a Youtube content creator who specializes in finding both hidden trash and hidden treasure. Serial Lover was included in a new video published a couple days before I started writing this, and it looked promising enough within a couple minutes of its time in the video that I decided to stop and give it a shot myself.

Welcome to the first review of 2026!

Like I've already said, Serial Lover is a dating sim. For the uninitiated, this means the game is largely about making dialogue choices to seduce one of (or several in some cases) a cast of characters who find your lack of personality exciting. This one has a twist, but we'll get to that in just a bit.

A game in this genre obviously lives or dies by its cast, and as far as I'm concerned, there isn't a weak member amongst them here.

You have:

Jenny: the stereotypical tsundere who totally doesn't care about you, totally.

Andria: the seemingly masochistic one

Teddy: the socially inept one (and best girl)

Harmony: the nerd

Edwina: the hyper-girly pink-wearing country girl

and Ben: the roommate...just kidding. He's the shy "is it ok if I'm a little clingy" type.

Pretty standard fare for one of these games, right?

Well...

Did I mention that each of these characters is a completely psychotic serial killer? Like, literally all of them have murdered several people?

That's right...this is literally "I can fix her" the game.

That's what the "serial" in Serial Lover comes from.

Each of these characters are more than the little blurbs I wrote about them. Each of them have their own imperfections and reasons for their murderous tendencies. In a genre largely dominated by tropes, this is a breath of fresh air.

But how exactly do you come to be surrounded by a gaggle of down bad psychos who maybe want a more literal piece of you than you bargained for?

Your character would love to know that, too!

You are Gabriel...well, you're named whatever you want to be named, but that's the default name, so that's what I'm going with. One day, you wake up in a house alongside all the previously-mentioned characters with no memory of anything except your name. Outside of the house, there's nothing but a black void. From there, it's up to you and your new housemates to determine the truth behind the situation at hand and maybe, just maybe, have some ill-advised fun along the way. 

There is, however, one wrinkle in things: pissing off any of these girls (or Ben) results in your death...which in turn reveals to your character that you have the ability to Subaru Natsuki yourself back in time to try again. 

The first thing I'll say about this story is that these central mysteries do a stunningly good job of keeping things interesting. Like, go figure, if you fill your dating sim/visual novel with more than just gooner bait, you end up with something special!

The second thing I'll say is that if you remember from the introduction, I refuse to engage with Steam's recent deluge of pornography. So I'd like to reassure you that you needn't fear anything severe enough for an over PG-13 rating.

The last thing I'll say is this: the game ends on a major cliffhanger right when things are getting good....story-wise, I mean. It literally ends, says the story will continue in the sequel, then asks "what, you wanted more?"

I'm not exaggerating. It directly poses that question.

This fact blows. It blows hard. I was so looking forward to seeing how the mysteries would play out, but it wasn't meant to be. As it stands, Serial Lover is an incomplete story intentionally cut short for the sake of charging for a second installment, I guess? It's hard to wrap my head around this one. The game evidently took 5 years to make...will it take another 5 to see how it ends? If it even reaches its conclusion in the next entry?

Don't get me wrong, what we get here is a worthwhile story that will likely keep you intrigued from beginning to end...just be aware that there isn't really much of an end yet.

Earlier I mentioned that Serial Lover has a bit of a twist. Now is the time to discuss that!

Unlike other games in this genre, the art of seduction isn't really about your words...it's about your rhythm. Serial Lover, in addition to a dating sim, is a rhythm game in the same vein as Guitar Hero. When it's time to convince your murderer of choice that she can chill out about something (it isn't always actual seduction), you're thrust into a minigame where you have to press the correct button on your keyboard at the correct time. It doesn't revolutionize the rhythm genre, but it's fun enough that I went back for the arcade mode after the credits rolled. 

A thing to note about the gameplay loop: the songs you play along with are certified bangers, but most of them are hard to handle. I ended up having to play on wimpy baby easy mode because Jenny's songs in particular go so fast and have so many tempo changes that it's hard to keep track...and what do you think happens when you unsuccessfully tell an already murderous person to chill?

Thankfully, there are plenty of accessibility options available to mitigate this. You can turn off failure entirely, turn off 3-key-at-a-time notes, slow down the tracks, etc. So from a gameplay perspective, there really isn't anything to prevent one from getting into it unless you just don't like rhythm games in general. As I said, this isn't revolutionary, so if you're not into that kind of gameplay loop, this won't convince you otherwise. 

Serial Lover obviously has one major pendulum swinging above it: its ending. I was pretty upset by it, but everything outside of that puts this game in the upper echelon for its genre. It features characters that are better developed than your average dating sim fare. The story and the mysteries that drive it kept me engaged the whole time. The gameplay loop is fun enough to justify its arcade mode, and it's more than most games in this genre have. So, do with that what you will!

Let us review:

Terrible ending - 1.0

The final score for Serial Lover is...

9.0/10 - Fantastic

Starting now, I'm sunsetting the whole post-score accolade thing (i.e. 'well done, developer, well done'), so the review is over now.