Originally named Eskimo Kisses (the name was changed to be politically correct), Kisses was a senior game project created by four programmers at the DigiPen Institute of Technology.
The basic idea was to create a small but complete game in the social sim genre, so this game is set in an Eskimo village, where the purpose is to Eskimo kiss (rub noses) other people.
To sum it up for those who never heard of this game, Kisses is a 3D social simulation game (kinda like the Sims), where you manage your basic needs for food, drink and shelter, spending a little after your daily duties trying to make as many friends as possible.
The village is composed of 8 igloos, a snow mine, an ice fishing hut and a small forest. There live 8 villagers, 4 men and 4 women, and one of them is you.
Each villager possesses a fireplace, a shelf, a bed and an Eskimo suit. The fireplace uses wood to cook fish and melt snow, thus providing you with food and drink. It also keeps you warm and gives out light. The shelf stores the items you gather so you can use them later. The bed and suit are pretty self-explanatory.
All of these items can be upgraded provided you accumulate ‘hearts’. You gain a heart every time you Eskimo kiss someone, but to obtain your upgrade you have to go to sleep on your bed. A larger shelf will give you more storage space, so you can accumulate items and not go out gathering for days, which leaves more time to socialize. A bigger fireplace will improve your food and drink quality, no matter how bad they are. A newer suit keeps you warmer and makes you more attractive. A better bed will let you rest better and have more energy.
Keeping your needs satisfied will make you more attractive to others, so if you go out socializing when you’re hungry or thirsty, your character will look sad. Always make sure to keep an eye on both of your energy bars (mind and body), you don’t want to pass out in the snow. If you do and someone actually passes by and sees you, they will act disgusted.
Basically, wake up in the morning, get your food and drink, grab some wood, then go around complimenting and waving people, or pick one single villager to work on a relationship with. The problem is, every interaction drops down your energy a lot, so until you get a decent bed, there won’t be much time left to socialize.
An interesting detail in the game is that villagers will gossip with each other about what goes on in the village. In other words, if Mileena finds John kissing Mary, she could tell Mary’s boyfriend, and everything would end up in a bad situation.
However, the tutorial really leaves you on your own without explaining much of the game. It tells you how to interact with objects, how to take care of your needs, and how to interact with others. But it leaves a very wrong idea of how to gain those precious ‘red hearts’. You can’t really go around waving, complimenting and hugging to get an Eskimo kiss. It takes a lot more work than that, and heavens forbid you pass out in public, which completely ruins your progress in relationships. The tutorial also could use an explanation of the quality of resources; I’ve only learned some were better than others by reading the names when picking them up from my shelf. So far I’ve learned that rainbow trout is the best fish and that any snow is better than yellow snow (yeah, you get to drink yellow snow, ew!).
Kisses was one of the games nominated for the grand prize in the Open category for the 2005 Independent Games Festival, and if it wasn’t so short I’m sure it could have been out there right now competing with titles like Singles and The Sims.
You can download Kisses for free at
http://www.digipen.edu/programs/gallery/games/
System Requirements:
- DirectX 9.0c or above.
- video card with support for Vertex Shaders and Pixel Shaders
- 64 MB of video memory
- 1 GHz processor
- 256 MB of system memory
- mouse with a mouse wheel