Summer Session ‘dating Sim’ Game Debuts

Tycoon Games has teamed up with Hanako Games to release Summer Session, a "dating sim" game for the Mac and Windows. It costs $19.95, and a playable demo is available.

Summer Session is a "dating sim" game similar to those popularized in Japan. In Summer Session, you take the role of Julius, a socially-awkward student who's taking summer classes at his university. He meets cute classmates, a sexy biology teacher and makes friends with other guys on campus -- but what will it take for awkward Julius to get a date? Every choice you make affects Julius's skills and his reputation. You have until the end of the summer term to ... uh ... score.

"Dating sims" are popular video game pastimes in Japan, and Hanako Games, founded by Georgina Bensley, has capitalized on that popularity to develop dating sims for a western audience. Most of Hanako's offerings are made specifically for Windows PCs. But Tycoon Games -- started by niche game maker Winter Wolves' owner, Riva Celso -- has developed Summer Session for both Mac OS X and Windows platforms.

System requirements were not listed as Macworld posted this article, but the demo download is a PowerPC binary (that operated fine on a MacBook Pro).