Love Collector Dating Sim Mechanics (Patreon)

If you read this, I want to stress FEEL FREE TO SUGGEST PERKS.

---

Basic Powers

This section is not for the skills Oliver will eventually purchase through his point accumulation but for documenting the 'mundane' things that happen as a result of his abilities. These powers are active from the start of the 'game' that is his life as soon as he first activates his power.

The ability to interact with a system and menus which no one else can see. These are all in a poppy, visual novel-style interface. He can open his menu with a vocal command and then click on it like it's a touchscreen to navigate. There is a status menu, a heroine menu, a perk menu which has two sub menus- perks for himself and perks for his heroines- and an objective menu that tracks occasional missions such as 'Find Out Stacy's Secret' or some shit which will award him points for completion.

Tips and tricks. In the beginning when he's a bit more lost with what to do, his powers will manifest pop-up windows giving suggestions. One of the early perks he gets will level up this basic ability into a Disco Elysium-styled internal commentary between his stats.

Harem Life. A default skill that normalizes the fact that Oliver is polygamous and prevents any drama or major jealousy which would arise from this lifestyle. Necessary to make the most of his powers so it's given to him at the start, as having to actually choose it could be read as voluntary mass hypnosis. Doesn't stop jealousy altogether but limits it to playful cattiness and banter. Can later be leveled up to let him marry as many women as he wants without having to live in Utah.

Daily life adjustments to make his life more like a game. This is where I'm the most open to suggestions so if anyone reading this has any ideas please let me know. Rather than repeating myself over and over again and is going to say upfront that all of his powers will not evoke suspicion and other people generally treat most things Oliver can do as if he's not doing it or as if they're completely normal. If Oliver pulls back the curtain and lets them in on the secret, then a heroine will become able to notice a lot of the weird stuff he's doing. Mostly in regards to the teleportation and inventory stuff, though he'll also probably get a perk to let his lovers see the menus and stuff.

The ability to teleport via a map that appears whenever he opens his car door. This only works within his own city limits and can't be used to magically travel cross-country or further. I will reserve the right to add a perk which enables this in regards to dating destinations only and even then it still has to be relatively close. Like say there's a national park a few hours away and he knows a girl would like it so that this bonus perk would enable it for the purpose of the date only.

Inventory. He can carry infinite items using hammer space and can summon them by extending his hand and thinking about the item in question. Some size limits apply. Can't carry a car, but he can pull out a bouquet of roses

When he enters a store to buy something, a shopkeeper will approach him and open up a pop-up menu full of things he'd like to buy which are then added straight to his inventory. The ability changes based on his needs and won't display things he's not looking for.

Paid by the day. In a lot of dating sim RPG's the protagonist is paid in cash every day after his shift so that the player can immediately use the money. Oliver starts getting this same treatment while the rest of Payless Foods continues getting paid every two weeks as per the norm.

Stats. Oliver's characteristics are given a numerical value. Were going to go with Strength, Style, and Smarts. Like any protagonist, he can raise these by performing certain activities such as working out, researching fashion, and reading a book. As I said before we're going to have a system where these three stats are eventually given a personality and are able to converse with Oliver to give him advice styled after what is probably my favorite game, Disco Elysium. Strength and Style are occasionally helpful when giving advice regarding situations that they have expertise in but are prone to contributing when they wouldn't be helpful. Smarts is the equivalent to DE's Volition, being a comforting voice of reason that helps ground Oliver and gives the best all-purpose advice.

Certain girls will have activities locked off behind stat limits and to add some suspense to the story we will have potential heroines who don't register as heroines until Oliver reaches a certain stat level. For example, Oliver will get a gym membership and a fitness girl befriends him and helps him out. He can't see menus for her, but once his Strength is at twenty-five, then suddenly she is pursuable and gets added to his Heroines menu. Unrelated but this also might make for a funny twist if we have a future heroine who cross-dresses as a man or is just really androgynous, so the moment she gets registered as a Heroine would be doubly surprising for him.

One more thing about the topic of stats- they're abstract and not literal. They're relative to Oliver in that reaching 100 in Strength will not make him a musclebound Adonis. He'll look better, yes, but game logic keeps him from changing too drastically- might be funny if that's something he's sour about. Similarly, 100 in Smarts does not mean he's a Mensa member, he's just the smartest version of Oliver that could potentially exist and 100 in Style won't mean he is constantly gawked at by people on the street because he's just that handsome. Aside from dressing up better, it'll be more of a 'woah he looks really good' after a closer inspection sort of thing. Style scales according to the girl, too. Mia has 0 standards for Style, so the further he gets past that the more effective his looks are on her, whereas Stacy has a higher standard and it won't be as effective.

Work control. When doing his job, Oliver is given two choices by a pop-up menu at the start of his shift. 'Work Hard' or 'Manual'. Work Hard makes him black out and fast forwards to the end of his shift. During this time, he acts on autopilot and in this blank state he puts in more effort than he usually would, impressing his boss. Manual is just doing it the way he always would, which will still be his default as without it he won't have chances to grow closer to Mia and Stacy. It's a power that scares him since it does essentially shave off eight hours of his life that he'll never get back but it will probably see more usage when he's actually pursuing Tessa. It might be cute if Tessa's first Heart Event is her telling him he doesn't have to keep working so hard to prove himself to her anymore and that she'll try to lighten up around him, thus making him not need to do it anymore.

There might also be the option to speed up other tedious things as well depending on the plot.

---

Planned Perks

These are perks which I already have in mind for Oliver to get somewhat early on. Open to suggestions or ideas since Oliver needs some early objectives to shoot for.

Bradley. To briefly recap, Bradley is an uncanny mnemonic entity who is a parody of the generic best friend in dating sims ala the OG Tokimeki Memorial's Saotome Yoshio. He is seemingly omniscient and knows every heroine's phone number, daily routine, and more. In many ways, Bradley is an unconscious reflection of just how powerful of a reality bender Oliver actually is. Oliver doesn't use those aspects of Bradley's power because of his morals. He might be willing to accept vague hints sometimes like 'hey something interesting might happen if you run into Stacy during your break', and asking Bradley what date spot a girl might like would be a-ok) but Bradley is helpful in many other ways. Everyone is predisposed to liking him despite how creepy Oliver finds him, and he often provides chances to get closer to the heroines by inserting himself into conversations, having a chance to show up when Oliver is floundering, and more.

Lucky Bastard. Lucky Bastard is a skill which Oliver prioritizes early on. It's a separate skill from Lucky Pervert, which Oliver does not get but it will be pointed out as a gag. Lucky is just a small but noticeable boost to Oliver's luck. It won't make him win the lottery, but it could have him stumble upon a fifty dollar bill as he's strolling along. More importantly, the main thing that this perk does is boost Oliver's encounter rate with his heroines. The most important thing in winning over a girl in a dating game is making sure you have as many encounters as possible, so this frequently sets up chances for him. As an example, perhaps he and Mia are moving meat to back to the freezer and the door just so happens to slam shut and the handle breaks, locking them alone together for an hour or so until it's fixed. Things like that.

The Truth. If Oliver tells a heroine about his powers and she believes him, she will see how the sausage is made. This makes are able to see all of his menus and realize the things that other people don't like the sudden teleportation or when he's on autopilot. Not every girl will initially believe him and telling them is a risk since if they don't he will suffer a penalty to their affection meter which depending on the girl could be pretty big. The inverse is true, obviously. Telling them and having them believe it will result in a big boost.

Hentai Protagonist. A general bonus to his sex skills, making him able to go again unrealistically fast, makes his load huge (magically cleans itself up after a while), and makes him shoot blanks unless he specifically wants not to. Not all powerful, scales relative to his current Strength stat so he still has to put in a loss of work if he wants to satisfy more than one partner.

Fuck Landlords. A tier 1 perk that makes it so Oliver isn't bound to leases and can live with as many partners as he wants. Just thought it would be a funny little detail.

Gallery. Not an early objective, just an idea I had while writing this. Would be funny to unlock the ability to replay his sexual experiences like re-watching a sex scene in a visual novel, creating a screen in front of him that can be seen if they have the ability to see his interface. Not inherently useful but I can think of some fun applications like someone being tsundere about the sex and Oliver bringing up proof of them liking it as a joke, and of course it has a lot of value for cuckquean play.

Each girl will also have perks tailored to them that he can spend his points on, many of which will help with their personal problems and enable them to live better lives while chasing their dreams. Some minor examples I'm thinking of would be curing Mia's tendinitis that holds her back from being an artist and helping Tessa quit drinking and smoking so much. These will have to be handled in a way so that he doesn't come off as Jesus and get undying loyalty for these, but we'll see.

---

Love Points (LP)

LP are gained by reaching milestones with heroines and completing missions. LP are then spent on perks. We'll have four tiers of perks. 1 costs 10, 2 costs 50, 3 costs 100, 4 costs 300. Tier 1 is limited to little bonuses while tier 4 is like a miracle.

Here's how we'll break down the value of milestones. Oliver can check these via his Heroine menu, which splits into two categories, Romance and Sexual. Putting it down ahead of time that I don't want to include having children on the romance list just because that would complicate the story. Even just listing it means I would have to tackle it eventually and I'd prefer just not to have it there with maybe an explanation that is not on the list until a girl wants it to happen and we just don't reach that point.

Romance

Getting a girls number* - 5
Hold Hands - 10
First date - 20
First Kiss - 30

Heart Events - 50
The L Word - 100
Move in together - 150
Meet Parents** - 300
Marriage - 500

* Oliver has Tessa's number at the start since she's his boss and he'll have the points from this to reflect it.
** After they're together, Stacy does not want him to meet her abusive family and it will be a good moment to reinforce his values by having him say obviously her feelings are more important than getting points.

Sexual

Light Groping - 15

Handjob - 25

Fingering - 25

Cunnilingus - 30

Blowjob - 30

*Buttjob - 35

*Titfuck - 35

Sex - 50

Anal - 70

*If applicable.

If I am missing any obvious romance or sexual milestones or you have any ideas for some, please let me know.

Kinks

Obviously the girls will have different interests so I'll assign different values to those as they come up but he'll get a bonus for trying new things and giving them what they want. I just don't want to sit here making an exhaustive list ahead of time.

Threesomes and More

The value of group sex is scalable and dependent on composition. Rather than only getting points for a girls first threesome with him, Oliver gets points by mixing and matching. Each girl is worth 50, so Oliver would get 100 for the first threesome between Mia and Stacy and 150 four the first foursome between Mia, Stacy, and Tessa, and then another 100 if he later has a first threesome with just Mia and Tessa. This incentivizes different combinations and would make for a fun mechanic I think. Group sex will only count if it's a full session, he can't just get a double blowjob and assigning values to every individual thing that happens like that would get out of hand very fast.

Missions

I've already stated that these will crop up from time to time and they'll have a small reward that scales up with how difficult the task is. Oliver can reject and delete missions at no penalty. Random example say Stacy forgets her purse and he trips while trying to bring back to her, exposing she had a spare pair of panties inside. Mission notification would chime in and offer him points to steal and jack off with them and Oliver is just like 'no, damn it' and dismisses it. I imagine a lot of these will be when I need to railroad the plot a little bit and give him extra points.

Also, he will have repeatable 'Take X on an Enjoyable Date' missions that never go away after his first date with a girl. It'll only be worth ten LP, but taking them out will be a way to farm points if the story necessitates it. It has to be at a place the girl likes to count, thus the enjoyable part.

Heart Events

Each girl has four or five, not committing to a number right now, heart events that see them opening up to Oliver and revealing major things about themselves. These are triggered through filling an affection meter from 0% to 100%. Girls who have yet to have their first heart event can have a negative affection towards Oliver. Tessa starts at -100% and Stacy at %50. This isn't possible past that point as they have to genuinely start liking him to get beyond that.

Heart Events always culminate in the big confession and I love you by the final one, with wiggle room for surprises if a heroine says it earlier than that.

Affection Meter

Compared to how calculated everything else is, the affection meter needs to be more flexible for the sake of the narrative. I don't want to have to tally up the specifics of every last interaction with the girl so if he takes Mia on a date it will raise according to how much of a good time she had, and we can skip periods of time if need be to have him grind gaining affection.