I’ve never really been able to wrap myself around raising sim games such as the Princess Maker series. The framing of them feels like it could quite easily teeter over the edge into something uncomfortable, and in more modern entries such as Umamusume outright parasocial (and often exploitative). But lo and behold, a game enters my consciousness that fits within this very genre that looks absurdist enough to quell some of those concerns: Tomak: Save the Earth Regeneration, a rerelease of the 25-year-old game that sees you caring for the goddess of love who’s lost her body and is living out of a plant pot.
Originally released on PC back in 2001, and later on PS2, too, Tomak: Save the Earth is set in a world where the gods have decided to destroy earth because of how rubbish humans are. Enter Evian, the goddess of love (not the water brand), who arrives on earth only to have her body taken away by the other gods. And she just so happens to be in your (or rather, the blank slate protagonist you can project onto’s) room, planted in a flowerpot. Oh, and you’ve got three years to “nurture her, prove that true love still exists, and help Evian regain her goddess form to save the world!”
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This is, you can probably gather, also a bit of a visual novel, with various locales to visit and other characters to meet, alongside sad backstories to experience. But the main thing you’ll be doing is interacting with this disembodied head. You might do that by putting a mic up to her face so she can sing, give her a sip of water, feed her a hamburger and seemingly turn her into a more generic anime girl. There’s all sorts of stats to consider as you take care of her various needs, with the story changing depending on how much you manage to bond with her.
It’s all very silly with a good dash of earnestness about it, two qualities that often win me over when meshed together. Tomak is also, conveniently, free right now over at the Epic Games Store, so you’ve not even got a good excuse to at least try it out.
