- Price: $4.99 USD (currently on sale for $3.99 until February 23rd)
- Developer: Heiden Games
- Publisher: Ratalaika Games
- Release Date: February 2, 2024
A review code was kindly provided by Ratalaika Games on behalf of Heiden Games. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.
This is rated M for mild violence, strong language, and sexual themes. Reader/player discretion is advised!
There are some games with descriptions so bizarrely intriguing that you just have to play them. Dr. Frank’s Build a Boyfriend is one of those games. The titular Dr. Frank is a scientist who lives in the mountains and researches ways to bring the dead back to life. He is totally humble and not self-aggrandizing at all. 😉
People tend to stay away from him, so he’s quite isolated. But one day, a “gorgeous specimen” named Dominik arrives at his door and mentions his research. Dr. Frank is instantly hooked, and thus starts the beginning of a three month relationship. After those three months, Dominik dumps him!
To add insult to injury, he’s stolen Dr. Frank’s resurrection research, and intends to present it as his own work at an upcoming conference! This news is just what Dr. Frank needed to break out of his post-breakup angst-fest, and now he wants revenge! As Tommy Lee Jones once said in Man of the House (2005), “Plagiarism is an academic crime. It is punishable by academic death.” I think Dr. Frank would agree with that assessment… 🫢
Putting the “body” in “revenge body,” Dr. Frank takes his assistant Iggs to a nearby graveyard to search for his new boyfriend. Dismissing concerns about illegality, he gathers body parts and asks, “Does this look like the arm of a hot boy to you?” Dr. Frank wants to not only replace Dominik with someone more attractive, but also show him up by proving that his research is legitimate.
Proving that he’s a gravedigger and not a gold digger, Dr. Frank assembles the parts he gathered with some help from Iggs and lightning to power his experiment. You get to choose between 8 hair styles, 10 hair colors (including the hilarious “tragic anime boy” option), 4 eye styles and skin colors, and 6 choices of…downstairs equipment…sizes. (None shown on screen!)
The experiment is a…success?…and Dr. Frank now has his boyfriend, who Iggs has named “Monster.” Iggs takes issue with certain anatomical features, and he also has to remind Dr. Frank that the guy needs clothes before he can be paraded around in public. You can search one of the seven rooms in his mountain lair (how did he afford this?), or you can go into town.
The game includes some point-and-click elements; clicking on items in each room results in even more entertaining commentary from Dr. Frank. You can take some items with you, but there are a few things that will cause Dr. Frank to die if you take them to the wrong location. Thankfully, you can continue from where you left off when that happens.
You need to use specific items from your inventory on other objects in the environment. Sometimes you have to combine items from your inventory before you can complete the next task. I thought everything was pretty straightforward, and if you ever get confused about what you need to do you can always go talk to Iggy.
I’d say that it took me about an hour to an hour and a half to get through the story, which includes a secret ending. I liked that they give you a hint on how to obtain that ending when you try to access the Extras section on the main menu. The epilogue is also accessible via the main menu. (Sadly, there’s no CG gallery there.)
The story was a bit too short for my tastes; I wish that they’d expanded on it some more because I did find myself entertained by the writing across the game’s ~20,000 words. There’s only one love interest, but I think they could have written multiple routes for the three other male characters as well – perhaps even including a complicated ending with Dominik!
I also wanted more clothing options for “Monster.” I’d assumed we could find more than one outfit for him to wear as the story progressed, but he’s stuck with one. That was a little disappointing since we at least had a decent amount of options when “building” him, but afterwards he doesn’t get as much attention.
There were a handful of typos and missing punctuation here and there, and I think the story could have been stronger, but that’s not to say I didn’t have some fun with Dr. Frank’s Build a Boyfriend. It’s more of a parody than it is a serious story.
I don’t know if I’d say any of the characters are particularly likable, although some have sympathetic qualities. The whole point is that the premise of the story is (subjectively) humorous, and so is the dialogue. Dr. Frank is the most dramatic character amongst the cast, and he says a lot of ridiculous things to cover up his insecurities. I got a lot of laughs from the writing, and I liked the art. I’d be interested in seeing more from Heiden Games based on this experience.
