The Strange Case of Kissing and Flirting Games 

i always felt so scandalous playing these as a child on girlsgogames

When I was little I wrote an actual fanfic for school flirting game and it was about the protagonist being jealous that the boy she like already had a girlfriend (the blonde dude and the blonde chick) and wanting all the boys to like her and one day she woke up with magical powers that let her make anyone fall in love with her. Yes it was as bad as you imagine.

i always felt so powerful making the boys love me with my eye beams. i was like 7 dreaming that i would be that supernaturally alluring one day

Little Mistake in regards to the Flirting Game: You DON'T lose hearts by the teacher willy nilly. You'll only lose them if you run against her. That way you bump into her. You need to walk past her slowly. The mask is actually used as protection against the jealous Ghost Lady. Signed: An ex-obsessive fan

i remember playing some of these games as a kid, gotta love having unrestricted internet access as a child 😅

Fun story: i played these games in secret for fear of my mom finding out and disowning me... I was a dramatic child.

clear, vivid memory of me playing the school and festival flirting games WHILE MY OWN MOTHER WAS WATCHING and she was like "are you winning sweetie?" and would sit next to me and watch me play, thank you for this video, it reminded me of simpler times

I think the fact this is a genre that largely started in Japan makes a lot of sense culturally. Aside from it kinda playing into that old school Harenchi Gakuen or Urusei Yatsura-esque style love comedy variety of "ecchi", it also just kinda leans into the way kissing is seen in Japan vs. the US. The game "Chulip" on PS2 also leans into this for similar reasons. Kissing in public is kinda just more taboo in Japan for a number of reasons. Not that it doesn't happen, or that it's unheard of, it's just different. The comedy or gimmick comes from playing off that vibe to an extremely exaggerated and cartoonish extent. As for why so many of the later games are ugly: I'm convinced it's just because they're made in places for far cheaper and far less passion. Both the original Japanese flash games were probably made with genuine intent by good artists vs. joe schmoe in the US or elsewhere who wants that ad revenue without entirely getting why the original games were made or what the point was.

The phrase "visibly heterosexual monkeys kissing" made me laugh harder than i think it should've. Also the fake Devilish kissing game screenshot was so cute! I love that Pandemonica from Helltaker was the Department Manager, cute touch!

The problem with office kiss, and other flash games like this, is that they used to work alongside the computers of the era. Older computer could somehow run flash elements slower, therefore making certain games seem easier. Nowadays, computers are way too fast for most flash games and they go out of sync. If you want to fix this and play certain flash games that you suspect might work under this, you need to use a program like "CPU Killer" that will temporarily slow down your computer with garbage RAM data so that it acts more akin to an older model.

The Romance Academy series is PEAK gaming, the games and the music are permanently engraved in my brain

Just wanted to add to the Tomie theory, Tomie was once a normal schoolgirl who was being used for her looks by a teacher into a false sense of love type of relationship. However due to the nature of their relationship, the teacher told her to keep it a secret, but Tomie didn't want to. A series of unfortunate events (I forgot how died but you can just look up the Tomie timeline for better answers) with the death of Tomie would lead to her becoming the monster we see her today. A monster who was so full of sorrow, wanting the love she longed for that wasn't real, only to turn into a monster who would ultimately inflect the same cruelty her "lover" teacher put her through. If we go by the Tomie theory for Romance Academy....yeah. Yeah I think that would be very messed up.

No yeah, you're right about the Romance Academy games. That's 1000% supernatural. That girl is a creature beyond mortal ken.

thank you li for documenting all the most iconic internet nostalgia

I feel an embarrassing nostalgia for the Shopping Mall kiss game because I'm pretty sure that was the one you could customize the characters who kiss and I distinctly remember trying to make them look like myself and fictional characters I liked as a child 😭

Does anyone remember that kissing game where you had to avoid the smokers? You had to trace a pattern to properly kiss whoever you picked lol

Romance Academy is exactly the kind of heterosexual nonsense I love. Good for kitsune-chan.

Romance Academy made me into the man I am today 💪

I would love to see Li cover the Papa's series, they were a huge part of my childhood and have lore that I feel like is overlooked.

These games fueled my comphet, I was convinced flirting was a competitive sport based on nothing but how many and what quality boys you could get

I used to spend HOURS with my sister playing the school flirting game and it’s spin-offs! My favorite popular boy was the blue haired one and the summer festival ghost. We could never get the life guard on the beach one though. This video is so nostalgic !!

I remember playing this one kissing game called "Twister Kiss" a lot. Basically, the premise involved 5 characters from the Canadian TV Show "Total Drama": Gwen, Duncan, Trent, Courtney & Heather, also it had 3 levels. In each level, a new "opponent" was added. You had Gwen & Duncan play Twister and you basically had to make them kiss while the others were looking away. If any of you don't know, also, Trent is Gwen's boyfriend & Courtney is Duncan's girlfriend, that's why they have to look away while you kiss. The first level only features Trent, the second level has Trent & Courtney and the final level has Trent, Courtney & Heather, who's just here to stir up the drama I think ??? Also you'd get electrocuted if you were caught kissing by the others. During the gameplay, you would also get like eye bonuses or time bonuses. The eye bonus made you invisible, and the time bonus gave you more time. There was basically a time limit in which you had to get a certain amount of points to progress to the next level. Not related to most games on here, I just thought it fit with the theme :)

Lmao I remember always having to be on guard whenever playing these games and those naughty games where you'd have to take pictures of poor women in sussy situations. Man games back then used to be really crazy but nothing compares to the weird disney princess surgery and pregnancy games...

I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the cheating aspect of these games or the games where you were paid to get proof of partner’s cheating by taking photos at scandalous times. Full black bar censorship in those games. Great video, unlocked a lot of memories 😂

Girlsgogames kissing games were a big part of my childhood ! I used to imgine they were my imaginary relationships.

Romance Academy is probably my guiltiest pleasure and hardcore phase as an elementary school student As a self-proclaimed ex-pro of the game, I'm not ashamed to admit I memorized the flooring and layout for each game (There's the school setting, festival setting, etc...) By doing that I knew EXACTLY where the handsome guys were, my army only had handsome guys and some "extras" This is probably one of the reason why I'm pretty good at spamming now, I didn't care if the guy was surrounded by 5+ girls, he was my prey and I spammed like no tmr Honestly miss playing those games and whole-heartedly enjoying them, this one in particular was a huge part of my childhood (and probably a reason why back then I found all boys ugly, as they weren't as good as my 2d hard earned handsome high schooler with a sparkly aura)

Can you talk about point and click and escape the room games? They were my whole childhood. The vibes were immaculate. Also, I can't tell you how much I love that this channel exists to remind me that other kids actually played flash games and it wasn't just a fever dream xD

Does anyone remember the girl game where you discovered a cavewoman trapped in ice and you had to very carefully use a laser to melt her out then when she was free you had to bathe and shave her in order to kiss her??? It feels like a fever dream

God I LOVED Romance Academy, Charming Girls and Queen of Flirting as a kid 😭😭😭 Hearing you refer to the blonde rival as having the same "power level" as a group of other rivals made me laugh my ass off 😂😂😂

16:05 I was not expecting Junji Ito to come up in a video about kissing and flirting flash games, but here we are. Thank you, I love it 😂

I can't express how happy I was to hear Li comparing the romance academy "lore" to that of Junji Ito's Tomie. So happy I'm not the only person who grew up playing girlsgogames who turned out to be a horror fan, I really feel like I've found my people here lol. Great vid as always! :) Also: my fav flirting game as a kid was called married & flirting, and it was also about horses, it was weird but so fun to play somehow

the tomie theory for romance academy?? is actually really cool?? like i feel like with that lore for the game you can actually make a really good modern spinoff that is more mature with a story. it would be so nice.

Hey queen! Girl, you have done it again. Constantly raising the bar for us all and doing it flawlessly. I'd say I'm surprised, but I know who you are. I've seen it up close and personal. Girl, you make me so proud, and I love you.

Romance Academy and it's sequels was one of my favorite ways to have fun in girlsgogames land! THANK YOU for making such nostalgic videos

The chef dude in the Oprah kissing game isn't actually trying to catch them kissing he's just concerned about her caressing his hamburger

I really would have loved to see you cover this one game that was one of my favorites as a kid for some reason, it was called Kiss Off and you had to avoid kissing smokers to get to the "ideal" person to kiss The levels got more difficult as you progressed and the kissing was very visual and also a huge part of the game since every time you kiss a smoker you enter a mini game where you have to escape their lips while they try to smooch you, on top of that, everytime you passed near a smoker your character would start coughing making it extremely difficult to move for a few seconds and at the end of each level you had to play another mini game similar to the other one however in this instance the better you did at the game the more points you got.

Something I found out about Romance Academy: different versions change gameplay a bit. In the English version (which I found at Yandex) it's a lot harder to fight, and you will probably fail to get popular boys without beauty time, also, popular boys change floors and they can spawn or not. This actually means it's impossible to get the blond guy on the 1st floor (instead he spawns at the rooftop and is pretty much guaranteed) so it is impossible to get total victory. I recommend playing the Japanese version, not only it's easier, but you can actually achieve total victory. Edit: to get the blond guy to spawn you only have to get beauty time, this applies to every game

As a kid I must have wanted drama, plus unable to read at the time I thought the office lady was cheating on the boss with the guy 💀 The flirting game series were so fun to me, I remember wanting all of the good endings. I've satisfied my inner child by reaching that goal last year.

I would 100% watch a movie adaptation of Romance Academy with one of your supernatural storylines. Actually, now that I think of it, I have...it sounds like Jennifer's Body. But I don't think I would get tired of another variation on that theme.

the use of one winged angel while scrolling through all the kissing games truly spoke to me and how i felt as a kid looking at just... how many goddamn games there were. it intimidated me

21:47 I love how Sebastian is just MORTIFIED He's never recovering

I got busted playing these and had no idea why it was such a big deal hahaha I was so stoked for this video!!!

I love how four months ago li just shows up with crazy high quality videos. She already feels like a youtuber I've been watching for ages. Love the videos!

Romance Academy and Office Kissing were my favorite games on girlsgogames , they were both so well made that I kept coming back to them.

i remember the naruto/sasuke kissing game! man there used to be so many naruto-themed flash animations and games. they were all really cringe, but i look back on that time fondly. shoutout to there being like whole dating sims on deviantart back then, too.

LOL BECAUSE I FELT SO NAUGHTY DOING THIS. It was the start of me becoming a sneaky child.

I found this channel recently after extensive reminiscing on barbiegirls and tore through all your videos. Your work is incredibly comprehensive, both about the content and in capturing the joy these franchises produced in us as kids. You’re doing really amazing work and I can’t wait for what’s to come!

when i was a kid i cried to my mom confessing i played a kissing game and she was so confused … so i showed her and she laughed

perfect timing, was needing a bit of nostalgia, and youre like the librarian of our childhood oddities along with izzyzz. Keep it up please (also youre looking fabulous

I used to spend so much time on the high school kissing game! Specifically the festival and the school settings, I even managed to have a strategy for the festival where I would leave the ghost boy as the VERY last one so I could get him with little to no interruption of the ghost girl. I think this is where I was able to master my super fast clicking speed to out beat the other girls lol.

You talked about that feeling of "I shouldn't be seen playing this" we had as a kid. My mom came in when I was watching this video and I flinched...I'm 26.

I'm so happy someone finally talked about the romance academy series! They were my absolute favorite growing up but always seemed to have little or no information on who made the games. I think romance academy series was a favorite for those of us with a shojou filled childhood lol I'm just so grateful I have some more answers and information on the series, as it was so near and dear to my heart. Thank you!

romance academy will never not remind me of the vocaloid song "im sorry for loving you" by utata-p where a shy girl buys some sketchy high-tech contact lenses that are meant to help her convey her feelings with a glance, but they actually convert her passion into beams of pink light shooting from her eyes.... i have to wonder if the song was somehow inspired by the game, or if maybe this idea of 'eye beams of love' is just like A Thing in japan???

I loved girls go games and this category was always so scandalous feeling. I only played them when I was home alone just incase 😂 Thanks for bringing back this nostalgia

The way the school girl flirting game had me in a chokehold, I would play that game so much also the beach one

I absolutely loved and still love the flirting games, they're so cute, simple and fun! Your theories are also very interesting and I'm very into the kitsune one

Honestly I learn so much from your videos. The videos and your voice 100% cure my anxiety and if I'm having a panic attack also I'm a 32 year old gay man so definitely not in a creepy way lol! You just have a calm soothing energy and kind voice and the way you explain things along with your visuals is a secret weapon for me and always helps me so thank you so much you have saved me in anxious situations many times. Also I work at a dog daycare and if a dog has separation anxiety or home sick I play 1 of ur videos and both me and the dog relax lol I don't know what that means but I thought you would like to know LOL

I LOVE your dedication to the lore for Romance Academy. I've always been so fascinated by these games and the dark implications. My personal theory that I had as a kid was this was just...some kinda world where girls shot lasers from their eyes and that's how romance works for them.

When I saw your first video, I thought it was really cool but I honestly wasn't expecting you to stick around since I've seen so many video essayists quit after two or three videos. But now you've got a Discord and a Patreon and a full blown audience! I'm really glad because every video has been such excellent quality and I'm always looking forward to the next one. Keep up the great work!

Point and click games were my go-to flash game genre back then which eventually led me to the ‘naughty’ series where you are a ‘bored prankster’ boy whose objective is to pull these so-called pranks that usually leads to putting pretty girls in provocative situations like stripping them of their clothes or tripping into kissing the prankster himself. Each game was a different setting that ranged from a house party, car wash, fashion show and god forbid even a school? Years later I’m convinced these were made to cater to a particular fantasy😅. They were pretty much one of my first kinds of exposures to things I shouldn’t be indulging in as a kid and I understand why my parents scolded me a few times. But curiosity got the best of little me so I kept going, it’s a slacking game in of itself irl lol, the og fnaf if you will. Looking back on it now, it does make me uncomfortable of how sexualised the women in the games were

Omg I totally remember the festival game. The jealous ghost girl always creeped me out a little bit

You have quickly become one of my favorite channels😭💖 Really scratches the itch of girl game nostalgia and deep dives

ive always wanted to dress up as the office kissing game characters i feel like that would be such a good couples halloween costume

obligatory plug for Flashpoint for anyone who wants to play these kinds of games again, they have a ton of flash games saved and playable

can i just say your fake devilish kissing screenshots were so sweet they made me squeal irl?? what!! theyre so cute!!! also wanted to say, funnily enough kissing/flirting games never rly attracted me as a kid and i never got the hype, but now as an adult i kinda get it, not only i imagine kids would get interested in the fact it feels taboo, but also the arcade/high score quality to them does seem incredibly engaging, specially for romance academy. i can imagine any kid playing would find it fun to watch the numbers go up and find new and better endings where they are rewarded for higher scores

I remember very vividly, around the time I was eight my brother confronted me about me playing these kinda games on the family computer. Basically admonished me and finished it off with "just don't look at anything bad". I had never been made to feel so ashamed about anything before. It's been 10 years, and I haven't been the same since. I still play romance games, but now only at night because I am paranoid about my laptop accidentally connecting to the TV or some shit and I couldn't bear to be confronted about shit like this again.

i remember one strangely smoking-themed game that was simar to both of these on girlgogames. you played one of three(?) girls in a shopping centre trying to kiss as many boys as possible, while avoiding kissing smokers. but the thing was, the kissing involved a whole minigame up close in the mouth where you had to trace your mouse along a pattern, implying this was the course your tongue was taking inside this man's mouth. if you caught a smoker, the mouth would be disgusting, covered in sores and coughing during the act. i have to wonder if it was made as an anti-smoking campaign because it was very effective, those smokers' mouths were extremely disturbing

god i have been DYING for someone to talk about these games, i was absolutely obsessed with the rewarding challenge of romance academy. thank you for doing the work!

these were so important to my childhood. not because of the themes, but because i loved grinding them. i found out i was aroace 5 years later

"seilacaralho" translates to "i don't know, sh*t"

Pls make a video about “adults” flash game, like there was one that you had to take an embarrassing picture of a celebrity however the “embarrassing picture” was actually a censored nood of her 😳

Playing kissing games on the family computer feels like leaving a store without buying anything, it feels wrong but it’s not.

someone needs to make a slacking type game where you’re a kid playing a kissing game on the family computer

this video was suggested to me and OH MAN IM SO GLAD IT WAS 😭 this is a blast from the past, what a memory!! thank you for documenting this, honestly i know this is something ingrained in a lot of our memories but it also makes me sad to think about how flash games had a relatively short life span (like their main era of popularity) and if it were not for efforts to preserve them (largely being done by gamers themselves by creating archives and emulators), they would be completely lost. flash games (as funny and unserious as games like these seem to be) are a unique internet artifact. thanks for making this cool vid on them!!

God, the romance academy series was me and my sister's favorite flash game as kids. Nothing compares to the feeling of total victory when I finally managed to get the ghost guy in my adoring posse. Anyways we 100% considered the player character to have some sort of supernatural evil brainwashing power, that was like half the fun.

I used to love these games! your whole channel gives me so much nostalgia

I'm only a couple minutes into the video but I want to say, the narrative voice is perfectly on point. I can have trouble with youtube voiceovers sometimes, but here I understand every word just fine, the pace is measured, and it's overall very pleasant to listen to. Obviously it's all just set dressing for the topic of the video, but it helps to listen and understand what's going on better. I'll definitively be checking out other videos of this channel when I'm done with this one.

The work kissing game and the 3 flirting games were my childhood! Me and my cousin used to play them all the time! I remember just searching “kissing games” and they would show up (along with some others we would sometimes play) but the ones I mentioned were for sure the favorites. They were just so fun and had great replayability

I always felt like I shouldnt play these when I was a kid lol Thank you for these videos they give me a lot of nostalgia, AND OMG I PLAYED SO MUCH ROMANCE ACADEMY AAAAA

I remember playing Office Kissing as a kid side by side with a friend during a sleepover, on our own set-up computers. It was hard but I remember clearing the game after many attempts. Romance Academy I remember playing a few times, it was fun, I loved the artstyle and effects, plus the concept of a girl going around collectinh boys for unknown reasons but seemingly for her own amusement appealed to me as a kid for some reason.

I feel like we could have been best friends in middle school. None of my friends understand these flash games! I love your channel ❤️

the first few sentences of this video made me laugh so hard that i had to pause😭 it's so funny looking back

theres something so funny abt sasuke & naruto kissing and right on top of them written "YOU WIN!"

God, I’m having such an amazing girls’ night on a Sunday afternoon, toking it while my bestie sips their wine and we talk about elementary and middle school trauma. 😌💅✨

Romance academy is absolutely legendary. I will never forget the feeling of getting the highest score for the first time.

I remember not playing many of these because I felt so guilty akjahskdahkaja it's so weird that our child brains connected the bad-end state of the games with the real world. I do remember the game assets getting very, hmm grabby? haha like you said, it's certainly odd and must have been clickbait, but it is uncomfy to look back on today. I never played the two you looked most in depth at here, but I really do like the way Office Kissing looks! It's like, the creators understood the Flash engine and it's limitations and designed around that. And yeah, the fact that each click is just a cute little peck helps it not feel as scandalous, vs the mashing face that my child brain only ever connected to the like, early scenes in CSI episodes before the lovers get killed LOL

The art style in that narusasu kissing game kind of reminds me of a touhou kissing game I played once. It was also pretty different from the traditional kissing game as instead of clicking, you had to type in a name, which would initiate a non-interactive pocky game scene between Marisa and an "anon" type character. Most names would result in Marisa breaking the pocky stick early, except... アリス (Alice) and some other name that was most likely the dev's name or one of their friends. Entering アリス actually turns the anon into Alice, so technically there is another non-het kissing game out there, if this even counts.

I think it's funny having experienced GirlsGoGames as a European kid, because namely in France we don't nearly have as many taboos about flirting or kissing as Americans apparently do. Add to that the fact that neither of my parents was really the Helicopter type (though I still specifically wasn't allowed to watch the Witches of Eastwick for some reason, and I still haven't seen it) which meant that playing these games never gave me the impression that I was doing something I shouldn't be doing. And then I discovered fanfiction and it all went to hell.

I remember playing these games on my grandpa's computer and always looking behind my back so that I don't get caught

gosh i loved romance academy! to be honest i never saw the romance aspect - i thought i was playing as a girl who killed boys (because they floated, therefore they had to be ghosts). totally normal for a 10 year old, right...? i think these games sparked my love for fighting games lol

you just made me remember how obsessed I was with getting the highest scores possible on these games, I would literally get so frustrated and restart if I accidentally stopped clicking before the absolute last millisecond lol

omg you should totally make a video on the papa louie games lore

I really appreciate how much research and time you're putting into these videos! They are so amazing to watch from the perspective of being over 20 now and missing those days when you used to came back from school to play these games 🥺💗

"visibly heterosexual monkeys" alksdjlaksdksa 💀

whoa, idk how I've never found your channel before now! It's really refreshing to see someone talk about a genre of gaming that is often overlooked. It seems like flash games, especially ones with adolescent girls as the target audience, are often ignored or are not seen as "serious" gaming.

Every video I watch of yours unlocks a memory I had forgotten about my childhood. Like that demon barbershop game? I played the hell out of that game as a kid and I had totally forgotten about it until now. Same with romance academy o(-(

During the middle part of this video, when you said "If it exists, there's kissing games of it" I was thinking "Does that mean there's gonna be a Friday Night Funkin' version?" as a joke. But then 23:33 came and it caught me off guard XD

Oh my gosh, I used to be OBSESSED with the Romance Academy series !! You unlocked a memory there 🤭 Edit : THE MUSIC-

you knocked it out of the park this time too li!! keep up the amazing content girl!! 💕

I love all of your videos! I never even knew I would be interested in watching deep dives on old school flash games, but I am so here for it.