“Thank you for saving me!” she says, planting a kiss on the hero’s cheek. Indeed, the hero who saves the damsel in distress had become the fantasy many gamers wanted to live out in their video games. Of course, books and films had the same appeal – people identified with the heroes, and liked to see the happy ending where “the good guy gets the girl at the end” (though it doesn’t always work out that way). But it’s the virtual world that allowed people to experience and overcome the challenges themselves. They could make mistakes without real risk, while feeling the accomplishment of completing their task. Then, in the 1980′s, game developers started to wonder: Instead of making “getting the girl” the end result, why not make that the entire game? And so we have today a wide selection of what are known as “dating simulation” games.