The Hook Up
THUP's goal was to create a game that captured the excitement and conflict of a new relationship.
We knew that there was a risk of a dating game becoming little more than a Choose-Your-Own adventure novel, a game centered strictly around branching dialog trees. The centerpiece of our game design neatly avoided this problem -- we abstracted the most dramatic moments into an easily accessible card combat game. As players explore the world of The Hook Up, they gather secrets, rumors, and facts about the characters in town. When a conflict arises -- the player fighting to keep their boyfriend, trying to learn a secret, trying to sabotage a rival -- they use the information they have gathered as 'cards'. The more devastating the secret, the more powerful the card.
THUP's goal was to create a game that captured the excitement and conflict of a new relationship.
We knew that there was a risk of a dating game becoming little more than a Choose-Your-Own adventure novel, a game centered strictly around branching dialog trees. The centerpiece of our game design neatly avoided this problem -- we abstracted the most dramatic moments into an easily accessible card combat game. As players explore the world of The Hook Up, they gather secrets, rumors, and facts about the characters in town. When a conflict arises -- the player fighting to keep their boyfriend, trying to learn a secret, trying to sabotage a rival -- they use the information they have gathered as 'cards'. The more devastating the secret, the more powerful the card.
Time passes in a realistic way in The Hook Up: non-player characters follow their own schedules, moving around throughout the day. The player can make a date with a boy, and then will have to deal with the consequences if they don't show up in time.
The Hook Up was a huge success when it launched on Valentine's day weekend, creating the largest traffic spike in the history of the site.
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