Boo Party is a 2022 comedy adventure H-Game, made by developer Cosmi Kankei who is specialized in retraux games with erotic content, arcade-style gameplay and a funky soundtrack (composed in this case by Opus Science Collective
). The game stars an unnamed photographer who is asked by parapsychologist Dr. Lesbrock to investigate an old manor that is supposedly haunted: turns out that all sorts of creatures and apparitions are having a party there, and your task is to take photos of every Cute Monster Girl you come across as proof of paranormal activity. However, all of these girls are going to ask favors in return or are going to put the photographer to the test...
Boo Party is a Spiritual Successor (heh, spiritual) to the old Frank's Adventure series of games on Newgrounds, with the same relaxed, laid-back atmosphere and cheesecake imagery, but with a Halloween-esque coat of comedic horror. The game is available on Steam.
This game provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: The girls' names go from common human names (Simone, Enrica), to generic "monster" names (Medusa, Frankie), to more unusual names (Melizia, Jaki Nikko, Sheida Bharo, etc.)
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Alien twins Alis and Yoofy look like humanoid girls with jellyfish on their heads, but it's stated that this is a form they took in order to look more attractive to humans.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Frankie, being partially based on stereotypical depictions of Frankenstein's Monster, has dark green skin. The Queen of Mermaids has pinkish skin. Other girls, despite being demons or aliens, have more life-like skin colors though.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Some of the mini-games are quite tough, especially the in-game arcade "Succu Bouncer" whose completion is needed to get Sheida Bharo's photo (it doesn't help that your opponents are all but stated to cheat). The developer patched the game so that they have been made easier, with more hints and/or helping items, and the opportunity to outright have another character to complete them for us if they're still too difficult.
- Bakeneko and Nekomata: Simone the cat girl is stated to be this kind of youkai, a bakeneko to be specific, even though she looks almost completely human.
- Bedsheet Ghost: Male ghosts all look like this, while the female ones, as befitting of this kind of game, have curvier figures with Fog Feet and several of them wear ectoplasmatic Playboy Bunny costumes.
- Big Fancy House: The manor is really big and has several leisure areas including a gym, swimming pools, a library, a concert hall with dance floor, an arcade game room, a TV studio, a dining hall and so on.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: A bit here and there, for example when the Queen mermaid's guards are barring the entrance to the girls' changing room because "the protagonist of a game like this one" can't be trusted.
- Chained by Fashion: Enrica the werewolf girl wears a dog collar complete with leash when you take her photos. And nothing else.
- Cute Monster Girl: The whole point of the game is to take naked or semi-nude photos of them! Among the many girls seen around the mansion, the ones you can get pictures of are:
- The Dead Can Dance: It's a party, so there's ghosts and skeletons dancing everywhere, the funniest example has to be the skeletal conga line on the dance floor (which is also part of a puzzle).
- Expy:
- Dr. Lesbrock is a clear reference to the Ghostbusters, possibly even to the 2016 film since she's a woman.
- Killer Margo is a female version of Freddy Krueger, complete with clawed glove, striped shirt and hat.
- Eyebrow Waggle: The photographer does this every time he's about to take the pics of one of the girls - but, since he has Hidden Eyes, he waggles his hair instead.
- Fetch Quest: Most of the gameplay is like this, going around the mansion finding items for the girls in exchange for photos, the rest is mini-games of variable difficulty.
- Gag Nose: The protagonist has quite the big schnoz and several character point this out.
- Gargle Blaster: In order to get Frankie's picture you need to survive her training, but first you have to buy her an energy drink. Said drink is composed of several ingredients including (somehow) electricity, and after buying it from the demon bartender he says he doesn't know how such stuff can even be sold.
- Giant Foot of Stomping: One of the (even more) retro-style mini games seen in Frankie's training consists of the protagonist having to pick up Pac-Man-esque cherries in a maze, while a giant stiletto-wearing foot tries to stomp on him and creates shockwaves in doing so.
- Hidden Eyes: The protagonist has his eyes always hidden by his red baseball cap and mop of blond hair. Alien girls Alis & Yoofy also have their eyes hidden beneath their jellyfish-like "hairdo"/caps.
- Homage:
- The game's protagonist looks very similar to the protagonist of the Japanese PC Engine game Gekibo: Gekisha Boy, another title based on photography featuring several goofy and/or naughty moments.
- The sequence in the sewer with the player character on an inner tube reminds of the old arcade game Toobin'.
- Jekyll & Hyde: Doctor Jekyll is one of the few famous monsters not being directly referenced, but Enrica's quest has you turn her from shy, mild-mannered girl to an aggressive and outgoing Little Bit Beastly wolf girl.
- Mad Scientist: Other than Dr. Lesbrock, the mansion is home to an old man who invented a telescope that can change the lunar phases and is exposed as a Dirty Old Man when he says he's going to use it to peep on girls. Finding its missing gears is another of the game's fetch quests and repairing it is needed to turn Enrica into her werewolf form.
- Meaningful Name: Subverted. Dr. Lesbrock's name sounds like "lesbo" and she seems to be very interested in the girls' pics any time we give them to her, but according to certain hard-to-find quests her orientation is different.
- Monster Mash: Every kind of creature is having a good time at the party, from skeletons and ghosts to mermen, anthropomorphic animals, demons, vampires, zombies, slasher villains and even a Japanese specter and a Killer Robot.
- Naughty Tentacles: The mermaid queen asks us to retrieve her grandmother's panties that were stolen a century ago. Turns out the culprit was a giant octopus, that becomes a boss of sorts and is also drawn in a vaguely animesque way as of to remind of this trope even more.
- Octopoid Aliens: Implied to be the true form of alien girls Alis and Yoofy, akin to Martians as seen by the Japanese; this animesque depiction of aliens also ties in with their gyaru-like style and the DanceDanceRevolution-style mini game you have to beat to get their photo.
- Produce Pelting: During the taping/streaming of Melizia the witch's cooking show, one skeletal member of the audience is seen with a few tomatoes he's ready to throw at her. The tomato is one of the items needed to complete another quest, a burger that Mariah Countee the vampire asked us to bring her.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: One of the puzzles is a hall with six doors that have to be traversed in the correct order to unlock another room. A sign that you're doing good is when all sorts of creatures are getting in and out of these doors.
- Suddenly Voiced: The protagonist never speaks or has any dialogues, but he's heard repeating the directions said during Alis & Yoofy's rhythm game challenge and during the dance-off at the very end of the story.
- Taken for Granite: Discussed. Famous actress Medusa can turn people to stone and is annoyed by her fans, but she does not want to hurt anyone. So she asks us, in exchange for a photo, to bring her three statues, so that she can pretend these were former victims of hers and scare the fans away.
- Theme Naming: The four succubi from the playable arcade mini-game Succu Bouncer are named Heart, Diamond, Club and Spade.
- Token Human: By completing certain tasks you can get Dr. Lesbrock's photo. She also appears in the group photo at the very end.
- Totally Radical: One of the three plants you have to photograph for Dreya the alraune/plant girl's fanzine is a cactus wearing a backwards baseball cap and Cool Shades.
- The Unintelligible: Zero, the hulking, Jason-esque drummer of Killer Margo's rock band, can only say the syllable "GOH".
- Video Game Caring Potential: You can get an achievement for petting Simone's cats after having found all of them and meeting her again around the mansion after having taken her photo.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Jaki Nikko the demoness/succubus asks us for a human soul as payment for her photo set. The photographer resolves this by tricking one of the two hapless monster hunters roaming the mansion, and turning him into a mindless shambling zombie.
