Today, I'm Harvesting You! is a Horror / Dating Sim Visual Novel created for the Ludum Dare 52 on January 2023. It's available for free on its itch.io
page.
Tired of being poor and single, you decide to try and kill two birds with one stone: By going on blind dates with guys and harvesting their organs if they don't strike you as good partner material. Will you find happiness in the end, one way or another?
Contains the following tropes:
- Affably Evil: The Collector has a very subdued, professional personality and a charming deadpan sense of humor. Almost makes you forget that he buys, and presumably sells, organs for a living.
- Art-Style Dissonance: The harvesting segments are portrayed in a chibi-fied, cutesy style, making it look like you're cutting up dolls instead of human beings.
- Asian and Nerdy: Jun, your second date. He works as a programmer at a university, plays DnD in his free time and refers to himself as a "huge nerd". His name and appearance suggest he's Korean.
- Benevolent Boss: The Collector, surprisingly enough. He tells the protagonist to be careful before each date, praises her when she does well, and even gives her a kiss as a "bonus" if she kills and correctly harvests all three of them. Even if she screws up, or decides not to kill her date(s) because she likes them, he doesn't harvest her organs as replacements — she simply doesn't get paid.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Immoral organ dealer she may be, but the protagonist seems to genuinely care about her grandparents. One of her goals is to get married during their lifetime, so they won't worry for her anymore. The prologue has her worrying about how much of a toll taking care of her has taken on her grandparents' health. She can potentially invoke this with one of her dates, if she chooses to date instead of harvest them.
- The Collector shows signs that he actually likes the protagonist, telling her to be careful before her dates and praising her when she performs well. The protagonist lampshades this and teases him about it several times. In the ending where the protagonist kills all her dates and brings him all the organs he asked for, he gives her a "bonus" - a kiss.
- Eviler than Thou: Dante portrays himself as a bad boy who doesn't shy away from illegal activities and has been on the run from the police in the past. He doesn't fare any better than the other two guys, if the protagonist decides to harvest him.
- Face Death with Dignity: The boys don't panic, scream or cry if the protagonist decides to kill them. The most they do is complain about the protagonist murdering them and even that in a relatively subdued manner.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The Collector wears a pair of big round glasses over his mask and is in the organ dealing business. He even makes special requests about what organs he wants. He also knows exactly where the organs the protagonist provides for him come from, but doesn't seem to care much.
- Karma Houdini: The protagonist can murder three men in a row and desecrate their corpses for their organs, but none of the endings has her get caught or punished for this in any way. The closest to a bad ending is the ending where she kills all of her dates and gets none of the Collector's requests right, meaning she has neither found love, nor has she earned any money. Even then, the dialogue between her and the Collector implies she'll simply try again the next day.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: The protagonist's partner-in-crime shows himself un-amused if the protagonist tries to flirt with him. Little wonder, since he knows what usually happens to guys who fall for her. He does give her a kiss as a bonus in the ending where she kills all her dates and fulfills all of his requests, implying he might not be as immune to her charms as he acts.
- Organ Theft: The game centers around a criminal organ theft operation, in which the protagonist murders her dates (at least, the ones she doesn't like) and harvests their organs for her boss, the Collector, to sell on the black market.
- The Vamp: The protagonist's modus operandi is to invite men to a date to see if they'd be good partners. And if they disappoint her, she lures them to a remote area, kills them, cuts out their organs and sells them to get rich.
- Villain Protagonist: The unnamed protagonist is willing to lure innocent men into an alleyway and murder them for their organs, so she can get rich and find happiness.
