Hey, remember when Koikatsu Party topped the Steam Store during its English-language release month? While developer ILLUSION is long gone, Koikatsu is still considered one of the best anime porn games on the market thanks to its extensive modding community. In fact, the game’s mod space is so popular, there’s an upcoming indie anime porn game with developers sourced from the Koikatsu modding space: Passion Eye.
Now, Steam scored a listing for a spiritual successor to one of ILLUSION’s most popular games. It’s set to come out this month. But to my surprise, this title’s Steam Store page received no real notice from the gaming community. No press, no Reddit posts, nothing. What’s going on?!
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Introducing ‘SamabakeScramble’
SamabakeScramble, also known as Summer Vacation! Scramble, is a 3D hentai game developed by Japanese eroge team ILLGAMES. Remember that dead and gone developer I mentioned in the lede, ILLUSION? Yeah, ILLGAMES is basically just ILLUSION recreated as a new company. SamabakeScramble is their latest title to hit Steam, just a few years after their first game dropped its own English release: HoneyCome come come party. Try saying that localized title five times fast.
HoneyCome launched as a combination of Koikatsu Party‘s anime aesthetic with the hotel-based gameplay from another immensely successful ILLUSION title, HoneySelect 2. SamabakeScramble takes a similar approach, leaning into the Koikatsu-like 3D anime style while offering a spiritual successor to the Artificial Academy series. While the latter served as a Japanese-only eroge social simulator in a high school setting (you can probably see why that game never hit the States), SamabakeScramble advertises itself as a “3D community simulator that takes place in a sunny seaside town.” Yay, that’s not a school setting! Sex Positive Gaming describes SamabakeScramble as the hentai equivalent of watching a fish tank, except everyone is constantly fucking.
“Enjoy witnessing the passionate relationships that form between the lively members of this idyllic beachside community, then join in the conversations and develop your own unique relationships with the residents of your choice,” the game’s Steam Store page notes.
Wait, this lewd game is actually insanely popular??
It’s worth noting that SamabakeScramble first came out in Japan in August 2024, and it was quickly a smash hit. ILLGAMES’ life sim was the number one product sold by the Japanese retailer DLSite in 2024. It also peaked as the seventh most popular product ever sold by the storefront in its history. The game currently has a 4.64-star review on DLSite, with over 5,000 reviews added. It’s safe to say that SamabakeScramble is one of the most important games of 2024.
To be clear, there are two main reasons why someone would pick up SamabakeScramble. First, the game’s in-depth character creation system is incredible. Like prior ILLUSION and ILLGAMES titles, you can spend a whole hour customizing just one female character. Shape everything about her perfectly, from her face to her breasts, then slap her into the game. You can literally create the anime girl of your dreams, down to specific tweaks to her jaw, nose, butt, and belly. Yes, you can even make her futanari. Yippee!
The other reason, and the more important of the two? Watching various anime characters come together to initiate sex scenes. This is a hentai game, after all. Players can see their custom characters interact, enter relationships, and then have sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex. Interactive sex scenes are missing from the game, so don’t expect direct interaction like in HoneySelect 2, Koikatsu Party, or HoneyCome. But, hey, the h-scenes on display are pretty mesmerizing. Plus, the game has futanari characters, so you can enjoy some lewd content with girldick. Based.
Is this game ‘Artificial Academy 3’? ‘Koikatsu Party 2’? The best hentai game ever made?!
Now, fair warning. Before you go ahead and save a ton of money for SamabakeScramble, you should know that the game is already out in Japan. And the English-speaking h-game fandom generally finds the title underwhelming.
Artificial Academy 2 had a massive cult following due to the game’s social simulator system. A yandere character could literally kill the player out of jealousy, a teacher could get fired for having public sex, or a female student could become pregnant with your child and the game would end. AA2 is so memorable, I stumbled across a Reddit thread full of female players swapping stories about pirating the game as teens, praising the title for letting them romance their male classmates as female characters.
And then, while snooping around on YouTube, I found another female viewer saying the exact same thing. Yes, many of these posters also lamented the fact that there wasn’t a game like Artificial Academy outside a high school setting (none of them were aware of SamabakeScramble‘s existence). But it’s safe to say AA2 is one of those memorable h-games that a lot of people played, but no one really talks about online due to its taboo nature.
Again, all this isn’t to say that Artificial Academy 2‘s high school setting is, uh, great. No. But there was certainly a lot of hype in the English-speaking hentai world around “Artificial Academy, but in 2024 and outside of school.” H-game fans had high standards for a spiritual successor to one of ILLUSION’s more memorable titles. Yet the general feeling within the English-language adult gaming community is that ILLGAMES missed the mark. For Koikatsu fans, the interactive sex scenes are missing. For those who remember Artificial Academy fondly, the social simulation system just isn’t as immersive.
Then, there’s the question of modding. Before ILLUSION turned into ILLGAMES, the company started taking a less friendly stance to mods through compiling with Unity’s IL2CPP. This has continued under ILLGAMES, ultimately shortening the lifespan of HoneyCome by neutering its mod scene. SamabakeScramble has the same problem, limiting the capacity to mod the game. Koikatsu Party, this is not. Nor is it capable of hosting the kind of mods seen in Artificial Academy 2.
Wait, this game is coming out in a week??
Now, don’t get me wrong. HoneyCome is still incredibly popular in Japan. So is SamabakeScramble. It’s still a good game. But HoneyCome launched on Steam at $69.99. If you’re a diehard eroge fan, are you ready to spend $69.99 on an h-game with a so-so reception? In my own case, I’m not quite sure. I don’t really have $70 lying around.
As for a release date? Steam says the game is simply “coming soon,” but a tweet from ILLGAMES notes that SamabakeScramble: International Edition will launch on April 22nd at JST. That means a week from today.
Which begs the question even further: Why am I just hearing about all this right now? It’s shocking that a game that led DLSite’s rankings for 2024 received zero coverage in the games journalism industry. I mean, come on, the game was made publicly visible on Steam in late March, and ILLGAMES announced the international version in September 2024. Why am I the only games journalist reporting on this? Why am I just learning about the English language edition now? What the…?
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