Content Warning: The game mentioned in this article contains depictions of drug addiction, self-harm, and in general mental illness. If this makes you uncomfortable, do not read this.
You boot up your computer. You get a text from a girl, who instructs you to log into Youtube for her with the password “angelkawaii2”.
This girl is introduced as Ame, who has put you in charge of her, basically, as a “streaming manager”/partner. She makes you manage her career as a streamer, and also herself. You choose where she goes, what she does, and what she says. She’s a human Tamagotchi. During the night, Ame turns into OMGkawaiiAngel, or KAngel (as she will be referred to from now), her streaming persona. She transforms from a tired girl in red and black to a pastel pink and blue “internet angel” (in her own words).
At first, this seems like a really fun game that you would recommend to anyone who has $8 to spare. Even really rich babies. But I believe that it is crucial to recommend this game to no one but anyone over the age of 18. This game has overdoses, mental breakdowns, creeps lurking in the comments of streams, and is a cautionary tale of what happens when you depend on strangers on the Internet and your partner for validation.
The gameplay is an interesting case. Over 30 “days” (each with a uniform cycle of Noon, Dusk, and Night), you have to accumulate one million followers and help her make the best choices, both personally and professionally. There are various “windows” akin to the ones on a computer, which measure stats and give you options on what to do with the limited time you have (to put it into perspective, the average activity will take up an entire section of your day). Every action is available, except for streaming, which is available only at night.
The most important window is the Task Manager, which measures her stats. The largest stat (literally) in the Task Manager is the Followers stat, which obviously measures KAngel’s follower count. Below that is the Stress stat, which measures the amount of stress she has. This can be lowered by deleting comments from her streams. The third is Affection, which can have brutal consequences. If you don’t give KAngel enough affection, she will leave you and the game abruptly ends, but if you give her too much affection, it ends with all other options being gone and you are left only to choose options involving some type of love. The final stat is the Mental Darkness stat, which measures the approximate amount of mental illness she possesses at that moment. This is very crucial as her true mental health bleeds into her streams on multiple occasions.
Other windows include JINE, a messaging app used to talk to KAngel. On occasion, you have different options of what you can say. For a large majority of the game, JINE is the only way to communicate with her. But, you need to listen to KAngel’s DMs frequently or she’ll feel ignored. It is very easy to end the game early due to her breaking up with you.
A different app is Tweeter, which is an obvious X (formerly Twitter) parody. An interesting thing about Tweeter is that KAngel has two separate accounts: a public OMGkawaiiAngel account, where she typically acts as her angel persona, and raincandy, a private account only seen by the player where she lets out her true feelings after streams. Contrary to her public account, her private account is often highly critical of her fanbase and says just about anything. The two accounts show just how big the differences are between KAngel and Ame.
Additionally, there are a variety of activities you can do that range from relatively harmless to borderline illegal things that affect (mainly) KAngel and yourself. These activities give KAngel “ideas” for streams. For example, you can watch a Netflix show and get an idea to talk about anime, but you can also overdose on illicit drugs and post about how you want to die on Tweeter, which shows the variety of ways you can play the game and how the choices you make affect KAngel and the game in general.
These can also affect her stats, for better or for worse (going back to what happens if you max out her affection meter). This establishes a VERY important rule in this game: find a middle ground. You shouldn’t max out KAngel’s stats as that can get her into trouble. Getting her stats too low causes her to either leave you or completely leave the internet and become a “normie”. You also don’t do too many activities that could raise her stats. You also don’t text her too much or too little or she’ll either leave you or make fun of your neediness.
Notice a pattern? Balance is a very important part of the game, even down to its core concept: become a famous streamer and ensure KAngel is in a good mental state.
The game is VERY story based, and that’s because it falls into a category of games called visual novels. Visual novels are essentially choose-your-adventure games where you watch something sort of like a movie and make choices along the way that affect which ending you get. They typically originate from Japan and are in the romance genre. A good example that can show you the features of the standard visual novel is Doki Doki Literature Club. DDLC is a good example l, at least in the first half. The first half is a standard romance, which then devolves into psychological horror. But, before the horror happens, the most common elements of the average visual novel are present: the anime visuals, the choices, the romance, just the way everything looks. This is a visual novel. As for the topic of this article, it’s quite different. For one, there’s a lot of interactivity, way more than the average visual novel. You can choose a variety of activities, and you aren’t limited to the text-and-choice format that most visual novels use.
At its core, the game is about mental health. As you take various routes, you learn that Ame is a mentally ill dropout who uses the internet and you as a coping mechanism.
Guidance counselor Ms. Miller was asked on the topic of mental health and how internet use affects it, and she said, “You can find out anything on the internet. So whether someone’s looking for self harm or like reasons to do something that they shouldn’t do you can find it on the internet.” This is implied to happen in the game, with KAngel posting questionable things and her fans eating it up. AK of this site says that “This game does present an extreme case of a streamer who really shouldn’t be streaming at all, who belongs in school or a regular job and definitely in some kind of therapy considering her mental/emotional state. However, it also partly addresses the unusual and not always entirely healthy relationship between the streamer and her fans on social media and in chat during her streams, and that’s not particular to Ame or her KAngel persona.”
Ms Klimowicz (an iSchool Chemistry teacher and advisor) said that “I think the internet is really impactful I think that students use the internet for all sorts of things whether it’s from homework or getting questions answered that they might have I think it’s plays a huge role in everyday life and I think everybody is influenced by it not just students but adults too.”
Something can be said about the art as well. It takes inspiration from old computer art and vaporwave. AK additionally warns that “Despite its sugary sweet look, this one deals with adult subjects like sex and drug use and heavy, serious subjects mostly related to mental health and various kinds of psychological and physical self-harm up to and including suicide, so the usual warning here for kids and those who prefer not to touch such games.” Luckily, there is a warning at the start of the game.
iSchool’s art teacher Ms. Smith stated that “I think that the visual elements of any narrative work of art like that that’s telling a story if it’s got a visual component so not a book that’s just text but either a picture book or a TV show or a movie or a video game components they contribute to the mood or the feeling of the story and so many ways it’s more than just color.”
Overall, Needy Streamer Overload is a pretty great game! Again, I don’t recommend it if you’re sensitive to any topics in the content warning, but if you can stomach it, go watch a play through or play it for yourself (or check out the anime adaptation that’s coming out in April)!
