Sensei! I Like You So Much! Preview

This doesn’t come up very frequently in my work here, but I am a massive fan of fanfiction! I admit, my focus is more on the ‘liking specific characters’ area than the ‘liking specific ships’ one that is the subject of today’s preview, LaoO Studio’s Sensei! I Like You So Much!, but I can still very much get behind its focus on fandom simulation. The game mixes business simulation with some visual novel segments, and while the genre isn’t usually my thing, I love fandom enough to still be excited playing through it.

The plot and main gameplay centre around the main character’s passion for her favourite fictional ship and the fanfiction she writes about it. She’s an introvert who’s scared to bring up her interests around others in her day-to-day life as a student or even post her writings online. However, when another fan of the ship finds her hard drive, reads her fanfic, and tells her how much she loved her work, she finds herself posting those old stories on a big fanfiction website, Attempt of Our Own, and beginning to explore wider fandom. Soon, she’s going to conventions, making fanzines, decorating bags with merch, making new friends, building a full business out of her work, and so much more.

It’s a simple enough story, it doesn’t always go into much depth, and from what I’ve seen of it, there’s not too many twists and turns to be had. Even so, it’s genuinely sweet and has good things to say, about friendship, self-growth, and fandom in particular. Sure, it sometimes feels as though it’s moving a little too fast, but Sensei! I Like You So Much! is clearly written from a place of deep love for fandom.

Now, you, the clever reader, may have noticed I neglected to mention what characters our brave heroine even ships. This is because you are very smart and I didn’t know how to bring this next point up before you knew the premise of the game. You see, the central ship of Sensei! I Like You So Much! is whatever ship you’d like it to be. Before the story starts, you have an opportunity to go in and create your own fictional characters to be shipped together. They can be based on real stories or even your own OCs. Create multiple characters and then decide how your favourite ship works, what the ship’s name is, and what series the people are even from. I used one of the default characters, B, alongside an OC of mine, Jean, and decided their ship name would be ‘Bean’, and that they come from a series titled In Another World as a Receptionist. It’s truly an engaging system with lots of opportunities for customisation (even if I’m mostly using it to be silly), and that design philosophy can be felt throughout the game.

For the shipped characters, there’s a very detailed character creation process that feels a lot like a picrew — the online paper doll-esque character designers — in a very nice way. You can adjust the shapes of multiple sections of hair, eye shape, colour, nose, mouth, clothing, whatever you’d like. There are loads of options for different colours too, though I did find it a bit annoying that selecting the null option for any section removed any chosen colours for that section. I understand that if there’s no hair in that section, then there’s no need to use the colour, but it’s frustrating to not be able to easily select and unselect the null option when considering what I want these characters to look like. There are a few other minor issues so far, but nothing that doesn’t look like it’ll be patched up upon release, and on the whole, it’s a nice system to quickly make your new favourite ship.

This focus on customisation continues throughout the rest of Sensei! I Like You So Much!, with the fanfiction offering multiple different choices to decide the course of each little story and a few instances where you could name new original characters. I, for one, decided B and Jean’s child should be named Legume! The fanfics themselves are mostly pre-written, but they’re quite entertaining and come in a variety of lengths, with the longest fics featuring different background stats that contribute to the specific ending at play. Outside of the fanfiction, you can also design your room and your tote bags however you’d like, and likely many other features of fandom. Funnily enough, you can even freely adjust the UI. I got a real kick out of putting a cute animal face right above the stamina meter to make it look like they were taking a big ol’ sip.

The management side of the game goes even deeper, of course, featuring a day-to-day system with three time periods and a few stats to juggle around. You can go to different areas to get inspired by different ideas and bring those ideas into whatever fanfics you’re going to write. There are also conventions, commissions, and special events to contend with as well, not to mention how you have to make sure you have enough Coins to stay afloat. Even with all that to keep in mind, from what I’ve played thus far, Sensei! I Like You So Much! is fairly forgiving, allowing you to handle your introduction to fandom however you wish, without any need to closely adhere to a specific management style.

Visual novel elements take up the rest of the game, mostly split between traditional in-person segments and many conversations over text. From what I saw, these bits worked nicely, with the cutely-designed characters emoting well with a few different sprites. The backgrounds as well are a joy to look at, covered in soft colours. The music selection is similarly solid, with a delightful piano piece backing the title screen and a few other tracks playing throughout the game. Nothing stands out thus far, but all more than acceptable to hear on repeat. The sound effects are also decent when they’re around, though a few scenes seem to be missing them for now.

The characterisation and plot themselves were likewise pleasant, taking a quick pace that manages to stay believable. I did find some of the characters’ phrasing awkward and oddly direct, even accounting for some slang that I may be unfamiliar with, but the characters themselves still come through nicely. There are also a few spelling errors and a slightly frustrating element where words are split up, half of the word at the end of one line and the other half at the start of the next. However, considering that this is a translation and also still in Early Access, I think these issues are quite minor and soon to be remedied.

On the whole though, I appreciate the story Sensei! I Like You So Much! is going for. It understands how hard it can be to put yourself out there and how easy it can be to dismiss yourself and your skills, and that all it can take is a few friends pulling you up and showing you that you matter to change at least some of that. It’s an empathetic story and I like how it’s being told.

With an earnest story and delightful characters on one hand, solid management features, bountiful customisation options that will let you pretty much ship anyone you want (even Bean), and a subject matter I adore, Sensei! I Like You So Much! is sure to keep up the charm as it nears its full release date. It entered Steam Early Access back in late November, with an expectation of a release three-to-six months following that. About a month later now, the game revealed a Christmas-themed update, v0.9.5, so it appears progress is going well.