Synopsis
You become the mysterious squid monster Ikamadoku. Your mission is to steal life energy from humans in the night city to sustain Big Madoku’s deep slumber.
The game consists of two parts.
First, you’ll open panels on a city map one by one to collect life energy from humans.
However, a woman calling herself “Kaguya” keeps interfering with your plans.
When you encounter Kaguya, the battle phase begins.
Select one of five panels—this becomes your attack power. Whoever has the higher attack power deals damage to their opponent.
There are also commands that consume life energy.
Additionally, you’ll face true/false panel selections (finding the circle among four panels) and scenes requiring rapid clicking.
Kaguya, protected by the moon, is an extremely powerful being. However, as the moon’s power weakens—as dawn approaches—her strength diminishes.
There’s nothing particularly difficult, so please enjoy the game at your leisure.
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This game was created with LiveMaker and runs on Win98/Me/2000/XP/Vista.
For details, visit the website (http://kat.h.fc2.com/).
Editorial Review
A turn-based energy harvesting sim wrapped in absurdist comedy, *Does Princess Kaguya Like the Squid Smell?* occupies a peculiar pocket of the early-2000s doujin landscape where mechanical simplicity and thematic weirdness aren’t bugs but features. The squid-monster protagonist (Ikamadoku) collecting sustenance through nighttime urban encounters positions this closer to comedic resource management than traditional combat-focused titles, though the battle mechanics with Kaguya anchor it firmly in the competitive puzzle-game tradition.
What distinguishes this work is its commitment to tonal absurdity. The Kaguya dynamic—a recurring antagonist whose power fluctuates with lunar cycles—transforms what could be a straightforward predator-prey dynamic into something approaching cosmic comedy. The battle system, built on panel selection and true/false pattern recognition rather than stats or progression, keeps confrontations fast and unpredictable. That mechanical simplicity is deliberate; the synopsis explicitly frames this as leisure-paced rather than skill-dependent. The rapid-clicking segments and life-energy expenditure mechanics add variety without demanding mastery.
The transformation and forced-encounter tags reflect the core gameplay loop’s sci-fi framing, though the work’s emphasis on combat and map exploration suggests these elements serve narrative flavor more than extended scenes. For players acclimated to modern production standards, the LiveMaker engine (and Win98-era coding) will feel distinctly retro—a consideration worth acknowledging upfront.
This appeals squarely to players who value novelty and comedic worldbuilding over conventional pacing or polished production. If you’re drawn to early-2000s doujin experimentation and don’t require contemporary UI standards or narrative depth, the pure strangeness of protecting a deep-sleeping squid deity through nightly energy theft makes this genuinely memorable. For everyone else, the dated technical foundation may overshadow the conceptual charm.
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