The pigeons appear on the screen as little more than static photographs of varying quality.

Before you know it,Hatoful Boyfriendhas shifted from a breezily weird dating sim to something far more unexpected.

Forget what you might think you know about pigeon dating sims.

It really evolved from the conversations between him and [original creator] Moa Hato.

Thats why we decided to rebuild the game in HD and attempt to bring it to a wider audience.

Luke Borrett:Thats taken a load of people by surprise.

JT:I think thats the absolute appeal of the game, though.

It has you so emotionally invested in these photos of birds, essentially.

LB:It takes you so much by surprise.

Theres a dojo and a beautiful meadow, then it flashes through these city streets.

One of these interspersed scenes is a whole bunch of skyscrapers that have fallen into ruin.

And no one makes any mention of it whatsoever, it just glides past.

Its the point where you realise that theres more going on than this silly pigeon dating sim.

Though there is that as well!

[Laughs] But the way its layered in is masterfully done.

Its a timely reminder, I think, that diversity is important in gaming.

Individual voices are important.

JT:I think thats it.

Especially, like, straight male gamers if you said, Okay, sit down.

Youre going to play this male dating sim… LB:Its really heartening, with all these things going on at the moment.

about 10 minutes in, and then they just roll with it.

Its heartening to see people give themselves up to this story, and seeing where takes them.

Thats the strange thing, though, isnt it?

Because in so many games you have no choice but to play as a guy.

JT:Exactly, you know?

Suck it up, essentially.

I think its nice to wear a different skin.

And almost entirely free of judgment as well.

She clearly has a character, and really characterful dialogue.

Was translating the dialogue difficult?

LB:Its completely iconic.

It would have been like removing the photos of the birds, almost.

JT:Yeah, which was something that was floated initially when we started doing the HD version.

One of the questions when we did the HD version was, Are we going to redraw the birds?

And we were like, No, its become part of the charm.

For every photo we could upscale safely, weve obviously done that.

I think some are irreplaceable anyway, arent they?

My favourite one, I think, is the image of the creepy school doctor.

LB:Shuu Iwamine!

Hes my favourite, too.

His plot goes places, thats for sure!

JT:Yeah, how far have you got?

Have you got to the creepy ending or the super creepy ending?

I think I have to play through it again.

JT:[Laughs] Yeah, man.

Honestly, its been joyful, this past weekend on Twitter, just seeing what pops up.

People saying, Oh my God, oh my God, I thought I was playing a happy game!

Its not like we set out to traumatise people.

But it is joyful.

[Laughs] Because were terrible people.

Thats how we feel.

We would describeHatoful Boyfriendas a Mediatonic game that we didnt make.

Whats incredible is the number of people whove bought into it so far.

Theres been massive positivity for the most part.

It just feels as though everyone was ready for a bit of pigeon love in their life!

[Laughs]

LB:Some people were drawn in by the comedy, and thats fine.

But some people weve seen in early coverage have delved really deep and finding all this strange content.

JT:I think we hit at a time when the games industry needed a distraction.

For various reasons, its been quite a difficult month.

ThenHatofuldrops, so people are like, This is what I need right now.

If theyre actively trying to engage with the player then thats great.

But this is a whole other niche area, and were happy people are buying into it.

Because we love that genre, and theres some really special stuff in it.

JT:It feels like a litmus test for us.

Nowadays, I think you’ve got the option to find an audience for these sorts of things.

Do you think itll also lead to more pigeons in games?

JT:[Laughs] We can only hope.

What I like to think weve done is, weve lit the fuse.

Give it six to 12 months, I expect to have a massive pigeon influx in gaming.

Pigeons: the next big thing.

Hopefully thats the impact weve made.

LB:Pigeons in all the annualised franchises.

LB:Yeah, Id play that, absolutely.

[Laughs]

I think Id play a first-person shooter entirely populated with pigeons.

JT:For sure!

Luke Borrett and Jeff Tanton, thank you very much.

Hatoful Boyfriendis out now for Windows, OS X and Linux.