In Hatoful Boyfriend, the player plays the role of a human girl who is beginning her second year at St. Pigeonation Highschool, the World’s best school for birds. On her first day, she meets a variety of different pigeons, whom she will learn about through the year. The first time a new pigeon is introduced, a picture of what he would look like as a human is shown.
The game is a visual novel dating sim. The player reads the story through the dialogue and, every now and then, has to choose from different options or different answers. Some of these choices, like choosing a class to attend, will raise one of the protagonist’s stats: Wisdom, Vitality and Charisma. The other choices determine how the story unfolds and how she will bind with the different birds. As the story progresses, it branches until one of different endings is reached. The ultimate goal is to have a love interest develop between the girl and one of the pigeons.
Hatoful Boyfriend can be played multiple times to unlock the different endings. The endings are shown in the gallery, accessed from the title screen. Unlocking the ending also adds files in the archive, also accessed from the title screen. The archive files contain various trivia about the game’s backstory.
