The Constraints of Cozy Games: Boyfriend Dungeon and Consent in Queer Play Boyfriend Dungeon and Consent in Queer Play

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, hybrid dating simulator and dungeon crawler Boyfriend Dungeon was released in August 2021 and was quickly met with significant fan critique. The game's advertised promise of cozy or "wholesome" play was contradicted by the presence of a content warning and an antagonist character exhibiting threatening, stalker-like behavior. The strength of the fan reactions caused the developers, Kitfox Games, to revise the content warning while simultaneously resisting requests to fundamentally remove or sideline the game's central conflict. Contextualizing this response through news coverage and Twitter discussion demonstrates the challenges of the fan-developer relationship, augmented by the disproportionate responsibilities and expectations placed on queer creators and the power dynamics of fan-supported indie development. This incident stands as a warning of the consequences of centering a constraining mode of "consent" and aesthetic demands of "coziness" on genres associated with relationships and queer romantic play.