Originally written and published for StropsE.com, written January 3rd, 2021, titled Dating Colonel Sanders?

This week on strange things that corporations actually made, did you know there’s a game where you can date Colonel Sanders? I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator is an actual game released for free on Steam on September 24th, 2019. And yes, that’s the actual full title of the game. Developed by studio Psyop and commissioned by KFC themself, it’s a strange act of blatant advertising, but what is it? Lucky for you, I actually played it. So with all the current hype over the KFConsole, let’s look at this previous foray into gaming. 

In I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator, you play as an aspiring culinary student just entering the prodigious University of Cooking School: Academy for Learning, which is famous for its 3-day semesters. There you meet your classmate, local stud and obvious love interest Colonel Sanders, who absolutely everyone agrees is the heartthrob on campus. There aren’t actually any other love interests: every other character largely falls into specific anime tropes, such as (checks spelling) Aeshleigh, your mean spirited rival who’ll do anything to get ahead, or Miriam, your bubbly energetic best friend with a clumsy streak. It’s a game of stereotypes and ridiculousness surrounded by pop quizzes on the KFC brand and beautifully-rendered shots of KFC dishes made to make you absolutely drool.

And… that’s the game. It’s a parody of dating sims as a whole, designed to grab attention and show pictures of beautiful-looking KFC. There’s not really much game there. Sure, you can fail by being too forward with Sanders or choosing the wrong dialogue options, but there’s not much there. With a three day in-game semester, the entire events of the game take place over those three days, so you know there’s little-to-no character development in such a short time. And while you can only choose to date the big CS himself, there might be more glamor shots of the food than there are of the Colonel. The focus is the food, food, food, with the ultimate combo at the end of the game being the creation of one of KFC’s signature dishes, this mac ‘n cheese + mashed potato + chicken thing that frankly sounds like a mess. But of course your teacher (who’s a dog named Sprinkles) loves it, and your classmate Aeshleighighigh is forced to admit defeat, and you ride off into the sunset with your chicken monstrosity on Colonel Sanders’ horse with the man himself giving you a soft, tender smile.

At least the audience seems to understand the ridiculousness of this game. While it’s rated very positively on both Steam and Google as a whole, the majority of the comments and reviews are clear trolls. Some highlights:

“My goldfish died recently, and I have developed pretty bad depression because of it… I was scrolling around on Steam, looking for a little happiness, when I saw luscious white locks. I just wanted my fingers to flow through that majestic hairstyle… His glasses made my heart pound, his mustache and small beard made my eyes water with excitement. The dreamy gaze he gave me when I cooked… The way he rode to school on his beautiful horse… When he chose me at the end of the game… This game has brought back my will to live… 10/10, would play again.”

“…I am nothing compared to the GOD that is colonel sAnders.

I wish to devote my entire being to him and his love of cooking only the finest dishes.

100/10” 

So, if you’re looking for a ludicrous way to spend, say, an hour of your life, you could get in on the joke and try out a date with Sanders for yourself. It’s a game of ridiculousness and food, and you don’t really have to know anything about dating games beforehand to give it a shot.

Edit/Update 5/28/24: This game still has a very positive rating nearly 5 years later. One of the most recently posted reviews as of writing this simply says “chimkin”, and has 4.2 hours of playtime on record.