Cloudy with a chance of girlfriend

Intrigued by a recent BoingBoing post about Konami’s new and apparently addictive DS  dating sim “Love Plus” I stumbled upon a free downloadable weather widget featuring three of the game’s main girlfriend characters. The widget lets you choose a “girlfriend” to make comments on the weather based on their in-game persona.

The widget, which can only look up Japanese forecasts may not be helpful, and it doesn’t even replicate the game’s functionality, but it could be a fun diversion for those who don’t plan on importing. The widget also rewards you for spending time with your weather girl by unlocking a couple new features over time. Using the program is easy: just install the widget, then right click and choose ?? (settings) to pick your prefecture and weather girl.

Word to the wise: the widget runs on Adobe Air and is cross-platform, but you may want to hit ???(no) on the first installation option or the widget will start up whenever you turn on your machine.

From what I can gather, Love Plus bucks the traditional dating sim mantra of hitting on your entire high-school class until one of them settles for you for a more direct approach: choose your prey and start wooing! As is pointed out in the BoingBoing article users can be asked to do anything from “holding” their sweethearts hand, to declaring their love out loud. Yes, you can even kiss her if you want to (make sure your microfiber wipes are handy). If you want to know more, check out the widget or Danny Choo’s very extensive report on the game.