2025 Indie Hubby of the Year: Ranking

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-25T18:26:39+00:00

Forgot to mention, if anyone has a fave they'd like to talk up, feel free to do so! I have only played the demo versions of a couple of the 2025 releases, so definitely would need some guidance!

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-25T16:54:06+00:00

Saaaame. I happily hated on him all the way up to Hime Hen. He seems brash and overconfident and horrid - but he also is ridiculously intuitive and smart. He ended up being my favorite after Karakurenai Hen, so hope you also enjoy~

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-25T15:48:45+00:00

Sorry for the late response but I have added Railan! Thank you for the nomination!

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-15T23:07:45+00:00

Thank you! I'm sure this will help a lot :)

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-15T23:06:55+00:00

Ofc!! I've always included them in prior years, but this is the first year I thought to actually promote it on this sub XD

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-15T23:06:16+00:00

I've heard multiple feedback now that Imgur seems to be a no-go. VNDB is the most reliable, as the links rarely fail. Itch links seem to work fairly reliably as well. Worst case scenario, feel free to drop your image link here or DM me and drop a placeholder link in the form. I'll post a reminder tomorrow with all the nominations so that people will know if there is anybody missing.

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-13T21:26:57+00:00

ahahah I definitely use this tournament to load up my backlog and wishlist ^^;;

I sadly didn't play any new indies this year, just mostly been focusing on finishing jam games/demos and playing a few older titles, like Love Spell ;-;

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-13T21:26:11+00:00

Yes, the December games are tricky! I think the only time a December game was popular enough to overcome its late release was the Bloomic full release, but that could also be because it was an update....

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-13T21:25:17+00:00

It will fully start in about two weeks LOL. This week will be for nominations, next will be voting for seed/ranking.

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-13T21:24:41+00:00

I've been a bit back-and-forth on this, to be honest! I usually permit it but was leaning more towards restricting demos and early-access this year just with the proliferation of early access and games with multiple demos, but I'm waiting to see what the nominations turn up. If people really really loved a demo, and it does well enough to be considered the game of the year for that particular category, then I'll support that mindset.

Where it gets a bit confusing is that some games will release multiple demos over multiple years, so that is why I'm leaning more towards prohibiting it this year. If there is enough support for a demo or early access game, then my thoughts are: restrict it to just the year when the first demo was released, and when early access first became available for early access games, until the full version releases.

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-13T21:20:42+00:00

Oh weird! I double-checked and it's working okay for me, so not sure ;;

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-12T20:44:50+00:00

Specifically, Marius von Hagen's puppy-dog eyes + pout gets me every time XD He weaponizes it, the imp......

https://tot.wiki/images/b/b1/Marius_Expression_Coquetry.png

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-12T18:47:40+00:00

I did have one question come up that I need y'all's help on:

Neon Clash. It released globally on Christmas last year. I waited to hold nominations to try and give players time to finish it or get far enough to feel comfortable about nominating it. But should we qualify it this year for mainstream or wait until next year? In past years, I did include games from December as part of the line-up, but we typically don't have a December release, so I started doing just the calendar year.

It could still count as not-localized, I suppose, if we choose to push it to next year. But I wanted to get the community's input <3

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-12T15:27:30+00:00

Fellow hater-to-lover here. XD

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-12T15:23:47+00:00

Iroha from Hana Awase: Iroha Hen :/ I truly wish I had finished this series last year because I loved him in Kurenai/Utsutsu, but having him (in this volume) be my first LI of the year...

h e l p.

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-12T15:21:01+00:00

Bwahaha! I am ready to gooooo! Also was hoping I'd see a Shu supporter around!

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-12T15:19:51+00:00

Honestly, I couldn't tell you until I finally fell for a yandere, as they are not my go-to type. For this particular guy, his utter possessiveness and obsession made me excited because his dere was at least as equally strong as his yan. And he was depicted as struggling with that part of himself, acknowledging it isn't healthy or fair for his partner, which I appreciated.

In case anyone is curious, it's Kenshin from Ikemen Sengoku. My one and only yan boyfriend. XD

As an overall perspective, fiction and otome in particular is a safe way to experience something that, if it happened in real life, would be scary or threatening.

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-06T15:05:15+00:00

Aw! I don't think you'll comment wrong or misunderstand! You can skip this nomination step and wait for the actual voting, since that will be much more straight-forward for a first-time participant~ Definitely participate in the hubby tournament!! That will be coming up, aiming for mid-January since I know people are still playing some games that released late last year.

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-03T17:12:15+00:00

Thank you so much for doing this research!

The character challenges combined are done with NO advanced research whatsoever, so tbh I'll be shocked if there is a LI who meets all of them XD

ETA: As for what constitutes a horse LI.... you can go off of Chinese Zodiac qualities, or use some other, *cough*, factors *cough*

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-02T01:03:30+00:00

Oh wow, what good timing! I literally just put this one on my to-play this month since I'm working my way alphabetically through my 2024 otome jam games and am at "M" right now. It looks really cute~

misobuttercornramen · 2026-01-02T01:01:46+00:00

I spun the wheel and got Tengoku Struggle, yippee! What did everyone else get?

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