The card game about cuddly cephalopods and cute girls! Created by Delicious Orange and a team of over a dozen guest artists, Schoolgirls Love Tentacles explores the softer side of cephalopods through a game inspired by their fascinating biology and the wild culture that surrounds their popular depictions. There is absolutely no explicit content in the game, but it’s humor and content is still intended for a mature discerning audience.
Containing 54 cards, the game can be played with 2-4 players and is easy to learn, but still requires a surprising degree of memory and strategy in order to maximize your performance. Players can attempt to get lucky and score cards before their opponents can react or carefully plan ahead and risk having their hard work stolen by clever opponents.
Gameplay revolves around using a limited number of actions to manipulate the concealed cards on the table to the player’s advantage. The number of actions the player has is determined by their number of “tentacle” cards. Once the player feels they have an opportunity, they can permanently discard one of their tentacles to reveal a card on the table. If the revealed card matches the color of the tentacle discarded then the player scores points and gets the option to attempt to create another match. If the revealed card doesn’t match then the scoring streak ends. Scoring points is the key to winning, but requires the player to limit their potential future actions and limits their future scoring potential if the player is too reckless.
Bonus items for backers include digital wallpapers, digital and physical artbooks featuring the artwork used in the game, rubber-backed playing mats, limited edition artwork prints, and the chance to create a character to be featured in the game.
Spearheading the project, Delicious Orange has drawn illustrations for comics, card games, even videogames currently available on Play Station Network and Xbox Live Arcade. Orange started this project back in 2012 after noticing that many people in America were not familiar with the origin and symbolism of tentacles in Japanese art.
As a fan of Hokusai’s classic woodblock prints and illustrations, Orange set out to create a series of illustrations that showed the softer side of cephalopods. Something that fans could enjoy, but also something those unfamiliar with the wider world of art could learn something new from. It was with this wish that Schoolgirls Love Tentacles was born!
Orange isn’t alone though, artists and tentacle lovers from around the world have contributed their own art to the project as well, including: Aheahead, Gashi-gashi, Junk Puyo, My Pet Tentacle Monster, Norasuko, P M, Raphaëlle Marx, Sho-N-D, Slugbox, Tiki San, Tentacle Monster Chu, and Vinhnyu; among others soon to be revealed!
