What Is the Grillfriends Visual Novel?
Grillfriends is my waifu dating sim where the twist is that your entire harem are kitchen appliances. Not metaphorically. Polly is a grill. Vina is a blender. They are appliances who have been cursed into their current forms and you, the player, are the only person who can help restore them. It sounds stupid when I write it out like that and that's exactly why I'm making it.
I've been building games and manga under the Absolutely Skint banner for a while now, and Grillfriends is probably the project that best explains the kind of stuff I make. It's a visual novel in the tradition of games like Doki Doki Literature Club and HuniePop, but it leans into a specific dumb premise harder than either of those games were willing to. That's the whole bet.
The Grillfriends visual novel is coming to Steam. No release date locked yet. If you want to follow the development of this and my other projects, the best place is right here on absolutelyskint.com, where I write about how I'm actually building these things.
Story
GRILLFRIENDS is an oddity of a visual novel. Lets bring the meme of a grillfriend to life by making it literal
You play as a debt ridden researcher that’s addicted to rejecting people on dating apps. You have been fired from your job for wearing a t-shirt stating "Bukkake Ruined My Carpet"
On your way out the office you receive a notification that the few women who liked your profile have blocked you; along with the message "Your account has been suspended” following a review of the $100,000 ,000,000 balance you owe."
When arriving at home you meet an intruder, Polly. The eponymous magical princess taking it upon herself to improve your situation.
To address your self esteem, Polly grants you a wish on your very next thought. Unfortunately your mind wandered and has turned all the women of society into obtuse cooking appliances and the men into literal home tools.
In order to undo the chaos that has been caused, you must resolve your personal conflict with the women of your past to make amends. Only after doing the deed (Yes you can bang em), will they turn back to their human form.
Meet the Cast
There are five characters in the Grillfriends visual novel. Each one is a different kitchen appliance with their own personality, backstory, and route. I designed all of them to feel like actual characters first and walking kitchen-pun second. Whether I pulled that off is for you to decide.
Polly
The mystical British fairy who has escaped her world and is using you for her own pleasure. She has no intention of going back, she is loving her new live in the grillfriends world. Her secrets are obviously obvious and in plain sight.
Vina
Vina, your former co worker from East Asia, she is not pleased with how little you appreciated her work nor how you see her as a wok.
Wendy
Wendy, Polly's identical sister has also fallen ill to the spell and has since learned of her presence on the planet. Her degeneracy slowly peaks out.
Maha
Maha, the girl next-kebab... her family owns the local Kebab shop.
Angie Rummington
The Jamaican-lass, daughter of the owner. She does not have much business acumen but is more than happy to spend the family fortune
Why I'm Making a Visual Novel About Kitchen Appliances
The honest answer is that I wanted to make a waifu game but I also wanted a hook weird enough that people would remember it. Most waifu visual novels are fundamentally the same pitch: here's a girl, here are her personality traits, here are the flags you need to trigger. Grillfriends has all of that but the setup is so specific and so dumb that it filters for exactly the kind of player I want. If you read "your harem are kitchen appliances" and your first reaction is to laugh, you're probably my target audience. If your reaction is "that makes no sense," you're probably not, and that's fine.
I've been building out the world and writing the routes alongside my other active projects. Pistol Taeja, Absolutely Skint, five characters and one very weird premise. The actual creative process for something like this, how I go from a joke premise to a full route structure, is something I've written about more directly in my piece on how to write your first creative project from scratch. The short version: commit to the bit, finish the thing.
The five characters, Polly, Vina, Wendy, Maha, and Angie Rummington, each have their own fully written route. The appliance gimmick isn't just a visual skin on top of a generic dating sim. Each character's kitchen identity feeds into how they interact with the player and what their arc is about. That's the part I'm actually proud of, honestly.
Conclusion
It's a dating sim where your love interests are kitchen appliances. I don't know what else to tell you.
If this is the kind of thing you're into, wishlist Grillfriends on Steam and keep an eye on Absolutely Skint for development updates.
