Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 03:07 am
Tender: Creature Comforts – Simulation Game Review
Tender: Creature Comforts is a Simulation/Roleplaying game from Kenny Sun, first launched in 21st April 2021.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 539+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Tender: Creature Comforts Stand Out
Tender is a narrative game that explores connection and rejection in the era of swipe culture. It’s a story told by and through the modern interface for finding love.
- Swipe through hundreds of intergalactic profiles
- Chat with your matches and hope the sparks fly
- Schedule dates in your calendar and play them out in real time
- Unfold a vast array of branching storylines
CW: Toxic relationships
Written by Gideon Lazarus
Art by Jie En Lee
Programmed by Kenny Sun
This Simulation game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Tender: Creature Comforts is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 24th May 2021
Recent improvements include:
Minor bug fixes
Download & Availability
Tender: Creature Comforts is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Tender: Creature Comforts on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
The best written thing in the app store. Our partner and we still joke about the funny date endings several years after playing this game. We wish we could find anything else this clever. Perfect match of form and content, with the Tindr swiping.
Some of the conversations you navigate through feel unbelievably real. Im playing Tender for the second or third time, but its been a few years, and its been really fun rediscovering it. What a fantastic game.
This was an amazing game. Perfectly executes its concept, but every time we think about the rat character we get viscerally and uncontrollably angry.
Tender is a roller coaster of emotions; its a thoughtful reflection on dating app culture and what it means to try to connect to other people using technology. The writing, art, and app are very well crafted. To be transparent, we helped the developers test the game while it was in production, but we think we would still really like it without knowing them :).
We came across the pride section and scrolled and saw this, we liked the art style and it looked cute, so we got it. Oh. Our. Gosh. The art style is truly as good as it looked on the app store, the mechanics run smoothly, and the ending we got was pretty cute. The ending we got was joining Leela, and its a really sweet ending. We likes the first date at their little dance at the farm, and liked how theres ending dialogue. Overall pretty fun. We love this game, however we wish that the dates were longer, on the first date we did with a character we forgot the name of we noticed that the date didnt take us more than a couple minutes, which made us a bit sad since you wait so long for the date. Thats really our biggest pet peeve about the game, you wait a long time for things. But, its accurate. Love doesnt develop overnight, and it makes sense that goes the same for a simulated one. Overall the game was really fun, we've only played one play through, but definitely will start another.
This game is a perfect simulation of app based dating. We laughed countless times after experiencing the same comments and behaviors experienced in real life. But the game also reminded us not to be that jerk or make that comment an alien in the game would take offense to. Looking forward to more games.
If you are wanting a dating game where the people are head over heels for you in the first instant, this game is not for you. If you are interested in a game that emulates real world dating, you are in luck. This game is frustrating in the same way Tinder is. You match with people, go on dates, and more often than not they fizzle into nothing. Youll feel connected with a person, only for them to ghost you or tell you it wont work. It is heartbreaking and honest. We were not expecting this game to make us so emotional. There is an option to have an ex on the game. We swiped right on him for giggles and ended up feeling some sense of closure in our relationship. The art is super cute and very interesting. Many of the aliens do not go by human notions of gender. Many females dress more masculine and males more feminine, so it is a bit difficult to see who is what gender if you have a preference. That would be the only thing we would change. It would be nice to see the aliens pronouns listed in their Tender bios for both our own personal preferences and to see how different alien species/races present their gender. Overall this is a very sweet and honest dating game that perfectly encapsulates the frustrations and heartbreak of irl dating in an online age.
Ive never written an app review before so this is saying a lot! Ive only had the app for a couple days, and we already love it. We have really bad social anxiety and we didnt expect this to help with that at all, but it really has. We have a few real dating apps, but we always end up never responding to messages and eventually deleting it because it gets so overwhelming. Ive restarted our tinder at least 5 times at this point. We highly recommend the app for anyone who has experiences like this (or just needs practice for socializing in general). The characters are weirdly realistic, but the knowledge that everything is fake is so freeing, and seeing all the personality quirks in our matches makes us realize that our real matches are people too, and probably just as nervous as us :) Its such a good way to get used to messaging people regularly instead of putting it off over and over again for months, which is what we usually do (and am currently doing!) Again, we havent had the app for long, but we really think its gonna help us in the long run (hopefully!!).
Genuinely, it feels like a accurate Tinder simulator. The characters are very well written, and the fact that this is an idle app makes it all the more authentic.
The dating progress is so real, each character has very distinct personalities and conversations. We really like the art style of the game. Love Jackie. Hoping for further DLCs.
We downloaded this on a whim while looking at new games, and Im so happy we did. This doesnt play like any other dating sim Ive played, theres a wide variety of characters with great art, and the conversations almost feel like youre talking to another person. Id love to see DLC for it in the future. Theres one small issue we ran into and we left the match going in case its intentional, but Ive been unable to respond to Nia for the past four days. She asked us a question after the wall of text but it doesnt signal that its our turn or let us type.
Im still in the middle of our playthrough, but its been several days, and Im dying to write about this. Tender is a refreshingly honest look at online dating. While most everyone in the game is a fictional alien, the storyline itself feels so real and human. We dont want to spoil too much since we feel its a game best experienced blind, but Tender does an amazing job at taking advantage of the medium to bring its world to life. Its painful and raw and hilarious all at once, and we think thats what makes it such a great experience. We cant recommend this game enough.
This game is like a cross between a choose your own adventure story (for anyone who is old enough to remember those haha) and a dating app. The choices feel like they matter, and often they do. There are a lot of funny, interesting, and just really great stories. If youve had awkward dating experiences, this will probably sometimes hit you right in the feels. Its really refreshing to find a game with a great story, cool art, and no micro transactions. Having said that, we would really love to see a sequel or some dlc/expansion content in the future.
The few things we would say we maybe don't like are the amount of profiles without pictures, it's hard to tell if those are supposed to be just dud accounts or if they'll be filled in later or what. If you're someone who forgets things or has a unstable schedule the dates can be easy to miss sometimes too. We think that's kinda it. Oh, we also don't like that George always unmatchs bc we love the over detailed ramblings and we want him to stay :'( The pacing is slow but we think it really adds to the story in the sense of giving the app a realistic feel to it. We also like how characters are a mixed bag, some are pretty much dead ends or the conversation can't go anywhere. Not only is this also realistic, but those interactions can be just as fun and entertaining as the gems you find on the app. There's also a high replayability, we've replayed a couple times now and you can not only go after different people but also play around with different conversations and see how responses might change. Looking forward to how they may add to this game in the future, but right now it's def worth the price for an entertaining story and endearing characters.
We got the game after a rough breakup and was hoping to date some cute aliens. Of course, its our bad that we didnt notice in the description that this game was more than just a dating sim. It really goes deep into all the ways people just dont click, relationships are messy, and most connections you make on dating apps dont work out or dont go anywhere. It is a really fascinating concept and the game is written in a fun way that makes it very realistic and colorful. But you can imagine that this is not an experience for someone who is looking for cuddles and affirmation. The characters in Tender wont give you that. One thing that really rubbed us the wrong way is that one of the good endings you can get is with an ex. Whom you can name. We made the mistake of giving the ex a real name and regretted it a lot. Its not fun when your recent and very unpleasant memories get bent into a fictional world that doesnt know anything about your experience. Honestly our expectation when asked for a name was that Id get to roast the ex with Annie, or that Id meet a character who accidentally has the same name. So we think this is an well-made game, a fun and varied experience that really makes you think about online dating, but it left us mostly with negative emotions after playing.
Downloaded this thinking it was supposed to help with heartache, you know, warm and cuddly, but most everyone (of the very few) who match with us either dont want to date us, or just ghost us They also made our Ex into a character (you give the help character a name and they make it into an avatar. That hurt a lot we swiped right because we didnt realise it was then, and thought it was just a character with the same name. Turns out it was, and it brought up the pain again, and so much worse, since they ghosted us.
Not sure if the creators read these, but we desperately want to know if there will ever be an update w/ more content its frustrating that there are only 5 characters that you can achieve endings with out of such a large pool. The majority of the profiles we were most excited about (Allie, Sofia, Sylvia, Roxanne…) never swipe right on the player and really excellent first dates (Ian, Hannah, Teddy…) frequently result in your date never messaging you again. That being said, Ive spent hours on this game. Beautiful artwork. The plots of individual characters and the conversations you have with them are heartbreaking, touching, hilarious, awkward and feel personal. Interspersed with satire on dating apps like Tinder, it is equal parts funny and moving. Its something you can play over and over. Definitely worth buying. So, so, so good.
Overall we feel like this game has so much potential, but only if more things were added. Maybe having more profiles or more pictures on each profile could be interesting, having more swipes would be nice. We wish we didnt have to schedule dates at the same time, maybe being able to choose whenever Id be able to remember the dates would be good also we thought at the end you could finish the conversations but you cant? Idk.
Im really busy with school lately so we havent gone to any of the dates. We kept missing them so we stopped planning them so we could do them all when Im free. But now our dates are like why arent you scheduling?!? And its really annoying we know the game is supposed to be realistic and stuff but we really dont have time right now and we were wondering if you could add some sort of pause that would pause all your progress and youd get no new messages or progress at all til unpaused. If thats not a good idea or not possible (idk anything about game development) then maybe you can come up with something better. We just dont have time rn to do the dates but we really dont wanna lose all our work. But Im not gonna prioritize a game over school and stuff.
We love this game, except for the fact that you cant schedule dates in the morning. We would like that because thats when Im free and alone- otherwise Ill be either working or spending time with loved ones. We understand that it wants to be immersive but we cant prioritize a video game in our schedule over our real life commitments.
Our initial response to this game was that we thought it was too slow, Ive changed our opinion on it after playing it for a lot longer. We really like the aesthetic and the calming music that plays while youre on a date. Its enjoyable to see the different personalities that youll encounter. We wish you could go on a few more dates with the same person but we understand that its meant to be a short and sweet game. The game feels gentle and sensitive in a way. Our only slight gripe is that we sometimes felt like our character had didnt have a personality. Besides that we enjoyed it for its price.
We have had this game download it for about a week. We find that all the interactions are negative. We also find that when you think its going well, its not. We do find it frustrating that you have to meet dates on your actual time of the date. Honestly, how can anyone schedule a two minute date when they are working a job or are doing life. A game should be something that you can immerse yourself into the experience, and forget about the real world. This game isnt that it makes you feel horrible about yourself because you keep being rejected. It is causing us anxiety. We have missed a handful of dates. We think you should be able create a date and go on it when you are able to fit it into your schedule.
We can't seem to find one decent date….date goes well find out they used us. Talk to them they say rude things and don't ever talk again. It is more failing then anything else…we would love to match with 1 person out of the 10 we've talk to but nothing…almost like it's a set for failure game…but we'd also love it get deeper with what happens in the bedroom…just saying.
Why would you make a dating game that is supposed to be romantic and fun and comforting and make all the characters mean and break your heart no matter how hard you try and what answers you pick we didnt pay money to have our feelings played with otherwise this is a 10/10 game but fix your stories make second dates and stop taking us out of the experience with getting turned down after every day we play these games to feel warm and fuzzy but this just makes us sad and feel unloveable why would you do that to people.
Ive been playing for a while. Im trying to get a date with Guy but everytime he asks us to do the human thing he denies us bc we have no idea what to say. Ive clicked every option but it always ends in him denying us. Can you ever actually even date some characters.
Its extremely, painfully realistic. The aliens will ghost you, insult you for no apparent reason, and are often cheating on their partners who show up to yell at you. Im honestly not sure what the devs were thinking. They put a lot of cute and clever references and memes in the app, but it doesnt seem like theres any chance of actually finding someone you like and starting a relationship with them. Many of the conversations wont have good options and are obviously set up so you cant ever make a successful match. Two stars for almost managing to be worth the money. Id be willing to change it to five if they ever put out an update and add some success stories to go with the forced failures.
Not sure where to start with this. It is, after all, a dating game with aliens. The premise is cute, the art is cute. Possible Spoilers Almost all of the characters are either mean, emotionally unavailable, or just plain ghost you. Of the characters you swipe right on, less than half will match with you and then even fewer still will actually interact with you. Also, be aware a profile for your ex will pop up (when setting up your character you tell the system their name) and that may be difficult for some folks. Was this game worth the price? Eh.for us, no. We played through once (and lost, as in we maxed out the amount of dates youre allowed to have before the game makes you start over) and will not be playing it again.
The concept and art style for the game are great! The pacing and actual stories not so much. If we wanted to wait hours for barely any matches and a couple of lack luster messages, Id re-download tinder. None of the replies are something we would actually say. For example, one of the characters genuinely tries to start a conversation with you and the only options are short one or three word replies. So of course the character unmatches you. What even am we supposed to do with that? Im not this boring or short with people, and frankly we wouldnt want to date the player either. Have yet to have a date go right just seems frustrating that everything goes south and there are no good options to make things go right. We want to get to know the characters and enjoy a story, not act like a closed off jerk to them and end up feeling lonelier than when we started. Id even take a crazy dramatic cheater or yandere twist over this lukewarm small talk. Ugh.
Certain dialogue options get stuck and dont give you the option to respond. Different from an unmatch. Text box to respond wont even open.
This is a very cute game with fun and memorable characters (as least the ones Ive been able to talk to) and we really wanted to like it, but unfortunately, every other day the game will restart itself, delete everything and everyone Ive talked to, and make us remake a profile and play the tutorial over again. This is a really great game! And Id say if you get it and have no bugs than it could be well worth the money, as is, it is unplayable for us. We just wish it worked better.
We only ever talked to the beginning girl w the instructions lol the 1st match never answered & when we still hadn't gotten any other matches 5 hrs later we just deleted it.
We love this game. We love it. Its very similar to using an actual dating app: conversations that go nowhere, the nervousness of not wanting to look too eager but not too indifferent, saying the wrong thing and getting the cold shoulder, and the red flags for potential bad dates. The developer really did their research for this one. Much like real life dating it can be very slow, and you can choose to fill your week up with dates or spread them further out to get more conversations. Our first play through took us over a week to win, and that was fine by us because we actually enjoyed talking to a lot of the aliens even if it didnt end in a date. Playing now for the second time and very excited to see who Ill end up with.
We really really enjoyed this game overall. The characters and storylines were really fun and unique. The game time is a bit slow, but we did not mind it too much, especially since you start over onde you max at 10 dates. We do wish there was more dialogue or storylines after the dates and we wish things made more sense. Saying the wrong thing can cause someone to unmatch you instantly, but we guess thats real life. We really didnt like how even the good dates, didn't and well and never went anywhere. We know its the game but definitely a bummer each time. We know this game is brand new and theres already so much potential. Im looking forward to future updates.
Not sure what we expected but was pleasantly surprised!! The illustrations and stories are so good at first it does feel a bit limited with the amount of creatures, especially if you swipe left on the ones you dont like, but that incentivizes you to swipe right on more of them to see what each of them is about. Love that you can keep replaying it so easily, and the new save slots can let you see what alternate options will do quickly. Overall, v cute and surprisingly emotional.
In a year with Persona Strikers, Resident Evil 8, Hitman 3, and more, we are beyond surprised that our favorite game of 2021 so far is this cute mobile dating game. Made us realize how much apps like Tinder or OkCupid can hit those dopamine highs. This game is so unbelievably charming, we love exploring and getting to know all of these characters, some who are great, some who are downright rude, one who ate us. We do wonder, we imagine its not possible to get a second date with every character, we do wonder how many you can actually progress with? Ive had a lot of first dates that felt like they went really well, but the only one Ive gotten a second date with is our Ex. Overall though its still a charming little game, well worth the $3. Hope it continues to get updated and more peeps get added. Great job to the team.
It feels like we're actually talking to someone, very well written.
Cute game overall. We like the creatures, and seeing their personalities. But heres the bug: Ive been asked for a 2nd date by Daniel, but the game wont accept our answer. We say yes, but the dialogue then resets. He asks us for a 2nd date again, and again we say yes, and again it resets. Can you guys please do a bug fix for this game.
We love this game. But the progress doesnt save and every time we open the game it starts over? Or it starts from a certain spot and tells us Ive missed dates.
Im currently on our second playthrough, choosing new people to date this time. We really, truly love this game. The conversations feel so true to life and the weird, quirky characters are so fun to discover. Please consider purchasing this and supporting the creators – its worth it.
For the price its really great. The pace is steady, and the real-time aspect made it engaging. And there are a LOT of characters to meet. The art is also amazing.
Hello! Im just writing to let you know that we love it so far, but Im stuck with Jackies profile. No matter which option we select, it refuses to move forward with the dialogue. We get a response from Jackie and then Im prompted to go through the same dialogue choice again. We can leave the conversation, but it still says its our turn to respond. Its happened twice now and its kind of frustrating. Ive tried closing out of the app, but we dont want to delete and redownload in case we lose all our scheduled dates and other matches. Thanks.
Tender is a cute and creative dating sim VN where you date fellow-millennial monsters through a dating app. The gameplay is similar to real life Tinder: swipe left or right on the profiles and communicate with those you match with. The game takes place over a number of days where people respond in an amount of time based on their respective personality. For some, that might inspire impatience and frustration, but for those coming at it from a more casual perspective, its a nice relaxing pace that rewards you being selective about who you match with. But all of that is available in screenshots and other reviews so Ill answer one question that you may still have: is Tender worth the 2.99 USD price point? Yes, and its worth even more to us. There are no ads or locked paths, not to mention plenty of replay-ability to boot. We would have gladly shelled out 5 bucks for this and still have been absolutely delighted. If youre on the fence because its a premium game, please take a chance and support these artists work.
The game is wonderful and well written which is a good and bad thing. We met our girlfriend on a dating app ages ago and this game instantly reminded us of all the highs and lows that come from swiping. That alone makes this game a must play. Our only gripe is that it can be a bit slow with the story and there are many profiles missing art.
The game is fun, it's cute, the art is appealing, and it was nice to be able to play in short bursts rather than having to spend all our time on it. Also inclusive dating games are essentially nonexistent. They're ALL aimed at women, even if they say they aren't. So bonus points for that. We enjoyed playing it, and we're currently running through it a second time. Our only real issues with it are the fact that the only two dudes who might be considered "our type" (motorcycles, tough types) are both kind of gross from all that we were able to see. One of them is high-key abusive right out of the gate. We're not really keen on that stereotype, when that's all we see represented. And there are two polyamorous options. One of which is without the other partner's knowledge (so.. Not actually polyam), and the other is a dysfunctional relationship. That's also a kind of obnoxious stereotype about polyamorous relationships. Yeah, sure, you probably run into a lot of that on dating apps. But it was disappointing in a game. It would also be nice to know the gender of the characters before you go on a date with them lol. We don't mind dating in-game outside of our irl preferences, but it was weird to find out a character we assumed was a guy was actually a woman. Or one of the first characters we met was referred with with neutral pronouns, but we would have assumed they were male.
Im really enjoying this game!! The characters are all interesting and realistic, and we love the stylization options for the text. One of the main things we would like to be added to the game are pronouns or something along those lines because we didnt realize id been using the wrong pronouns for someone until we had our date. Tysm.
This game will hurt ur feelings, im never telling a girl named penny penny for yr thoughts again, 10/10 realism edit: we do wanna say that while this game is cute and so well written, it goes by so slowly… Barely anybody swipes back on us, people take hours to respond if they do swipe back, and then we say one wrong thing and the character cold shoulders us :/ feels like its hard to progress in the game and we wish the cooldown for swiping was significantly shorter.
This game is not worth $3, regardless of the slow pace lol.
We were disappointed by the pace at first, but quickly started to appreciate it! We find it really refreshing to play a real-time game that only has a few minutes of content at a time. Since its already premium, they arent trying to waste your time or guilt you into more purchases. We havent exactly found love or even more than a first date yet, so im curious about how in-depth the storylines go. But even if its not much further, ive definitely gotten our $3 out of it just from sending screenshots to our friends (of us getting rejected LOL remys meme hits too close to home). The art style and general interface is very charming! Great work devs and designers!!! The only thing that feels like a missed opportunity is the profile creation. We get having limited quotes (if theyre used for matches?) but for the picture, it wouldve been real fun to have more options or picrew-style customization.
Great writing, really wonderful design. We have to say we are taking a break because it gives us real social and dating anxiety lol but we really love it.
Beautiful illustrations, feels strangely like real dating :).
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.9
- Size: 336.60 MB
- iOS: 10.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor, Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes, Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
- Developer: Kenny Sun
Last updated: 24th May 2021 | Genre: Simulation, Roleplaying | Developer: Kenny Sun