Nintendo eShop game Furry Hentai Tangram raises eyebrows, and questions over what's allowed on Switch
"Contains scenes of a sexual nature."
Furry Hentai Tangram is a puzzle game where players must slot shapes into a grid to reveal lewd anime pictures underneath. It's also available on the Nintendo Switch eShop priced £2.39 (currently reduced from £2.99).
The fact this game, which launched last Friday, is available on the notoriously family-friendly Nintendo Switch has raised eyebrows among users uncomfortable with their kids finding its store page on the Nintendo eShop.
"Seriously Nintendo... this is my eight year old cousin's account," wrote one fan on reddit, sharing a screenshot of the game - visible from Furry Hentai Tangram's store page - depicting a mostly-undressed character with cat ears.
"Kids should be supervised when on the shop at the very least - that's why I was with him," they continued. "But it's not my kid, not my Switch and not my house so I can't vouch for the rest of the time. I did however enable Parental Controls for the future."
But while it is possible to set playtime limits and block games of a particular rating (as well as posting content to social networks, and limiting communication with others), there's no Parental Control option for accessing the eShop itself.
The above user said they had seen Furry Hentai Tangram on the front page of the eShop under its New Releases section. Here's hoping they didn't have to explain what hentai was, or why the person in cat ears wasn't wearing many clothes.
What might a user see if they did manage to download the game? And what exactly is Nintendo allowing on its store these days? Eurogamer contacted PEGI, the European ratings board, for more information.
Furry Hentai Tangram currently sits on the eShop listed with a PEGI 16 rating for "nudity", but after consulting with PEGI I heard this was inaccurate.
The initial PEGI 16 rating comes from the game's initial IARC rating - a self-assigned initial certification available to digital-only games which can speed up their route to being published, before a formal PEGI rating is applied.
In other words, the PEGI 16 rating - and promise of nudity - comes from the developer, rather than PEGI itself.
PEGI has now provided Eurogamer with its own formal assessment, which is not yet public. This will actually see the game's rating lowered to a PEGI 12 for "scenes of a sexual nature" - though no actual (or drawn) nudity is present.
"This game contains scenes of a sexual nature," PEGI told Eurogamer. "Successfully completing the puzzles reveals pictures in which fantasy creatures, with human and animal characteristics, pose in a suggestive manner. While there is no nudity, some images feature the creatures wearing bikinis."
Did the developer falsely promise nudity in its eShop rating to gain further attention? Is that why it also features the word "hentai" in its title? I've contacted Gamuzumi, its developer, for more.
Still, regardless of what's in the game, the existence of a title on the Nintendo eShop advertising itself as hentai has raised questions of Nintendo's store policies. Eurogamer has repeatedly contacted Nintendo for more detail on these, but not heard back.
This isn't the first adult-themed title to raise eyebrows on the eShop. Furry Hentai Tangram developer Gamuzumi is experienced in this field, having previously launched Hot Tentacles Shooter.
In October, Gamuzumi claimed Nintendo had updated its eShop rules on adult content to draw the line at "uncensored boobs" - an issue which was holding up the Switch launch of another one of its games, Christmas Hentai Puzzle.
Earlier releases on the eShop include Hentai Uni, which has a PEGI 16 rating for nudity and sexual innuendo. It reportedly features topless anime characters, and advertises itself with the tagline that it is "a puzzle game that can be played with one hand".