I Wanna Be The LoveTrap

The title screen of LoveTrap.

**I wanna be the LoveTrap** (often shortened to **LoveTrap**), is an Adventure fangame released on February 15th, 2010 by ねころん. It consists of two branching paths with three bosses on each, eventually converging at a required boss rush of harder versions of the bosses followed by a final boss. The game features several secret items which are required to access the extra stage of the game, which ends with a harder version of the final boss. LoveTrap is often considered one of the most influential fangames to have ever been created, featuring several design elements still found in fangames being made today. It is also notable for being the first fangame to feature an Avoidance, specifically involving Hatsune Miku.

## Gameplay

At the start of the game, the player is presented with two possible paths they can take: right or down. For the purposes of this article, stages ending in **-A** will be of the right path, and stages ending with **-B** will be of the down path.

### Stage 1-A

Stage 1-A features prominent usage of spike traps, as well as a rather long platform ride across multiple screens. The boss of the stage is The Spelunker from the NES game *Spelunker*. He will walk forward off of a 1 block edge after a few seconds, and then die instantly.

### Stage 2-A

Stage 2-A takes place primarily underwater with objects moving on cycles, typically either bouncing for going back and forth between two points. It is worth noting that, because this game is made in ねころん's engine, it features the 1-Frame water bug. The boss of this stage is a giant Delicious Fruit which shrinks as you shoot it, spawning more bouncing fruit around the room. This boss is sometimes referred to as "すきすき" or "Sukisuki" due to the song which is playing in the background of the fight.

### Stage 3-A

Stage 3-A focuses primarily on spinning rings of fruit. These rings are color coordinated as follows: Blue = 4, Yellow = 5, Gray = 6, Green = 7, Red = 8, Light Blue = 9, Pink = 11. This stage also makes use of water, platform rides, and triggers. The boss of this stage is the numbers 9 and 11, meant to represent the characters Cirno from the Touhou series and Dango from the Clannad series.

### Stage 1-B

Stage 1-B makes use of downwards motion to have flying spike traps that focus on verticality. The boss of this stage is a recolored Kid sprite which you can only shoot when it faces left. The Kid will turn to the left once the 10 fruit at the top have all turned red, which happens at progressively more varied intervals. Making direct eye contact with The Kid results in a cutscene playing out, resulting in your death. The strategy, if it isn't obvious, is to shoot before it turns around, turn around yourself, and then have it turn around into the bullets.

### Stage 2-B

Stage 2-B displays everything in a black and white silhouette format, similar to the music video for the song Bad Apple!!, which is played in the stage. The boss of this stage is a dancing Stick Figure, which is a reference to the video みwなwぎwっwてwきwたwww.

### Stage 3-B

Stage 3-B focuses on shooting various buttons while dodging moving obstacles with occasional traps thrown in. The boss of this stage is Hatsune Miku. This is widely considered to be the first avoidance fight in a fangame. The stage boss version uses a shortened arrangement of the song The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku. It is sometimes referred to as "Sミク" or "S-Miku" meaning "Short Miku".

### Boss Rush

Boss Rush is unlocked after beating both of the main paths and heading up from the item room. In it, you are tasked with beating buffed versions of the previous bosses. There is a save in the room, allowing you to not have to beat every boss in one sitting. Buffs range from larger hitboxes, more health, or in the case of Miku an avoidance to the full song rather than a segment of it (sometimes getting called "真ミク" or "True Miku"). After beating all six bosses, you are tasked with the final fight against a bigger version of The Kid sprite, commonly referred to as "Big Kid". After beating Big Kid, you have beaten LoveTrap.

### Extra

After beating Big Kid and collecting all of the secret items, a pathway to the extra stage opens up on the right path. Once entered, you go through a medley stage of sections from the game, eventually leading to a buffed extra Big Kid fight, commonly called "EX Big Kid". EX Big Kid has never been beaten by a human player, however if someone were to do so they would successfully 100% clear LoveTrap.

## Trivia

* LoveTrap is the only game to be completely finished by the maker ねころん, not including ねころん Engine.
* As of the closing of the file hosting website "geocities", LoveTrap has technically become a private fangame. However, it has since been reuploaded several times on several places.
* The logo on the title screen is a parody of the logo used by the manga "Minami-ke".
* Typically, Japanese community members will refer to games with the titles given in English, however it is not uncommon to find LoveTrap referred to as "らぶとら", in reference to the characters found on the parody logo.
* NicoNicopedia has an entry for LoveTrap, which you can read here.
* The name "LoveTrap" is actually Japanese wordplay with the words "Love" and "Trap". The symbol for "Love" is 愛, pronounced "Ai". The symbol for "Trap" is 罠, pronounced "Wana". LoveTrap = 愛罠 = AiWana = I Wanna Be The AiWana
* On June 7th, 2016, a user by the name of ブラック uploaded a Tool Assisted Speedrun of a 100% clear for LoveTrap, which can be found here.
* The opening for the boss rush version of Miku features a rather long intro, which the player may be tempted to bypass by pressing "S", which is typically a "skip" key. However, by doing so here, the player will literally being to "skip" towards Miku until eventually dying.
* It is unknown who the first person to clear the Boss Rush Miku is, as the oldest videos available are by オーオオ but privated (link here), and by 本気M a few weeks after the previous video but public (link here).

## Gallery

The title of LoveTrap without overlayed text.The title of LoveTrap with overlayed text.An unedited version of the Hatsune Miku image used in game.