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[I_smell]

HELLO TIGS. I started a new lil in-between project a couple days ago. I make a thread for anything I think might actually come out, cos someone, somewhere, might be interested in what it was on Day 1 when it does.

It's a kind of adventure game based on making decisions and pickin' sides. You play one full school year as a 15-16 year old girl, and you'll have to draw the line on whether or not you wanna smoke, how much you like to get drunk, if you wanna have sex and who with, and it's kind of inspired by the Walking Dead game in that every decision WILL put you under pressure and fuck you over either way.
There'll be parties and holidays n stuff (if you have any friends) to be a catalyst, but inbetween that it's just gonna be doing homework and upsetting all your friends by accident.

The idea came from me asking how would you make Bully but with girls? Cos girls don't give a shit who's the HARDEST, right? but it turns out I'm a sexist, a retard, and have probably never made a game before. So after a couple pages I just started brainstorming it myself, started really relating to some of the ideas in it, scooped it up n ran off with the design. So stemming from Bully: a lot of this game is about bullies. In my experience, bullying usually happens by accident, and both sides feel pretty shit about it at some point. I'm not making an episode of Glee here, I'm allowed to be as gross and miserable and unfair as I like.

Here it is after a couple days! The game's made out of all random variables. I'm really happy with my ability to generate 600 students in half a second. Right now they're all girls and don't have photos, and you just get a new friend and new statuses every day. No conflicts yet, early days, please don't report glitches.
In brainstorming this I made a really really strange application that snatches the profile pic of a random facebook userID every couple seconds. It is weird and I feel weird for doing it. In this actual game I obviously would have to draw a fuck-tonne of tiny avatars that LOOK LIKE real photos... or something.

So you're probably wondering why the file's called "Bitch".  I came up with that name on the spot, not sure about it. It's good for a lot of reasons:
-It sets the tone that this game is not a fucking High School Musical dating sim. I grew up in Manchester, which is where Shameless, Oasis and knife crime is from.
-When you're 16, any girl you don't like is automatically "a bitch". Partly cos you just learned how to swear, and partly cos you're not very good at articulating yourself yet.
-Bitch is a slang term that denotes hierarchy, which is relevant to this game
-Bitch is a slang term as a verb: to bitch. To bitch about someone behind their back, bitchiness, to demean someone.
-CANIS CANEM EDIT! Bully was released in Europe as "Dog Eat Dog".
-Ed McMillen made a game called "CUNT" because it's something noone else can do, and something that anyone interested in making any money or pleasing people would'nt touch with a 10ft pole. So considering I've already put underage drinking in this game, and there's GONNA be underage sex, I partly wanna just go all the way.

Reason's it's a bad name:
-Kind of similar to the problem Bully had: people are gonna think it's just a Hero's Journey of being a little shit.
So that might change... or maybe I'd just be chickening out if I changed it.

...So yeah if this project takes less than a month and I can put it on Newgrounds, I'll be VERY PLEASED WITH IT!
Right now I think I've got a good interface, and a few things written down like "Halloween costume", "birthdays", "christmas job", "pick sides with your parents, if you have more than one".
My biggest worry, right now, is that I never actually WAS a schoolgirl... so we'll see how that shakes out.

Oh and most of the status updates are copy-pasted from a 21-year-old male on my actual friends list.

[gimymblert]

I have only see the first page of the forums and I agree with them, there is almost nothing in bully a girl can't and didn't do. You seems to go for the gendered cliche (which bully was all about in some way).

At the same time such unflattered agency with girl is unheard of and might be progressive?

The only game I can think of that is close is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_High_School_Girls_in_Trouble!
http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/11/column_homer_in_silicon_troubl.php
http://sexyvideogameland.blogspot.fr/2009/02/big-trouble-for-dangerous-high-school.html

[Musenik]

Just FYI, while making DHSGiT, I pinged a lot of my women friends, especially those who felt passionately about feminism. Several cautioned me about including the attempted-rape scene. (no actual rape occurs in the game) But I am satisfied that it was important to the storytelling.

My advice is, work on your world building. The more time you spend, the better, more cohesive, more believable it will be. A really immersive world can protect uncomfortable game elements from universal condemnation. It's the reason that Bully's extremes are respected by many people.

Personally, I would have given Laura Croft's original model middle-of-the-bell-curve sized breasts. They do nothing but distract players from what is a very cool character. Her breast size is not important to the storytelling.

[I_smell]

Yea I'm gonna spend time doing things that are seemingly not very important, like picking lessons, doing homework and generally going out. That was a lot of the part I liked in Persona 4, just when you'd go out and get a message that says "this character likes you more" and then that was all you spent the day on.
It's antithetical to the fact that I don't wanna spend months of time on this though, so it's gonna take some discipline to not release it unfinished.

I'm not including straight-up rape, because if my aim is for this to feel as much like something that could actually happen as possible- me hamfistedly guessing what the reprecussions of involuntary sex are would completely shoot that in the foot.
Being a game that's all about branching choice and consequences though, I still want people to be aware of it and feel like it's a legitemate fear.
I CAN tell a story about having sex when you don't REALLY want to just to say you did, but then regretting it right after. I'd obviously also like a huge path where that never happens.
...and y'know I'm kind of AS INTERESTED in the bits where you just learn an instrument and go on a school trip to Alton Towers anyway.

[AD1337]

This looks promising, but you might have copyright problems if you use the Facebook layout. I suggest creating your own ficticious social network that's similar to facebook, that people can quickly identify as a parody of facebook, but that is not facebook.

[I_smell]

Yeah I'm probably gonna have to do that at the end.
I'm not making any money on this one, and I'd REALLY like to just be upfront and say "It's facebook, we all know what it is" but if I legally have to make it pale red and call it "yearbook" or something then alright fine :/

EDIT- Alright every student has a "lessons taken" array now! Your parents also have randomized ideas of what you should take, so this is the first crossroads where you annoy someone.

[I_smell]

A funny old thing's happened in testing this. I wanted to check HOW GOOD of a friend you are with someone, and keep track of that.
So every student has a friends list, behind the scenes, and now I've just added a number that denotes HOW GOOD of a friend they are with each person.



Undecided whether or not I'll actually represent this with a graphic in-game.
On the one hand... I feel like you kind of need to know who your best friend is, and it's asking too much to expect people to follow all these names and photos. Maybe it spoils the fun to spell it out so neatly though? Maybe I should just keep it behind-the-scenes and have your best 2 friends be the ones who phone you and comment on your statuses n stuff, and leave it up to the player to spot who their best friends and worst enemies are.

I'll leave it there for now, while I'm testing, but I MIGHT take it out of the final game. Cos the last thing I want is for the whole thing to feel like a spreadsheet.
I do feel bad just having a number there, after I was so impressed with how characters would REMEMBER EVENTS AND DECISIONS in Walking Dead.
...man I hope it's not too crazy to have both.

[The Monster King]

i would avoid making a game called schoolgirl simulator
enough gross shit goes on with schoolgirls, in games and other media

just change it to high school simulator or whatever

[ink.inc]

god bless your beautiful soul

[gimymblert]

You should look at gossip from chris crawford and tokimeki memorial, both handle such a system with pretty good result.