Hello I am currently working on a game called High School Life
As you might of guesses it is about freshman and their first year of high school
This is the start of a first game in what will hopefully be a series of 4 with the first game being free.
The protagonist will have just moved to an unnamed state - so a completely new start. You can play as a boy or a girl, there are no differences in stats. However the game will be gender sensitive. If you are a boy applying for the sewing club it WILL be commented upon, likewise a girl applying for the football team WILL be commented upon by the other students.
There will be romance options which will be different for boys and girls. To be exact there will be 3 boy OCs and 3 Girl OCs. You will be friends with the same sex and friends/paramours with the opposite. I have only planned for same sex romances at the moment, this could be changed however.
The demo is in a very basic stage and its main purpose is to showcase the stat screen. You will have your base stats, your relationship stats, and your class stats. Class stats decide your final grade in the class that year - fail too many and you will be expelled!.
The setting is in America to appeal to a wider demographic - I am actually English. Therefore any advice on the American High School system would be greatly appreciated. Freshman year in particular, I am aware that prom would not happen however what events would happen in freshman year that could affect the story?
I will have the sorry excuse for a demo up ASAP
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and constructive criticism would be very much appreciated
undead thanks for your feedback. The truth is that this started out as a story and I am currently in the predicament of not being able to write fast enough in unfamiliar code.
The advanced classes are for later years in the games, so they should probably be removed. Good point. Maybe I will just add a stat bonus if all classes completed rather than the take another class option.
Oh sorry for double posting but you will only take 5-7 classes in this year, but your classes will influence who you meet - each OC has a preset personality and certain classes that they will take. You will still meet all of them just at a later date and under different circumstances.
That is why the number of classes matter. Because 6 OCs each having 6 classes will need a quite a few classes to avoid major overlap. This is important as each OC will have a substory and it would be difficult to have to many scenarios with them all together - affection levels and such.
If you do not have a class with them, or even if you do, there will be a place they will hang out.
When I went to high school, freshmen were allowed to go to prom, but only if their date was an upperclassman who was actually old enough to be allowed in. Basically, if a senior asked a freshman to prom (scandalous! LOL!), the freshman could indeed go. That could a small subplot, trying to get an upperclassman to take you on a date to prom.
Also, looking at the stats, why isn’t Spanish a foreign language to learn? Where I grew up, students were all required to take Spanish in junior high, and about 90% of them continued to take it in high school.
Undead Ishantrissi is actually the name of a planet in Space Empires IV. Not my all time favorite game, but the name was pretty and not taken
JLBH2000 the schools name is lame but it is what the main storyline revolves around. To summarize there was once 1 school with 12 houses which then split into Constellation High and Zodiac Academy with each school having 6 houses
Each house is named after a zodiac sign and the 2 schools have a heavy rivalry
Each of the OCs will be in one house - one way to meet them
CS_Closet is right that there will be rivalry with the other school - quite intense although i do not know what kind of pranks are common so ideas would be good!
Thanks for all the interest it is pretty inspiring
Well there are two ways to go about the concept: one is you play it like the movies with drugs,sex,and fights around every corner or in real life where all that stuff only happens in secret
and on ocasion
Hm. Not a lot of expelling happens in American public high schools for failing classes. Usually you just repeat the year.
Sounds interesting, though, and I’m glad the option to apply to whatever you want regardless of gender is still there, assuming you don’t just automatically get turned down if you try. That would be a tad sucky.
As for an important school event for freshman year: Homecoming Week activities (usually a football game, pep rally, some sabotaging of the rival school’s hallways/parking lot/whatever you can get your hands on, and ending with a formal dance ) near the beginning of the year. Very important.
You weren’t kidding when you called the demo basic. Nevertheless I would recommend less stats to avoid too many bugs and just give extra points to characters who have advanced classes
I might be wrong and they just don’t exist anywhere I’ve lived, but I’ve never heard of an American high school with houses. They’ve always just been one single entity with all the students together. Of course, I don’t know very much about private schools, so perhaps I am just unaware of American high schools with the students in different houses.
As for pranks, when I was in school, there was spray painting vulgarities onto the front of the rival school, dumping horse manure all over the entryway of the rival (the school that dumped the stuff had a horse for their mascot), and releasing hundreds of live crickets into the rival school. I have absolutely no idea if that last one was actually a thing done by a rival school- nobody ever figured out exactly who did it, and neither school had any affiliation with crickets as a mascot or anything else like that- but it is something that COULD have been done by a rival.
American over here and nope we don’t have houses for public or private school. We have grades which are the closest thing to houses but everybody has grades just set up a different way. 9th 10th 11th and the best out of them all 12th which is the last year of school ever wooh!!! The way I’ve seen it is everybody wants to murder/sabotage the freshman (9th graders) ignore the sophomores (10th graders) try and figure out the juniors (11th graders) and fear/respect us seniors (12th graders)
somewhat updated demo with basic character creation offered. Still very basic but hopefully an improvement!
O.K thank you scrivener luckily I have a plan B
What do you think of this
In the school, which is rather large there are six homeroom classes each year so there would be for example six classes in 11th grade each with a separate Zodiac sign and each with 25 pupils.
Currently Coding: I am working on a personality test to decide which class you are in
Based on Harry Potter somewhat each class will have different values - hence an OC being in each class!
Please say whether this is a good or bad idea
Also what is your opinion on illustrations.
Like in Waywalkers there were illustrations I was thinking of commissioning artwork for the 6 OCs. Not super expensive but a picture of their head.
Also if this is a good idea should it be done in a cartoon style or semi realistic.
derekmetaltron , hetro romances are a definite, it is only if there is enough popular demand that I will include same-sex romances.
Even then I already have character summaries for the other characters, and none of them are bisexual or homosexual
Therefore as a boy you have 3 boys you can ONLY be friends with and 3 girls who you can start a romance with
As a girl you have 3 girls you can ONLY be friends with and 3 boys who you can start a romance with.
If there is enough demand I will create a homo/bisexual character but this would be separate from the other romances and will only be an option if you select being homo/bisexual at a point in character creation. If you are straight then you will be able to meet them and interact with them but nothing romantic
Sorry if I did not make this clear
Also for the other characters there will be 2 stats of affection - love and friendship so there is always the option of befriending someone platonically
Thanks for pointing out the confusion derekmetalron
