Hollywood University: the Initiation: WiP

This is just a short description, but I’m gonna put a demo up. Hollywood University: The School of Stars and Stars To Be. You’ve wanted to go there all your life, but it’s never seemed possible: until you get a mysterious phone call from a representative. They say your dream’s right around the corner: after you pass an initiation.

You can chose your gender and orientation. So far, I’ve only gotten the Prologue up, and expect slow updates 'cause of school and all that. I’m not sure how to bring in games from DashingDon: so I hope this works:
I’m figuring out how to edit the link… should be back in about a week.

You can chose to start from “Acting”, “Directing”, or “Singing”. If you start from Acting, you also get to chose your gender and orientation.

Just a question: how do you like the idea?

And it’s the first book in a series of at least three. Just saying.

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Ah, you stealth edited your post with some instructions :wink:

Okay not got very far, asking me to repeat a scene from memory, without warning me I need to, not cool. Also it seems a bit too much of a “simon says” memory game at that point, not really what I’m looking for in interactive fiction.

Can you expand more on the idea, plans you have and mechanics you plan to employ?

The auto repeating isn’t that great, yeah, I found myself simply copying the paragraph over onto text to get things correct- there is much more to performance than simply remembering lines.

In fact, remembering lines is the tiniest part of any gig, honestly. I hope there will be more to it- you will address a minority group that would be highly offended if you decide that singing is just about memorizing, that acting is just about looking good, and that directing is just ordering people around.

Go do research on Stanislavski, proper terminology (blocking, etc), even some existentialism writing, and as for singing, technique, technique, technique, unless you want to lose your voice at age 30, or get nodes.

It’s a good idea, but has to be implemented well.

Best of luck!

Thanks. This is honestly what I was looking for. @Mim

My idea is to have a sort of Initiation for you as the main character: something like complete a movie, or have like a competition for the position of “Student at HU.” The main character can either win or lose, and the reason I kinda need the “simon says” thing as a how good you are at stuff, but if you have any other ideas on how to implement this, that would help. A lot. :blush:

@LordOfLA
@Mim

didn’t know if you knew but there’s a game called Hollywood U that sounds a lot like this

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I would say to use a stats system, where you start off with a low skill stat, then at certain intervals you “go of and practice” which increases your skill in whatever. As you get better you fail less and suceed more at whatever you’re doing.

Far better than the “simon says” thing you have going on.

There actually already is a game that sounds a lot like this, like that person said.

It’s called Hollywood U (stands for Hollywood U) and the player is accepted into this university that people typically enroll in when they want to major in directing, acting, or fashion - amongst others. One of the plots involved a mysterious benefactor that paid for the character’s tuition, as the university is supposed to be expensive to attend. The only negative consequence is that this benefactor expects your character to be at their beck-and-call.

Your game sounds interesting, and I’m a sucker for games like this one. I just don’t want you to face any (potential) trouble, y’know?

Nonetheless, I’m excited. :clap:

I think this simon says thing won’t work for a number of reasons:

  1. It bases your entire skill pool of being ‘good’ at something on your ability to memorize.
  2. This will easily be avoided by repeat players who will evade the ‘challenge’ by simply knowing which one to click, making repeat playthroughs with over-powered characters.
  3. It has no correlation to any stat systems that might be implemented down the line.

Please be careful with the comparison to Hollywood U, a game by Pixelberry. The introductory premise there is your character accidentally offending ‘Daddy is Rich, I’m Spoiled’ stereotype, who attempts to get your character expelled, then your character, on a form of probation, has to complete three major tasks within a time allotment.

(Never said it was the most realistic idea, but hollywood is petty)

Still, there have been a million and one RP plays, or ‘let’s be actor’ scenarios I’ve seen, from RP sites, to quizilla when it was still a thing. Their main and constant failure was lack of knowledge- an implementation of a COLLEGE LEVEL DRAMA CLASS by a ‘professional’ and written by a person who ‘totally understands drama’ extended all classes to theater sports, and doing a play. No Stanislavski, no magic if, no history, whatsoever.

This is coming from my background of simply having studied drama at a school level. Music will be worse, because it gets exceedingly technical, and voice training will be an essential topic to cover.

As for directing there will be the different parts to directing, the differing techniques, the differing usage of things like angles, shots, the purpose of them.

Maybe, for an introduction, if you wanted to go into a slightly more technical thing, there should be a generic quiz for like…a bursary or scholarship, where your character does a skit, and a questionnaire. You could have this short scene that they must either perform/direct, with given prompts eg.: Instead of being told their lines, they are told to improv a scene where your character feels ‘x’ and needs to portray this, but your character say, doesn’t swear, or speaks in an accent, or whatever, while the questionnaire will work on technical knowledge and historical knowledge, and theory, from light questions to harder questions, eg: singing- How many notes are there in a scale, what is an enharmonic note, describe the use of the diaphragm. Then the highest rating of these questions might include the highest reward- perhaps starting your character with more money, but also has a negative effect- maybe being a scholarship student means you can fail the game early if your grades drop below a certain point for a certain period of time.

That implement would prevent people from frequently abusing the ‘correct answer’ tactic all the time.

Otherwise, keep at it!

OMG, I never knew that. Wow. I swear there is no mysterious benefactor in my game, but I don’t want to copy that game exactly. I’m sorry about this.
@Waywalkerlover
@iamnothalsey
Thanks for the ideas. I’m working on them, and hoping to have the new demo out before New Year’s. Gonna be just the prologue again, but pretty different. Thanks for all the ideas!
@LordOfLA
@Mim

I’m sure there are several differences between the two! :blush:

I’m excited to play the demo, anyways.

You no longer need to start from acting, directing, or singing.

And here’s the link.

http://dashingdon.com/play/Just_A_User/hollywood-u.---the-initiation/mygame/

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So…good things and bad ones. I love the idea of a game about being a struggling artist of some kind (Acting is especially close to my heart, but singing, directing or even writing story-games could be fun).

The bad…just memorizing things down to the punctuation level is kind of dull, and worse it kind of misses the point of story games (imho) When I play a CoG game I’m not really trying to “win.” I’m trying to get lost in a story. Sometimes I find myself making the “wrong” choice because I’m swept up in the game, and “my” MC would make that mistake. Honestly I love it when that happens.

So my advice is take another look at your game, think about the drama that might surround a young artist’s struggle to make it, and try to tell that story.

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First of all, thank you. For all of the information. But, secondly: I thought I changed the memory thing. What are you looking at? I’m sorry. I have no idea how to work with DashingDon.

@Camille622

I’ve found either a spelling mistake or typo but here… You spelled the word lair, assuming you meant secret hideout, as layer. I have put the correct spelling in parenthesis down below.

“I want to know.” Your voice gets deathly quiet. “Where Jo’s layer (lair) is. I want to know how we can get in. And I want to know, how she got ahold of this place.”

The grown man starts blubbering. “Her. Her layer (lair) is in the Poconos. Under the lodge — the Skytop Lodge. You can get in through Jack; the manager. The password is: password. She, she has cameras everywhere. Got one of me men, Stalker, to follow your men home. Please don’ hurt me.”

Thank you. It has been corrected. @Deathrocker99

Well, I LOVE the idea. As an actor in the making, this gets right through me. I certainly hope to see more in the future!

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@Baam

Make that two of us dude

But yes sound idea, but first you need to know where you want it go. Make it larger than life. Starting from Tons of auditions failures, live performances, traveling, drama school extc

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I love this idea very much but will it be possible to choose the main direction of your carier and another one as a side subject? I mean for example my main gal is to became an actress but I am also intrested on directing.