Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!

[Musenik]

Hi,

Mousechief Co. has some new mischief for your mouse. Please try this extended demo, and help us make a better game. I added a list of our questions and concerns at the end of this post.

About the game: This is our fantasy RPG of social satire. The interface metaphor is a vintage, parlor boardgame. I like to think it's something you found in your great-grandmother's attic. I also hope you'll forgive your great-grandmother if she ever did anything like what happens in this game.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!
(In the 1920s, small town USA was never this fantastic.)


http://p4.hostingprod.com/@mousechief.com/ssFirstGirl.jpg
http://p4.hostingprod.com/@mousechief.com/ssSchoolMap.jpg
http://p4.hostingprod.com/@mousechief.com/ssFibbing.jpg


FYI: This extended demo goes beyond what will be available in the trial version. The game expires at the end of July. Expect a little rough reading. We can't afford proofreading until near the end of development. Demo probably doesn't work on Leopard.

Download Links: expired


Please help us with the following, after playing the game:

Did you have fun?
How far did you play?
How comfortable were you at learning the various, little games?
Were the goals clear and compelling?
At what point were you drawn into the story? Never?
Is this your kind of game?
Could it ever become your kind of game? How?
What do you typically play for interactive story goodness? (yes, RPGs, platform adventures and even FPSs like Half Life counts... :-)

What did we do wrong?
What did we do right?

What do you REALLY want to tell us about 'Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble'?


thank you,

[Hog]

It complains about MacPython 2.3 not being installed. I have Python 2.5 which i don't want to install over and Frameworks for Python 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 in /Library/Frameworks/.

[Musenik]

Hog,

That a problem with the version of py2app I'm using. It wraps the game into an app that relies on Apple's version of Python. Python 2.5 doesn't remove Apple's version, but it does reroute python to it, with a PATH redefinition. You should be able to reset PATH to let Apple's version run the game.

The reason I don't use a more current version of py2app is, it dropped support for Panther.

Keith Nemitz
Mousechief Co.
www.mousechief.com

[maximile]

Did you have fun?
Yeah, I enjoyed it. Strangely compelling.

How far did you play?
Until the only things left for me to do were to get As in three subjects and talk to the trolley guy. I guess that was the end of the demo.

How comfortable were you at learning the various, little games?
I picked up Taunt and Expose pretty quickly, and enjoyed them a lot. I wasn't quite sure how to do well at Fib. I mean, I didn't really see why it's an advantage for the opponent to be able to change their mind so many times after you finish swapping. I liked the idea of Gambit, but I thought the learning process was a bit tedious. Not sure how you could improve it.

Were the goals clear and compelling?
Yup, think so. A few things confused me, like which of the pieces in Administration to click on, but I don't think it mattered.

At what point were you drawn into the story? Never?
I'm not sure that I would have been enthralled by the story if it were on its own; I think that it was the gameplay that kept me playing rather than wanting to find out what was up with the maintenance guy. I did want to find out what happened to my characters though, so I suppose that counts.

Is this your kind of game?
I wouldn't have thought so, but I enjoyed playing it.

Could it ever become your kind of game? How?
Not sure.

What do you typically play for interactive story goodness? (yes, RPGs, platform adventures and even FPSs like Half Life counts... :-)
Definitely FPSs like Half Life 2 and Deus Ex are the ones that I liked the most for storyline. I played a few of those Japanese things too, and they were quite fun. And I suppose things like Warcraft 3 stick in the mind for storyline too.

What did we do wrong?
The interface sometimes seemed a bit cluttered. And I didn't like being forced to play in full screen.

What did we do right?
Fun characters, silly scenario, nostalgia factor, cool atmosphere with the music and grainy artwork. Doesn't take long to get from launching the app to playing the game. Unobtrusive graphics. I also really appreciate it when you don't feel like the decisions you make could stop you from seeing lots of the game, and that seemed true of this game.

What do you REALLY want to tell us about 'Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble'?
I like the fact that it's set in a board game, but I also kinda wanted to discover some new areas at some point.

[Josh]

Did you have fun?
Yeah, I enjoyed it. Strangely compelling.

*snip*Off topic, but you are the man for feedback!

[Musenik]

maximile,

That was great feedback! But you still have things to do. You should be able to break into the dean's office. And if you win there, you'll open up the downtown map board. However, the demo does end soon thereafter. Let me know if it's difficult. You'll need the crowbar. I'll see if I can't make that goal more clear.

[Malarkey]

I finally got around to trying this out (been juggling the day job and working on Symbolical as well as some other stuff) so forgive me if this comes a little late:

Did you have fun?
Seeing as how this isn't really my kind of game, I found it oddly amusing to play.

How far did you play?
I'm not sure exactly. I got the crowbar at one point and I had advanced a couple days.

How comfortable were you at learning the various, little games?
Pretty good. I like the taunting games since that reminded me a lot of the insult fighting from Monkey Island. The flirting took me a little while to get, and I'm not really sure if I got it down pat. The shell game seemed like it was more luck than skill so I could be missing something there. The expose game was pretty easy to get a handle on.

Were the goals clear and compelling?
I suppose they were compelling enough for me to see where the story was going but I'm not sure what the overall goal was beyond making their last semester exciting.

At what point were you drawn into the story? Never?
I was drawn in at the point where the games became more of a way to push the plot forward.

Is this your kind of game?
Eh, not really.

Could it ever become your kind of game? How?
A 32-year old male with less time on his hands than he would like is probably not your target audience so I'm not sure that it could become my kind of game.

What do you typically play for interactive story goodness? (yes, RPGs, platform adventures and even FPSs like Half Life counts... :-)
Console action RPGs like Legend of Zelda and God of War, platformers such as Super Mario Bros., and even the occasional bit of retro like Monkey Island.

What did we do wrong?
Full screen. Yeech. I always prefer to have the choice between full screen and windowed. Also, the app itself is PowerPC. Does py2app not do Universal builds?

What did we do right?
The art, the music, the writing: it's all great. I really like the little bits of music that play when something happens.

What do you REALLY want to tell us about 'Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble'?
Good luck with it! It feels like a really good game so far.

[Musenik]

You must have heard this before...

Why do I feel awkward responding to Malarkey? :-)

Seriously, thank you very much for the feedback! I'm still contemplating the Fullscreen/Window mode issue. So I appreciate your opinion.

Yes, py2app can make a universal build, but then I would lose backward compatibility with Panther. I don't think OS version specific builds are acceptable in the casual market.

I'm very pleased you otherwise enjoyed the game!

Keith Nemitz
Mousechief Co.
www.mousechief.com

[Malarkey]

Yes, py2app can make a universal build, but then I would lose backward compatibility with Panther. I don't think OS version specific builds are acceptable in the casual market.

I thought Panther (at least, one updated to 10.3.9) could run Universal Binaries or were you thinking of having backward compatibility down to 10.2? Unfortunately, I don't have a 10.3.9 PPC machine to test that (I'm currently running the latest Tiger build on an Intel Mac).

[OneSadCookie]

Mac OS X 10.0.0 can run universal binaries, if the PowerPC side is built to support 10.0.0...

[reubert]

I did give this a go, it didn't really appeal to me, but I can see that it should appeal to others.

The only real negative thing I would have to say is that I couldn't get it to display nicely on a 24 inch imac. It was low-res and had black bars down the sides. If you market to the current installed hardware you will be well out of date in 6 months. IMHO the current selling hardware should be your target audience. This game should easily have a life span of 5 years+ and game artwork (particularly of this quality) can be hard to replace.

Or maybe I just didn't see the options button, in which case you should probably figure out the current aspect ratio and resolution and base your defaults on that.

In any case, it looks like a sweet game with original feel and gameplay, and I'm sure it will do well.

[Musenik]

I rely on prebuilt packages for python/pygame. The universal build of these packages is restricted to Tiger and above. Therefore, I have to use the older build that supports Panther. I'm not the kind of programmer who builds Python/Pygame from source.

I run the game in a set 800x600. I may offer the game in a window, where the images are not stretched by large monitors. But running in a window impedes performance, especially on older Macs.

[Musenik]

Thanks to everyone who participated! The download links and the app have now expired.

Any last thoughts?
__________________
Keith Nemitz
Ordinauteur
http://www.mousechief.com/

[ERaZer]

Just a heads up, gaming site Kotaku wrote a small article about your game here:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/igf-2007/dangerous-high-school-girls-in-trouble-310571.php

[Musenik]

After our press release and the IGF entry list, the game has been getting generally positive buzz.

keeping fingers crossed,
__________________
Keith Nemitz
Ordinauteur
http://www.mousechief.com/