School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

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Compulsive Liar
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School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#1 Post by Compulsive Liar »

School Panic: Lucas' Misplaced Trust

Just last week I was a pretty average guy. I played cards with my best friend at lunch, procrastinated over homework, and was even beginning to develop a relationship with a girl. In hindsight, it was a good life. Now... all that is gone. The girl I liked is avoiding me, and my best friend has become a distance melancholic. I'm even getting blackmailed to betray the one person who is still there for me. Could my life get any worse?

School Panic is set at Coorandale High School. A place where house rivalries are taken to a whole new level. The game follows the experiences of Drago Pain (working name) as he and his house get unsuspectingly caught up in the middle of a feud between the Green Geckos and the Red Ribbons. There will be love, loss, betrayal, school work, practical jokes, and gossip. Plenty of gossip.

The game is set to be organised into five chapters: Lucas' Misplaced Trust, Kiah's Perfect Revenge, Yukiko's Neverending Drama, Nomiya's Forbidden Palace, and Jarrah's Wild Ride.

Houses

Alkirah House

Our protagonist's house, Alkirah, has a long and proud history. Unfortunately the house's influence has declined in recent years. It will be up to Drago and his friends to restore the house to it's former glory.

Ribbon House

Members of Red Ribbon take themselves very seriously. They each wear a red ribbon and focus on gaining unfair advantages over the other houses.

Gecko House

The Green Geckos are seen by many as trouble makers, and take special interest in the affairs of both the school and Red House. Members of Green House hate having restrictions force upon them, especially ones claimed to be for their own good. Green House run an underground smuggle operation, selling banned food and drink within school grounds.

Dragon House

To the outside observer Dragon House is nothing more then a list of disinterested people on a roster. There is no common room, no organisation, and no fellowship. To the members of Blue House, this means freedom. Freedom to do whatever they want. While it is rare for members of Green, Red, and Yellow houses to mingle together, its perfectly normal to find members of Blue House crossing inter-house barriers. This is helped a little by Blue House members rarely wearing items that identify their house, however it is mainly due to other houses not having any kind of rivalry with Blue (since to them Blue House exists in name only).

Characters
Sia Robinson
Image
Why are you in such a bad mood all of a sudden?
You don't understand a girl's heart at all!
A round about girl who often frustrates her teacher by liberally interpreting her English assignments. As a recent transfer student to Coorandale, she is still naive about the house rivalries and can sometimes be mislead. Sia is a member of the school Netball team where she represents Alkirah. She has an irrational fear of butterflies and can often be found tagging alongside Drago.
Robbie Tater
The Alkirah spirit has been dying.
I hear that Drago Pain has been creeping around the girls' change rooms.
The vice-captain of Alkirah House. Robbie Tater is a kind and outgoing individual who is always willing to drop everything to help his subordinates. While he always tries to be cheerful, he does have some angst about the future of his house.
Scott Campbell
Are you saying my idea about the giant explosion that kills everyone is anticlimactic?
I just always get the impression that I've done something wrong.
An old friend of Drago. He sits next to him during English, and they occasionally play cards together. Like Drago, he is a member of Alkirah House, but is becoming increasingly less interested in house affairs.
Aya Hiroshiege
Let's awaken the deviant I know is inside you!
I knew you'd come through for me! I could just kiss you! I'll restrain myself though.
Lucas Kage
Aya's already drunk half of it.
At least I didn't get beat up by a girl.
Lucas Kage is a bastard. Both literally and figuratively. Born into a noble family, his illegitimacy brought with it the scorn of both his step-mother and his extended family. Kage seeks to prove himself by gathering enough support to become the vice captain of Red House. Like many Red House students he plays Soccer.
Jarrah Stone
Image
I'm Jarrah Stone, son of a preacher man!
Just a few days ago she had you eating out of her hand.
Combat Dummy
Image
...
...
Combat Dummy is an abused scarecrow. He spends his days in the Green House sparring room along with the rest of his scarecrow family. Combat Dummy is incredibly submissive and shows no sign of aspiration.

Other characters: Gigi Luigi, Caryn Stover, Lucas Kage, Suki Yamanashi, Kiah Stone, Yukiko Robinson, Yutaka Nomiya.
Last edited by Compulsive Liar on Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:54 am, edited 29 times in total.

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Re: School Panic: Prologue [School, House Rivalries, Betraya

#2 Post by Compulsive Liar »

Hello Lemma Soft Land!

We been working hard on this project and believe it is coming together nicely. Currently work is being done on improving the look of the characters.

The plan is to have another beta test version ready by the end of next month. I'll be needing some new testers. :) For the record the source code is currently 4004 lines (up from the 2730 lines in the last test version).
Last edited by Compulsive Liar on Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:55 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: School Panic: Prologue [School, House Rivalries, Betraya

#3 Post by gekiganwing »

I saw your first post, Compulsive Liar, but I was apparently distracted at the time, and did not get around to commenting. If you hadn't posted again, I might have forgotten about your game. Thank you for the update/reminder.

Some questions about your world:

* Why does the "house" system exist?
* How does it work? Is everyone assigned to a house at the beginning of the school year?
* Do all the students have to live on-campus?
* Is there any way to avoid becoming part of a house?

Also, it appears that your story does not contain any pairings. If that's part of your plan, go for it. Creating a VN that's just about plot, friendship, and fractured relationships is a genuinely good idea.

Hopefully game development will go well. I'm looking forward to seeing more news.

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Re: School Panic: Prologue [School, House Rivalries, Betraya

#4 Post by Compulsive Liar »

gekiganwing wrote:* Why does the "house" system exist?
It was started primarily to organise students into teams for the school sporting events. As time went on resources and facilities were delegated to the houses based on their size and success (such as common rooms, change rooms, sporting equipment, etc).
gekiganwing wrote:* How does it work? Is everyone assigned to a house at the beginning of the school year?
You join one a few months after you enrol at the school. In order to join a house you have get nominated by an existing house member. Generally you'll be nominated by either already having friends in the house, having a compatiable social-economic background, or by playing a sport the house specialises in (or being damn good at one they don't).

You can also start your own house if you get enough support (you'd have to have enough members for the school to be justified in giving your house a common room).
gekiganwing wrote:* Do all the students have to live on-campus?
No one lives on-campus.
gekiganwing wrote:* Is there any way to avoid becoming part of a house?
Join Blue House, that's why it exists.
gekiganwing wrote:Also, it appears that your story does not contain any pairings. If that's part of your plan, go for it. Creating a VN that's just about plot, friendship, and fractured relationships is a genuinely good idea.
The protagonist probably spends more time doing assignments then he does trying to get the girl. I probably focus more on relationship breakdowns then I do on building them up. It's just more fun.

However, I'm making the game relatively open. You can choose what events you'll do during the day, who you'll talk to, and what you'll talk about. So, I'm planning on throwing in a few side romances for good measure.

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#5 Post by Compulsive Liar »

There was a plan to release a beta test tomorrow, but branches keep getting added! The game is currently sitting on 5211 lines (27510 words), which is nearly twice the size of the previous beta test.

Last week I thought we reached a milestone. The ending that would act as a perfect springboard into main game was finished. It wasn't a happy ending, but it was believable. Then I realized that the player mightn't appreciate not getting any influence in the protagonist's:
decision to terminate his friendship with Sia.

So it was written into something that:
makes it seems that there is a possibility that the characters will be able to reconcile things in the future.
Things weren't left there though. I thought that we should put in a super secret happy romantic ending. I volunteered myself to do some research by reading fluffy romance mangas and put together a really sweet ending. We even went back through the entire script, making subtle changes hinting at how much:
Drago cared about Sia.
Then things got a little crazy. As a bit of fun we decided to write another ending in which:
Drago pretty much did the Dominating Man in Those Trashy Soft Cover Romances(tm) and forced himself onto Sia.
So long story short, this monstrosity has gone from one ending to seven. This is rather significant since the player only makes two direct decisions in the game. The added complexity of having almost every conversation influence the outcome is certainly fun to work with. I think we currently have something like 500 lines in the source code is dedicated to explaining what influences each of the paths.
Last edited by Compulsive Liar on Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#6 Post by gekiganwing »

Thank you for replying, and for updating.

It sounds like your game grew from one ending to seven as you wrote it. Letting your game change is not a bad thing. Though it can become a bad thing if you were to change style/format halfway through development, let the story grow out of control, or keep adding features. (For some context, be sure to read up on the problems of scope creep and feature creep.) But I don't mean to be negative. As long as you have a goal for your game's scope, and know what you want to achieve, you should be fine.

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#7 Post by Compulsive Liar »

gekiganwing wrote:It sounds like your game grew from one ending to seven as you wrote it. Letting your game change is not a bad thing.
It's funny, the original script looks almost nothing like the current game. A lot of changes were introduced at the programming stage. I remember I got the names wrong for one of the characters in the dialogue. Instead of correcting it I just ran with it, having the misnamed character make a big fuss about the slip.

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting here is that I'm after volunteers for the next beta test. The source code is currently up to 33743 words, spread across 6021 non-blank lines. The main path has been split from one to three, with seven possible endings. There is still a fair bit of polishing to do, but the dialogue is very close to being done. If you are up for beta testing the next version please drop me a line here.

And here is a development picture, just for the heck of it. I also updated the first post to include character quotes.

Image
Top left is Kiah, bottom left is Sia, and on the right is Yukiko.
Last edited by Compulsive Liar on Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#8 Post by Compulsive Liar »

Everyone's enthusiasm for this project is heart warming. :)

I've put out a post for more beta testers here, if anyone's interested.

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#9 Post by Compulsive Liar »

I suppose I'll address the feedback I receive in this thread. I've currently got five beta testers, but I'm always open for more. :)
Magicprincess20 wrote:I loved the game but i think it need some change trough. So here have i list off suggestion

1. Try to make the character better
2. Maybe add Date panel where we can see what day, date and month is it
3. Try to add Map Movement.
4. Maybe try to make like dating sim feel, for eks add a conversion icon where we can talk to the character, add gift icon, where we can give the gift to the character and add date icon, where we can ta our character to a date place.
5. maybe add time plane where we can pick what we shall do during the day.


Thats all for now, I really like the game but to try to make the game better, And i hope you can think about my suggestion.
What did you love about it specifically? I can't add more of it if I don't know what it is.

1. Which character are you referring to? The protagonist? What would you like to see changed? The protagonist's personality changes dramatically depending on the choices you make.

2. Good idea. Definitely going to put that in.

3. That gameplay dynamic is planned for inclusion in Chapter 3.

4. This isn't a dating sim though. You can get a girl, but it's not the main focus. Thanks for the suggestion though, you've given me an idea on how I can improve interaction between the characters.

5. The option to choose activities is going to be introduced in Chapter 2. A demo of how it'll work is already present in the test version under the Extras tab (along with a bunch of deleted scenes and characters).

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#10 Post by Magicprincess20 »

I reffering to all the characther not just the progranist. And the i loved whit the game is the story plot and how the game is.

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Re: School Panic [School, House Rivalries, Slice o' Life]

#11 Post by Compulsive Liar »

Behold, the first public beta. Find it here.

I added a BxG tag for Magic's benefit.

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