XOXO Academy [School Life] [GxB] [EXO Fangame (K-Pop)]

[pyopyon]

This game is now complete.

DOWNLOAD HERE:

via Itch.io

ABOUT

XOXO Academy is an otome based off of the K-Pop group 'EXO' and their studio album 'XOXO (Kiss&Hug)', the concept of which was an all boy's school (complete with uniforms and a school logo, pictured above!)

This demo features:

- the full intro
- the first "day" (chapter?) of five routes (Kris, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Sehun and Chen)

Download here:

Windows
Mac
Linux

[lollipopahh]

I just finished my first play-through and god, I didn't expect myself to like it as much as I did since I'm not exactly the type to like these sort of games with real-life characters, but I did, and I fangirled for every guy that I met in my first play-through. You have really captured each members' interests and personality. The art isn't really my type but still really good, I normally prefer a more manga/anime style art for these games but with how good the story is going, I love it. Especially the fact that you can customize your own character. Do you have an approximate date when this will be finished? I'd really love to play the full version. Best of luck with making this game, and thank you as well. I'm hoping that there would be CGs along with a gallery page so I can go back and see it. And if you have even more time, I'd love it if you could do another section where you can recap on special events for each character (member).

[LaziRice]

Hello!
So I am going to be reviewing this as I play.

First I love the menu!
Now starting the game.. I like how the words are typing but I find it to be a little slow, but then again I am a very fast reader.

Maybe a small grammar mistake?

"and converted half of its dormitories in the process. You know this much.. || Maybe change it to "You knew this much". I don't know I just feel like the tense is off.

I love that form and the ability to change your name if need be <3
And I love the background student animation

Err... I am having some problems with the amount of times our protagonist is constantly calling guys hot, it's like every interaction with a dude she will call them hot.

I love how you can customize your character!! It is so much fun to be able to do this!! Ahh sorry just so happy this is in place!!

Just finished Chen's ending and I love it! I can't wait to continue his path once the full game is released! Now time to try everyone's path

Uh for Kris's path, is the art supposed to be placeholders or are they actually his art?

I noticed an issue with kris's sprite when he walks you back to his dorm, there is a white paint like to the side of the sprite. Also with Sehun's sprite, the stripes on the jacket seems to change greatly when he changes poses, it goes from white to almost hard to see. It's not a big deal for me just pointing it out.

Conclusion!

Alright now I just finished all of the endings possible and I have to say it is really easy to pick the right path. I felt bad picking the "bad endings" (but ya know beta testing.. so I had too). I love how all of the backgrounds go together, it feels like a complete environment. At first the sprite art felt different from the background and the protagonist's sprite, but after playing the game a couple of times it honestly didn't bother me. I like the stories and I like each character's paths, sometimes it felt too forced especially kris's path. As far as story line goes I liked; Chen>Sehun>Kyung>Yeol>Kris. I wasn't too fond of how scared the protagonist was but when I realized that was the way of determining if we are getting a good ending or not (like wishing to see her parents again versus imaging meeting the guys again).

I would definitely play this again!

[pyopyon]

I just finished my first play-through and god, I didn't expect myself to like it as much as I did since I'm not exactly the type to like these sort of games with real-life characters, but I did, and I fangirled for every guy that I met in my first play-through. You have really captured each members' interests and personality. The art isn't really my type but still really good, I normally prefer a more manga/anime style art for these games but with how good the story is going, I love it. Especially the fact that you can customize your own character. Do you have an approximate date when this will be finished? I'd really love to play the full version. Best of luck with making this game, and thank you as well. I'm hoping that there would be CGs along with a gallery page so I can go back and see it. And if you have even more time, I'd love it if you could do another section where you can recap on special events for each character (member).

LOL, how flattering ^^ I tried to make it as like a regular otome as much as I could, but I also wanted to give the feeling like it was like reading a very interactive fanfiction? Haha, I guess it worked. ^^

Originally I was going to go with a more anime art style but opted for something more realistic solely because it's a fan game first and an otome second. It's more like a fan game that can be played by otome lovers, rather than an otome that can be played by exo fans? Haha. Anyway, I want to release this August 2015, but that's of course if all the art is finished. We're still waiting on the art of two more routes.

The Gallery page is in the demo but everything is locked up-- it's one labelled "Student Files" on the menu with all the heart shaped locks. Now the recap on special events.... I haven't done. Thanks for the suggestion!

Hello!
So I am going to be reviewing this as I play.

First I love the menu!
Now starting the game.. I like how the words are typing but I find it to be a little slow, but then again I am a very fast reader.

Maybe a small grammar mistake?

"and converted half of its dormitories in the process. You know this much.. || Maybe change it to "You knew this much". I don't know I just feel like the tense is off.

I love that form and the ability to change your name if need be <3
And I love the background student animation

Err... I am having some problems with the amount of times our protagonist is constantly calling guys hot, it's like every interaction with a dude she will call them hot.

I love how you can customize your character!! It is so much fun to be able to do this!! Ahh sorry just so happy this is in place!!

Just finished Chen's ending and I love it! I can't wait to continue his path once the full game is released! Now time to try everyone's path

Uh for Kris's path, is the art supposed to be placeholders or are they actually his art?

I noticed an issue with kris's sprite when he walks you back to his dorm, there is a white paint like to the side of the sprite. Also with Sehun's sprite, the stripes on the jacket seems to change greatly when he changes poses, it goes from white to almost hard to see. It's not a big deal for me just pointing it out.

Conclusion!

Alright now I just finished all of the endings possible and I have to say it is really easy to pick the right path. I felt bad picking the "bad endings" (but ya know beta testing.. so I had too). I love how all of the backgrounds go together, it feels like a complete environment. At first the sprite art felt different from the background and the protagonist's sprite, but after playing the game a couple of times it honestly didn't bother me. I like the stories and I like each character's paths, sometimes it felt too forced especially kris's path. As far as story line goes I liked; Chen>Sehun>Kyung>Yeol>Kris. I wasn't too fond of how scared the protagonist was but when I realized that was the way of determining if we are getting a good ending or not (like wishing to see her parents again versus imaging meeting the guys again).

I would definitely play this again!

Thank you! It's a collaborative effort between myself, LSF user Zetsubou who redid the save and load pages and navigation, and then Suneku, who did the Student Page menu (which is the CG menu, for the record. ^^.)

Also-- in the preferences menu, you can change the text speed. I'm a fast reader (and I've test-played this so much I've practically memorized the dialogue), so I have mine all the way up, haha.

Ah, the first thing... the entire game is in 2nd person, present tense as I only write in present tense (sorry if that throws you off.) Because you're talking about something that happened in the past, I used past tense. I did notice a tense mistake later on though, so I did fix that, thanks!

Thanks and thanks! I was inspired by seeing the background walking animation in another otome! It's a very cool effect, but I'm not original. I got it here on the board, haha. ^^

That thing about the word 'hot' though... can be annoying. I'll ctrl+f and see if I can find some synonyms. I guess I was excited, LOL.

Thanks! ^^ I always wanted to have the dress up person but I wasn't sure it was possible until I surfed the board. (Thank you, LSF.) Art was contributed by a very cool person who also drew the expressions for me months later when I decided I wanted those too! /o/ I also thank her for following my complete instructions about the skin tones and hair styles. She was really great to work with!

I feel a sense of pride everytime someone likes Chen. I had to rewrite his route many times and then one day I just deleted the whole path and started from scratch. A difficult decision but one of the best I ever made! Apparently. LOL.

Not only is that real art, it's actually the real life art of the real life Kris. Haha. If you Google "Kris EXO drawings", all sorts of fun things will pop up. NGL this comment has me tickled ^^

I did know about the white squiggle-- it's my fault. I forgot to erase it x__x Worry not though-- we have a reliner whose going to reline before full release so those minor art problems will be cleaned up. o/

Replies to your conclusion:

Yeaah.... It's not the hardest game out there. /^: Honestly, coming up with choices is really hard for me-- I thought about editing it so that there are three choices, but there's just... so many choices to edit, and since I already struggle with making up options, I decided to let it be. Plus it's my first game both in attempt and execution, so I'm going to chalk it up to that so I don't feel so bad about it.

Oh, good. You know, I worried about the sprite and the mc art conflicting, but... I like it so I'm hoping that people react similarly to you, haha. So far, more people are too thrilled with the idea of customization to care, so I think it's fine! No one's really mentioned the backgrounds either, so I'm guessing it's all going together well. I understand what you mean about Kris's path because it feels a little empty in the intro to me too... The rest of his route is pretty juicy, but it feels almost sudden in contrast with the intro. Honestly.... if you could PM me and we could talk about it, that would be SUPER ideal. ^^

I can adjust the bad ending. Every bad ending is exactly the same because I didn't feel like writing 12 bad endings but... I could (should) probably do that anyway -__-;; LOL this was so much writing that I cut corners at times, but of course it comes back to bite me. Ah, life.

In any case, thanks a lot! ^^ I'm glad you gave it a chance! /o/ Success.

[Godline]

LMAO at the Boys Over Flowers referencing! That was sooo great!

Honestly, I didn't know much about Exo beforehand. I like 2pm and Super Junior but I (obviously) haven't listened to kpop in a few years and now realize I should get back into it.

This was great. I love how simple the routes are. I do like simple choices like yours where the right one is evident. Not everyone likes it like that, but I'm a seriously lazy game player so I like it.

The sprites were great. I'm a little confused by the chibis on the main menu. If you're going to go for chibis there, have the whole band, not just two characters! At first I didn't know what I was getting into because the chibis didn't represent the feel of the game well. Some of the backgrounds and the map especially looks more realistic, as a photograph and then you have semi-realistic sprites and then the chibis on top of that just looks weird.
If I were you I'd just use the chibis on a credits screen or the save/load screens or not at all.

That's all the advice I can offer though. It delivers what it promises, a funny poppy romance game based on a k-pop boy band. What more can you ask for?

[pyopyon]

LMAO at the Boys Over Flowers referencing! That was sooo great!

Honestly, I didn't know much about Exo beforehand. I like 2pm and Super Junior but I (obviously) haven't listened to kpop in a few years and now realize I should get back into it.

This was great. I love how simple the routes are. I do like simple choices like yours where the right one is evident. Not everyone likes it like that, but I'm a seriously lazy game player so I like it.

The sprites were great. I'm a little confused by the chibis on the main menu. If you're going to go for chibis there, have the whole band, not just two characters! At first I didn't know what I was getting into because the chibis didn't represent the feel of the game well. Some of the backgrounds and the map especially looks more realistic, as a photograph and then you have semi-realistic sprites and then the chibis on top of that just looks weird.
If I were you I'd just use the chibis on a credits screen or the save/load screens or not at all.

That's all the advice I can offer though. It delivers what it promises, a funny poppy romance game based on a k-pop boy band. What more can you ask for?

Ah, I'm not a 2PM stan, but I do love me some SuJu, haha! YOU WOULDN'T CATCH ME DEAD MAKING A SUJU GAME THOUGH OHHH MY GOSH 15 MEMBERS WOULD KILL ME-- IMO K Pop is going thru a slump year rn, but the last two years have been great!!

Ah, okay! The last person mentioned that to me, too. It's not really high on difficulty not only because, as I mentioned to the person above, I suck with making up questions/choices, but also because I am that person who plays games and feels bad for choosing the mean choice-- especially if I were an EXO stan who doesn't want to be mean to their bias XD I still might go back and add a third choice even though I'm super lazy and don't want to.

Ah-- the menu is supposed to be like an open notebook, so it was supposed to seem like doodles that someone had drawn in the notebook. The other doodles were done (IRL bc I think it's hilarious) by Kris, the one whose route was the art one. Without them the menu seemed empty so I added the chibis in. You're the first person to mention it to me but I'll take it into account. Also, they were left over from a commission for the unlock menus, but the artist decided to change the art style, and so I only have Sehun, Kyungsoo, Kai and Kris in that style as sprites. It's true there's a lot of art inconsistency but as is I don't have the resources or the money to iron it out, so the best I can do is make all the guys and all of the full page illustrations in similar styles. u__u;;

Thank you for your review, I'm glad you enjoyed the demo!

[sonorousgem]

At some point in the semi-near future I hope I will play this XD
I've been listening/watching quite a bit of EXO stuff it's all stuck in my head lol.

edit: Played!
This is pretty cool, you did a good job! I especially like the customizable nature of the MC...
I wonder how long you're going to make it, because 12 guys is a lot, and the stories in all the paths seemed to be moving pretty fast already ^.^

[sharikah]

Yay it seems to be doing great!! Congrats!!

ABOUT

XOXO Academy is an otome based off of the K-Pop group 'EXO' and their studio album 'XOXO (Kiss&Hug)', the concept of which was an all boy's school (complete with uniforms and a school logo, pictured above!)

This demo features:

- the full intro
- the first "day" (chapter?) of five routes (Kris, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Sehun and Chen)

Download here:

Windows
Mac
Linux