This week, we’re discussing school settings in games, and how to keep it from getting stale. The Facebook thread was shorter than usual, since everyone seems to have been busy this past week and the thread went up late, but maybe the discussion here will help make up for it.
Ishaan wrote:
School settings — love ’em or hate ’em, they’re in a lot of the games we play today, albeit in varying forms. While some games feature your characters in a regular highschool setting, others choose to be a little more creative, like Valkyria Chronicles 2 and Final Fantasy VIII, both of which place you as students in military academies.
Bully gave you a virtual playground for juvenile delinquency…or being the good kid if you so chose. Most visual novels allow the school setting to stay fresh by letting you establish deeper relationships with your peers. Kenka Bancho…well, that’s in a category of its own.
So today’s topic of discussion is, how would YOU go about spicing up the school setting in games, to keep the concept from getting stale?
Tommy wrote:
The only thing I can think of is that the main character can be a foreign exchange student. It could either be a non-Japanese student in a Japanese school setting or vice versa.
Ishaan wrote:
@Tommy: That could be kind of cool. MangaGamer actually have a title coming sometime after this year that’s based around that concept. Foreign exchange student on a tour of Tokyo. It’s like a guide to Tokyo in visual novel format.
So, what ideas do you have for what to do next with the school setting in games?
