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Original post by WavinatorIt might be important to capture the aesthetic of an anime high school. What do people most remember when they think of anime they've seen of this environment? My only real memory is Ranma 1/2 (?), with the guy who turns into a girl when hit by water. (????) I don't really know much beyond that, unfortunately.

Do you want a list of anime set in schools? I have one around here somewhere from a project I was working on previously, although I'll have to look for it.

I'll try and answer several people at once but so far it seems people want the following:

1) Lots of things to collect
-How masochistic do people like to be when it comes to collecting things? For example harvest moon had an item you could only get by digging 250 levels down in one of the mines.
-Do people like set completition rewards? Meaning that completing a collection provides some extra bonous.
-No pointless collectables? I personally think anything you can collect should have some use, does anyone disagree?

2) NPC Personalities have an impact, but you can also seduce anyone
-People seem to want NPC personality to have an effect on gameplay so that everyone isn't generic and at the same time be able to have a relationship with everyone.

3) Choices have an impact
-The players actions have an impact on the game and the future decisions they can make. This is some thinging absent in the sims as your actions never consquences whether or positive or negative.

I'll have to get to the rest later.

I'll give you my views on these points:

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Original post by TechnoGoth 1) Lots of things to collect -How masochistic do people like to be when it comes to collecting things? For example harvest moon had an item you could only get by digging 250 levels down in one of the mines.

Personally I'm not prepared to put in a lot of effort to collect stuff; for example my modified mantra in Pokemon was "gotta catch all that are resonable convienient". I wouldn't mind if you threw in some cool rare item that only the die-hard masochists will find, however, as long as you don't tempt me to find it by having NPCs keep on mentioning how awesome the thing is. Keep those things secret from the casual collector, such as me.

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-Do people like set completition rewards? Meaning that completing a collection provides some extra bonous.

If you mean like in Diablo II, I never played the game for long enough to collect a full set. If you mean like in Animal Crossing, why not? It works best with other players, however. In Animal Crossing I picked a theme of collectables for my house (musical instruments) and would trade things other people wanted for their sets to get more.

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-No pointless collectables? I personally think anything you can collect should have some use, does anyone disagree?

No collectables have to be "pointless", they're like trophies. The collector player will feel a sense of pride from the collection of stuff they have in their trophy room; that's the use for all those random widgets.

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2) NPC Personalities have an impact, but you can also seduce anyone -People seem to want NPC personality to have an effect on gameplay so that everyone isn't generic and at the same time be able to have a relationship with everyone.

The two points here are:
- NPCs shoud be fully-fleshed out characters (that means non-generic)
- there should be no artificial limits on the interactions with characters
Obviously you will have to decide on a compromise between the two, as you can't fully implement either of those.

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3) Choices have an impact -The players actions have an impact on the game and the future decisions they can make. This is some thinging absent in the sims as your actions never consquences whether or positive or negative.

The Sims does have some consequences; other Sims will like or dislike your Sim depending on your actions for example. However they aren't very deep. This is one area that your game could really shine in if you do well, but it's really tricky to implement. I think you wither have to write a very good branching story arc (if you are a very good writer), or use some interactive storytelling techniques (if you are a very good algorithms researcher and a writer).

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Original post by ahw So you are trying to do the next Season of Sakura? Or maybe True Love? Well, that would be nice if you succeeded, I love those little games [grin]

The plan is for the game to combine the branching story style of those types of games with the character building and other aspects of princess maker. All in a school setting with an asortment of classic anime style character types such as Pretty soldier/Magic Girl, ninja, mech pilot, witch, and alien.

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I discovered the Sims 2 this summer after buying it for my little sister (A great excuse). And I must say I was happily surprised. That Desire/Fear system is a great way to implement goals in a non restraining way. The concept of lifestyle (Family, Money, Love, Knowledge) is also excellent, although only 4 was a little bit disappointing (well, they added one in the new expansion, so you never know). I also felt that jobs weren't very exciting, in that (for what I can tell from the little time I have played and what I have read on the Net) they don't give you anything really interesting apart from money. Then again, you don't really have to do anything, which I feel is also a wasted opportunity to have mini games of some sort. I was dissapointed with the actual amount of variety of the Sims generated by the computer, as opposed to what you'd expect when you start playing with the Sims bodyshop. Only four skin colours (and looking rather all the same), no "real life" archetypes (I want to create Asian girls!) only four eye colours? Well, anyway, these are cosmetic details. But my point is that the variety is IMO a bit superficial. I don't like the fact that people randomly come to your house for no reason whatsoever. Or the annoying fact that after spending ages chatting up the Post Office girl, I realised she was in fact a teenager, not simply petite, and that I couldn't make her age, nor ask her to live in my house... WTF! One other hand, I do like the fact that you have to handle the whole neighbourhood, really.

Yes, the sims had many faults, I was a litte annoyed that it wouldn't allow you to seduce your teachers in the University expansion. As well as the fact that working just consisted of loosing X hours of each day and coming home with some sum of money. The lack of consequence was whether positive of negative was left the game rather empty. If you cheated on your wife she got upset but it only took a few minutes of social interactions to have to back deeply in love with you. A little drama would have nice it would have been interesting if you cheated on your wife and she divorced you forcing you to pay 20% of your salary in alimony. Or how about your teenage daughter runs away from home and then turns up a few days later pregnant and hooked on drugs.

Hmm, on second thought people might not like too much realism in the Sims.

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I loved Princess Maker 2. I have only played it a few times, but everytime I played, I just had to keep going until my girl reached 18. What I loved about this game is the fact that unlike the Sims, the game originally seems to offer very little, yet as you discover it, you keep getting rewards and surprises and more options are revealed.

That is one of the aesthetics I'm hoping to capture.

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I love the concept of having the jobs shape your character (something sorely missing in the Sims), although I find the way it's done rather frustrating (you can only select chunks of 10 days. The fact that your character, depending on her stats, won't be adapted to some jobs, and not to others, is a bit frustrating, but at the same time, it's the point, I suppose: you need to understand your child, and realise in which profession she will blossom. I had great hope for my child to become an artist, until I realised she had a gift for Cooking, winning the Cooking tournament every year from an early age... The money issue is very frustrating, in a way, and the education really costs a lot. Also I don't know if it was my girl, but how thin do you have to be to fit a leather dress! Having a child with low stress, yet not turn her into a fatty was very difficult for me.

Those are all going to present in the game I’m working on. The player will have to balance school, part-time jobs, studying, social life, extra curricular activates, and their unique gift. Hopefully it will lead to some amusing circumstances and a few good laughs.

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The whole "running away" thing particularly pissed me off, especially when the little fool did it when the little Prince was visiting the palace. Plus there just didn't seem to be any sort of pattern to her madness, nor did she ever explain where on Earth she was leaving, or why. This didn't even seem to be related to stress or anything else. WTF.

From what I’ve been told she runs away if you made her go to a class or job she doesn’t like the previous month.

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If you could mix the "higher level" management (as opposed to "oh, I am gonna need to pee... again" of the Sims) of the Japanese sims, with the graphic freedom allowed by using 3D of the Sims, while keeping the character and charm of the Anime style, you would make me happy. Optionally, add mini games for various activities : the exploring parts of PM2 where a welcome distraction, but why not have mini games for the various jobs, too? Or even sex games like in Cobra Mission, a hentai game that used the traditional "find the right words" system to get the girls naked, but then added a "find the hotspot" mini game to actually satisfy them (a bit similar to the Hot Coffee mod, but quite harder to win).

I plan to have a number of mini games I have no idea what they will be at this point but there will be at least one stat build game per stat, a set of mini games related to the character mythos, and possibly some work and school related mini games. But to be honest I can’t think of any good classroom related mini games.

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I don't know if sex is something you want to have in your game, but personally, although I must say I was amused by the various locations you could do it in in the Sims 2, I was a bit dissapointed by the absence of difficulty. All you had to do was get the person to love you, then use the right sequence of actions, then there you go. Really? Well, I sure wish it was that simple inreal life. Maybe they'll do a Sex in the Neighbourhood extension and make the nookie more interesting and a part of the gameplay? Yeah, right...

The question of sex is a valid one, but with the recent controversy surrounding the hidden sex scenes in GTA I don’t think having a game set in high school and allowing players to seduce their fellow classmates and possible even teachers is that right avenue to explore.