The wickedness of little girls has been well documented both in classic literature and in modern games, from Great Expectations to Rule of Rose -– and straight into the memories of our own high school days, when we moved in clandestine societies governed by unspoken laws. This theme gets a Roaring Twenties kind of patina to delectably twisted effect in Mousechief’s Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble, a pleasingly innovative hybrid between an RPG and a stat-based card game.
It’s been some time in the making, too. In an interview with Gamasutra back in 2006, developer Keith Nemitz said he was inspired by "a night of parlor games with friends." The phrase "parlor games" reflects a certain vintage sensibility that is eloquently on display in DHSGiT, but it's Nemitz's musing during said parlor games that birthed this game's real stroke of cleverness –- "The bigger idea struck me later, that you could swap out combat in RPGs with different kinds of conflict resolution mechanisms," he told Gamasutra. "This idea opens up the RPG experience to allow any kind of story genre."
Opens it up indeed. There’s not one brutish attack or action to be had in the whole of DHSGiT, but plenty of nasties, in that way particular to crafty young things. The game's set in a rather forbidding old boarding school, where a series of accidents and a shifty school nurse sends the player character investigating, recruiting on her way an all-girl pal posse, each with her own talent. Each girl has four attributes –- glamour, rebellion, savvy and popularity -- and each helps with certain techniques to expose the school’s corruption "like layers of spoiled paint hidden under fresh." They’ll do this by fibbing, taunting, exposing secrets, and making power plays, leveraging info learned along the way against competing girls and nefarious adults.
The game is played on what looks like a vintage game board, complete with tarnished silver playing pieces that let the player know where available events are. The storyline guides your exploration, and most events trigger a confrontation –- your girl's skills against her opponent's. Your girl -– I chose the sullen-eyed, wheelchair-bound minx Eleanor -– will snag up to three allies among her classmates, each with a different distribution of stats. When you're in a confrontation, you'll select the appropriate girl to deal with the situation, advancing the story if you win. If one of your girls is defeated, though, she's retired from your party for a fixed period of time. In a particularly nasty twist, the gals can pick up "boyfriends," which essentially take the hit for the young lady so that she can stay in the party if she's defeated.
Your girls can flirt, taunt, fib and expose, just like real high school girls, and the allocation of her statistics will make a girl more successful at one type of attack than another. The "expose" game involves guessing a sentence after revealing a fixed number of symbols; the "fib" game involves the ol' shell-swap game to hide the truth from less-savvy opponents; and both flirting and taunting require choosing the right comeback. With taunting, your girls can only choose comebacks they know, so in this case, the more they're exposed to, the more likely they are to be successful in the future.
It's not altogether perfect: the game mechanics, and how or why certain tactics work, are a little opaque; and since the story’s somewhat nonlinear, there’s none of the enforcement that would make it somewhat clearer how the plot pieces fit together, or how the various characters are involved -- and there are a good many of them to keep straight. One can get at least an adequate command of this information with a little persistence and experience, though, so while the nuts-and-bolts could be tighter, the looseness doesn't detract from the feats of innovation going on here.
From the scandalous adults to the multifaceted molls on offer (I particularly like the dark-haired flapper gal smoking in the girls' room), there's a delightful level of sophisticated detail on display for what is, essentially, a casual game. And as an alternate take on the old RPG chestnut of a powerful character party, DHSGiT is a hearty success. Those high school days were our crash course in conflict, after all, a time when teens bear up under some of the most vicious aggression campaigns they'll ever experience in their lives –- the idea of importing these types of "attacks" for a PC game mechanic is a stroke of genius. In many ways, more dangerous than a haunted ruin, more lethal than the blade of a sword, and more terrifying than the shambling undead is a high school girl, and this charmingly stylish, elegantly macabre title takes a spot-on snapshot, preserved like a sepia photo, of the creature in her natural habitat.
N.B.: DHSGIT contains occasional scenes, carried in text with static images, that describe or hint at violence or sexual situations, and in one case, a combination of the two. Although not ESRB rated, the developer suggests it be treated as rated "T" for "Teen," but you should be aware that young adult novels, similarly aimed at teens, do sometimes confront violent and sexual themes directly.
My lit'ol sister
My little sister played this after I recommended it to her. She's 16, and given over to dramatic mood shifts including her opinion of me. She thanked me for recommending the game and told me she "beat it", and that she liked it quite a lot.
Buy this game, improve your relationship with your little sister.
Comebacks
With taunting, your girls can only choose comebacks they know
I'm reminded somewhat of the swordfighting mechanic from Monkey Island.
It's less sophisticated than it seems
After playing through sections multiple times, it becomes apparent that it's not as nonlinear as it seems, and that characters don't really, well, have character. Certain dialogue must always occur, so even in the Parley mode, selecting different girls in different order doesn't modify the dialogue exchanges. The dialogue will happen in the order it will happen in; you just select which girl is going to say what is bound to be said next. Thus, far from presenting a pool of girls with individual personalities, a cursory look suggests that the girls' stats only matter when there's some kind of contest, like fibbing, flirting, exposing, etc.
This game is basically an elaborate disguise for a highly-railroaded story, which I suppose, makes it equally interesting, but for different reasons.
Graphic violence - rape of an unconscious high school girl
The light-hearted, "sassy" and "mischievous" tone of this game turns graphic and horrifying mid-way through the game. A high school girl is abducted and beaten unconscious by a college boy. Her friends find him with his pants around his ankles, about to rape her unconscious form. In order to get past this scene, you're required to shoot the would-be rapist in the head.
The developer of this game and the owner of Mousechief, the company that distributes the game, justified this scene as "promoting awareness of sexual assault and effective response."
He went on to say that 50% of women in the US have been assaulted, which is true. So why sucker-punch them in the middle of a cute game with having to relive what they experienced? Shooting an unarmed potential rapist is not an effective response, it's homicide. An awareness-raising response would have included the victim screaming "FIRE" and gouging the guy's eyes out with her car keys. She was rendered helpless in the story.
In another scene, a man drowns in human feces and urine. Big Fish Games yanked this game from its offerings for its graphic content.
Nonsense
The "graphic" violence and rape is not actually depicted graphically, nor described in detail, but merely alluded to. You are then expected to shoot the potential rapist, true. This is pretty mild by the standards of, say, Halo II.
"Drowning in feces and urine" is a bit of a Gorey touch, and fairly amusing in context.
Big Fish Games displayed enormous moral cowardice in responding so dramatically to immoral "moral" ninnies like you.
Survivor of Sexual Assault, not a Champion of Morality
I don't think all games are PG rated, or should be. I think games that advertise themselves as light-hearted ought to deliver, and not spring disturbing content on the player mid-way through the game.
People keep comparing this to books and movies. I compare it to news stories, where they warn, "Some content may be offensive to viewers," but don't give you enough time to change the channel before you're made to listen to someone dying during a 911 call, or made to watch someone get shot - shit that I will NEVER get out of my head! Except, in this case, there's no warning at all - just the opposite: "This is good, old-fashioned, sassy mischief! Nothing controversial here!"
I want to understand something from your (apparently) egalitarian, free-speech point of view. In your opinion, is there a limit to violence in games? Should there be no boundaries?
In my opinion:
* an adult killing another adult for whatever reason is practically commonplace in games, books, movies - no controversy, no issue.
* A man beating another man unconscious - happens every day, in real life and in games, books, movies.
* An adult man beating an adult woman unconscious - happens every day, IRL, games, movies - but that's borderline disturbing. Usually in stories like those (the ones I watch and read and play, anyway), the woman fights back, eventually, and reclaims her dignity. A man beating an adult woman unconscious and she never gets justice - that upsets me, even in fiction.
* An adult man sexually assaulting an adult woman - very upsetting to me, ESPECIALLY if she never gets to reclaim her dignity.
* An adult man sexually assaulting an UNCONSCIOUS adult woman - repulsive! Hard core porn!
But an adult man beating a minor unconscious and attempting to rape her while she's helpless? Are you really so calloused? If that doesn't cross a line for you, what does?! Beating teenaged girls unconscious and attempting to rape them is all in good fun, in your book, is it? What about elementary school girls?
The words in this game are meant to encourage visualization, and they do a good job. There's no animation in this game, thank god. The developers encourage the player to identify with the characters, harkening back to our rebellious high school days, and they do a good job of that, too. I went along on Keith's journey and trusted him to take me somewhere fun, as he promised in his advertising. Instead he took me somewhere I in no way wanted to go (again), and wasn't prepared for. His description is misleading.
I get the impression that you think Big Fish yanked the game because a lot of clucking chickens made too much fuss over a little thing. You know what I think is wrong here? You didn't/can't visualize the words the way women do, especially women who've been violently sexually assaulted. I can SEE it happening, in my mind's eye, because I know EXACTLY what it looks like. You don't/can't visualize it, so it doesn't/can't bother you. I don't want to read words that put those images in my head unless I'm prepared for it. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. I paid my dues. The reason I'm so upset about this game was the surprise.
"Oh, the girl has been kidnapped" - click
"Oh, the kidnapper has taken her to the woods. I wonder what funny thing will transpire there." - click
"Oh, my god. He standing with his pants around his ankles. She's been beaten unconscious. He's about to rape her. I can't believe this. How will they make this funny?" - click
No. Her friends shoot an unarmed would-be rapist in the head, and the girl goes to the hospital. It's a very sad story. Disturbing, like the man drowning in piss and shit. Not what I signed up for. Not what I paid for. Not what he advertised.
Games, Morality, and Speech
Okay; to start with, I will apologize for the "ninny" comment, which was snarky and unkind. You've made clear where you're coming from, and as such, I understand your stance better. I still think your call to, in effect, censor this game by denying it distribution, is what all calls for censorship are: immoral. But of course, my conception of morality is based on individual freedom.
You say:
I want to understand something from your (apparently) egalitarian, free-speech point of view. In your opinion, is there a limit to violence in games? Should there be no boundaries?
No. Nothing may not be thought, nothing may not be said, and nothing may not be portrayed in a game. The thought is not the deed. Freedom of speech means precisely that.
An adult man sexually assaulting an UNCONSCIOUS adult woman - repulsive! Hard core porn!
This is not portrayed as eroticized, nor as desirable in any fashion. Calling it 'porn' is, to my mind, fairly absurd under the circumstances.
Beating teenaged girls unconscious and attempting to rape them is all in good fun, in your book, is it? What about elementary school girls?
Again, this is not portrayed in a positive light (I might, in fact, argue that the fact that the perpetrator gets shot is a clear moral condemnation of the act by the game's creators). It is not portrayed as "good fun." It is an event -- a sad and disturbing one -- that occurs in the course of the game's story. Elimination of sad and disturbing events from literature is not a good idea, and my stance is that, yes, games are, or can be, a form of literature.
No. Her friends shoot an unarmed would-be rapist in the head, and the girl goes to the hospital. It's a very sad story. Disturbing, like the man drowning in piss and shit. Not what I signed up for. Not what I paid for. Not what he advertised.
Yes, it's sad; light-hearted works frequently have sad moments, and tragedies, comedic ones. But you have here your best argument, I think: You are wholly entitled to ask for a refund.
You're Right, I'm Wrong
Thanks for the apology.
You make a great argument, and I can see that you're right, and I was wrong in some respects. It's not right to fight against the game's distribution, or demand that the developer edit his content. I agree that requesting a refund is fair.
I stick to my guns re: putting a rating on the game, or at least disclaimer about the content. I am glad that the game doesn't glorify or glamorize or attempt to titillate the player with the scenario - I never claimed that it did. I don't care that it's not portrayed in a positive light (incidentally, how could one portray the beating of a young girl unconscious and her attempted rape as positive? I'm glad I can't envision it.) I'm arguing that the game doesn't deliver on its promise of "sassy antics."
You compare games to literature, and legitimately. In the great big "bookstore" of computer games, this one is miscategorized in the "Kids" section. People who shop in the kids section ought not be subjected to mature themes.
I ask you a new series of questions:
How can consumers of online games who want light-hearted fun and nothing else get it? Is there a way to know ahead of time whether adult themes and disturbing imagery are in the game? Do we have to play the games first, then request a refund every time? Do we have to research the developer and find out whether s/he rated the game? If they didn't, do we have to ask them what s/he *would* rate it, before we buy?
I hear (read) you saying that in games, as in literature, everything is fair game. Let the buyer beware.
How?
and
Why? Why not make it easy for people to be happy with what they bought? Why make it hard?
Lit vs. Porn
"An adult man sexually assaulting an UNCONSCIOUS adult woman - repulsive! Hard core porn!"
"This is not portrayed as eroticized, nor as desirable in any fashion. Calling it 'porn' is, to my mind, fairly absurd under the circumstances."
I wasn't talking about this game. Each example before the "adult vs. teen" was a hypothetical. The girl in the story is not an adult woman.
How can consumers of online
How can consumers of online games who want light-hearted fun and nothing else get it?
The usual answer to questions like this is "rating systems." And of course, the game industry does have a rating system (the ESRB). The problem here is that the ESRB is geared toward conventional, retail-release, multi-million dollar budget games, and they charge fees to rate a game that are reasonable for such, but somewhat expensive from the standpoint of an indie, casual, or mobile game developer. Thus, most such games are unrated.
And to be sure, I, at least, think rating systems are fairly noxious in their own right -- it's virtually impossible to get North American distribution for an "M" rated game, for example. Books, I'll note, have no rating system, and yet seem to get along okay without one. The ESRB was set up by the industry in response to the moral panic over "violence in gaming" (which is also over-wrought), in an effort to forestall regulation -- and has been successful, so far, in doing so, but to me the venture has an odor of self-censorship and moral cave-in about it.
With books, we look to external indicia -- where they are shelved, what the back-cover copy and promo quotes say -- to get a sense of the book's characteristics, and whether we will or will not enjoy it. And sometimes wind up getting something we'd rather not have wasted the money on, but that's just the way things are.
That's my preferred modality -- but I don't have any particular interest in selling games to people who won't enjoy them, either. Even from a purely selfish perspective, this is not a way to create repeat customers.
Consequently, I have added a note both to this review (and to the page on the Manifesto Games site) to address the issue.
Oooohhh, this looks fun.
Oooohhh, this looks fun. It's about time I take a break from my usual concoction anyways....
I'm starting to think empires is bad for my health lol.