Peering through the fog of Spergdonia
I have temporarily cast aside my quality, produced with something like a budget, and thoroughly tested stack of videogames (and also Record of Agarest War) to dedicate entirely too much time to one particular indie title: Academagia, a text adventure life school simulator rpg about a magic school in a vaguely steampunk fantasy renaissance Italy.
It is buggy and needs a lot of patching (which is being actively done on a weekly basis with small patches based on feedback in the forums and a larger content patch coming in September) and utterly delightful if you enjoy menu-based schedule management crazily detailed options.
How crazy are we talking about?
Well, here are the characters I have made so far:
Jack Case - a magical prodigy with an unremarkable background, poor social skills, and a sentient shadow creature for a familiar. Jack excelled in Astrology class and scraped through everything else. He had a violent rivalry with several other students, which resulted in his periodically getting hospitalized for a day when they all ganged up on him at once. He would retaliate by spreading malicious gossip of the sort that his enemies would not only bring shame on their college and their families, but also on the families of all their close friends. He was also pretty good at dumping water on their heads. Despite his flaws, he managed to make close friends with a few students, including the musically inclined son of a jeweler, and a well-meaning girl under a curse of misfortune which the two of them eventually managed to dispel.
Euphemia Psmith - a young lady from a well-to-do family with very poor magic skills and a pet rat. She was a complete jock who earned pocket money by entering wrestling competitions (not arm wrestling, mind, wrestling wrestling). She spent several evenings a week throughout the school year in detention. She never became very good at solving problems through magical means, but had great success in anything involving the words "BRUTE STRENGTH", "KICK IN DOOR", or "TACKLE TO THE GROUND". Her closest friends were a girl who hunted ghosts, with whom she somehow survived an encounter with zombies (hint there was punching), and a vegetarian activist who was trying to make a familiar out of deadly plants.
Alistair Threepwood - the son of nobility who can somehow walk despite what must be a massive tonne of coins shoved into his underpants. Alistair is scholarly and excelling at his exams and in his classes. Unfortunately, Alistair is not very good at ... anything else, unless it involves running away as fast as he can, whether it be from a monster or to avoid being spotted by a classmate and asked to help with something. I imagine his future yearbook notes will involve students fondly remembering the time he got hospitalized after being attacked by a chicken, and the time everyone saw his underwear because a giant anteater ate his robes (and the flailing freak out that followed).
It is like Princess Maker, times 100 in terms of options, and 100% less creepy and so far with no starvation diets or bustline enhancing pills (although Matt tells me he's learned a spell that gets his choice of student drunk and improves their relationship with his character, Senor Lumpy, by several points).
There is a small minority of gamers this game would appeal to, but to those it does appeal to, it is like being given something you weren't aware you had been wanting your entire life.
It is buggy and needs a lot of patching (which is being actively done on a weekly basis with small patches based on feedback in the forums and a larger content patch coming in September) and utterly delightful if you enjoy menu-based schedule management crazily detailed options.
How crazy are we talking about?
Well, here are the characters I have made so far:
Jack Case - a magical prodigy with an unremarkable background, poor social skills, and a sentient shadow creature for a familiar. Jack excelled in Astrology class and scraped through everything else. He had a violent rivalry with several other students, which resulted in his periodically getting hospitalized for a day when they all ganged up on him at once. He would retaliate by spreading malicious gossip of the sort that his enemies would not only bring shame on their college and their families, but also on the families of all their close friends. He was also pretty good at dumping water on their heads. Despite his flaws, he managed to make close friends with a few students, including the musically inclined son of a jeweler, and a well-meaning girl under a curse of misfortune which the two of them eventually managed to dispel.
Euphemia Psmith - a young lady from a well-to-do family with very poor magic skills and a pet rat. She was a complete jock who earned pocket money by entering wrestling competitions (not arm wrestling, mind, wrestling wrestling). She spent several evenings a week throughout the school year in detention. She never became very good at solving problems through magical means, but had great success in anything involving the words "BRUTE STRENGTH", "KICK IN DOOR", or "TACKLE TO THE GROUND". Her closest friends were a girl who hunted ghosts, with whom she somehow survived an encounter with zombies (hint there was punching), and a vegetarian activist who was trying to make a familiar out of deadly plants.
Alistair Threepwood - the son of nobility who can somehow walk despite what must be a massive tonne of coins shoved into his underpants. Alistair is scholarly and excelling at his exams and in his classes. Unfortunately, Alistair is not very good at ... anything else, unless it involves running away as fast as he can, whether it be from a monster or to avoid being spotted by a classmate and asked to help with something. I imagine his future yearbook notes will involve students fondly remembering the time he got hospitalized after being attacked by a chicken, and the time everyone saw his underwear because a giant anteater ate his robes (and the flailing freak out that followed).
It is like Princess Maker, times 100 in terms of options, and 100% less creepy and so far with no starvation diets or bustline enhancing pills (although Matt tells me he's learned a spell that gets his choice of student drunk and improves their relationship with his character, Senor Lumpy, by several points).
There is a small minority of gamers this game would appeal to, but to those it does appeal to, it is like being given something you weren't aware you had been wanting your entire life.