Brooktown High And The Future Of Western Dating Games
So, I've been trying out Backbone and Konami's Brooktown High for PSP, even though it really hasn't been getting good reviews at all. [GameSpy's 1.5 out of 5 stars is the lowest, but the GameRankings average is a slightly awful 53%. And it's pretty clear, from the small amount of GameFAQs discussions - and the lack of a FAQ - that not too many consumers are picking it up, either.]
But it's an interesting game to be developed in the West, because it's one of only a couple of larger scale Western-developed dating games ever released. Other ones? Gameloft's Sprung for DS immediately comes to mind, and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude sorta counts. Kinda.
And while it's not been that well received, I think Brooktown High: Senior Year is absolutely worth checking out and discussing just because it's a relationship-centric game - you know, like that Facade thing that everyone raves about?
So, the good things about the game, first. You personalize your high school character when you start the game, and the questions they ask (about favorite locations, gadgets, styles) help make your character be like... you. But it's interesting - the game encourages you to play someone like yourself - in my case, a decidedly geeky guy. And this makes your interactions with the girls in the game a little more personal.
Brooktown High is also well-scripted, in a knowing, slightly trashy Laguna Beach-esque way. And it plays like real life _generally_ is - if you're lead geek of astronomy class, then the head cheerleader is going to require extra convincing to actually dig you. That makes you more self-conscious and careful about who you approach. And you actually care about changing your clothes in-game (so girls notice) and targeting specific people who seem to like you for who you are.
But in the end, the object of the game is to impress girls (or boys, if you choose a girl to start with) and then kiss them - and maybe even sneak a few bases beyond that. [All the 'action' is implied in abstract, comedy stock footage cut-scenes, such as red lights turning green, eventually the typical Austin Powers-esque rocket launches.] It's probably a good idea to cultivate the affections of multiple girls at once, so you actually have something to do except talk to one girl per week and then wait. So... that's a bit creepy.
And at some point, I was having a conversation with one of the girls in the game about how she fell off a bike and had to fix her shoulder, and I was impressing her with a long and detailed story about evading some crazies on my own bike, and... I had an odd moment of mental rebellion. It just felt like such a strange, un-natural thing to be doing in a video game, in an imaginary world. I felt a bit dirty, I think. (My wife said I could play, though. Please check with yours.)
What does that say about me, or the gaming medium? I'm not sure. And it's unfortunate that the actual mechanics of Brooktown High will prohibit many players from getting much pleasure from it - as GameSpy notes: "You only get a few minutes each school week to fraternize before rushing to class, which limits the amount of time you can dedicate to meeting other students or setting up dates."
So there's a lot of rushing around in the times you should be having fun, and there are issues with characters not remembering previous conversations you've had with them - and situations where the multiple choice conversation tree makes you act like a jackass, no matter what.
And the game's interface is a bit tricky in places, and the resource and friend management not spectacularly sophisticated, despite the good-looking 3D art - the 'Art Assets' 02/2007 .ZIP on the Konami PR assets page has some nicely done renders, like math geek Meena's (above). And yes, there are guy ones in there too.
But there's something there - buried in the simplicity of logic and the complexity of interface. Check out this GameFAQs board thread for a good idea of the (slightly scary, manipulative) tactics to use with girls, and therefore the kind of interesting and odd plot threads Brooktown High uses. And I think game creators should check it out and work out what they feel when the play it. Because there aren't many games out there with... emotions in them.
Anyhow, there was a question, as you can see from the title of this post, and I'm still going to ask it. I'm aware that Match.com is a dating game, but Brooktown High offers an even greater opportunity to represent somebody who isn't yourself with no repercussions. So - can there ever be a successful Western dating game? Or is it just too niche, too odd, too taboo, and not something people want to be doing on their own, without real people?
[BONUS: Extra reading - there's a geeky GameFAQs conversation on the roots of dating games and how Japanese ones compare to the few American ones - worth reading.]
Comments
If someone wanted to make a successful western dating game, all they would really need to do is make it geared towards women, and put it on a cellphone.
I think to make it acceptable to the average western male mentality, the social interaction will have to be included in a broader context. Bioware has done that with their RPGs for a while now, which they (or someone else) could easily expand on as long as it's not the sole focus of the experience. So perhaps something somewhere between Jade Empire and Sakura Taisen.
This is coming from someone who has completed all the Sakura Taisen games, but has never had any interest in more 'vanilla' date sims.
Posted by: Aaron | June 21, 2007 11:34 PM
I never raved about Facade. I thought it was irritating and facile.
Posted by: CaRteR | June 22, 2007 12:27 AM
Actually, to have a successful Western dating game, you absolutely, positively have to have good character art.
Seriously, renders are just major turn down. Because no matter how spiffy your render is, it's still ugly (or even ass ugly).
While going for the moe approach, like Japanese titles do, would be an overkill, lotsa nice, drawn art would go a long way.
Posted by: Knurek | June 22, 2007 12:42 AM
I hate to pimp a former project of mine directly, but the last game I did with these guys (thup.com) was a western-style dating game for "tween" cable network The N (http://the-n.com/games/hookup). A lot of the issues we dealt with while designing the game are directly related to some of the stuff raised here.
While not perfect -- due to the constraints of budget, time, and the online Flash game format (and possibly some overambitious goals) -- I like to think we tried to work some interesting ideas in there. We took a close look at Japanese dating game conventions, and it sounds like the Backbone guys did as well. Those games are very much about time management, which is an interesting mechanic, but as noted here, can limit the time you spend really engaging with the meat of the social issues the medium (and presumably, the audience) really wants to address.
We were also wary of the limitations of the conventional adventure game-style conversation tree format, and while The Hookup did have a bit of that, we went with the fairly insane idea of sticking a stripped-down Magic: The Gathering-style card battle in the center of the game. We ended up with what we called "Intense Conversations" -- abstracted verbal altercations in which the player got to utilize the secrets, lies, and gossip that made up the game's social economy.
I've had my eye on Brooktown High myself, but I'm PSP-free so I'm not sure I'll have a chance to give it a look. Simon, I agree that there are interesting possibilities in the idea of games exploring this kind of untraditional subject matter. I personally think there's something beautiful about using games to try to quantify the unquantifiable -- emotions, social dynamics, etc. While I'm very cautious about idealizing the wacky subject matter of games from Japan (they're often just as guilty of cliché and slavish pandering to convention as our own), I do hope that western developers continue to loosen up and apply some of our game design and development know-how to more than just ballistics models and crime movie tropes.
Posted by: Kevin Cancienne | June 22, 2007 8:44 AM
Ther are more than a few dating sims for cell phones. Most of the major ones seem to be published by Gameloft. Longtail Studios' Love Triangle and Heartbreakers are good.
While perusing the huge PR art files for Brooktown I noticed the generic text in the open text books was odd:
BRERRORORHEE RHRH HRRHRH
EK RL L OEHEH e RHRHRH RHRH
LA LINE A BLANCA ES PARA LA
CARGA Y DESCAEGA DE PASAJE
ROS SOLAMENTE
THE WORLD GOES ROUND THE SU
N AND THE MOON GOES ROUND
THE EARTH AND BLAH BALHA Y
SOME ANIMALS EAT THEIR YOUN
NG AND SOME DON;T.
If I'm correct, the spanish text essentially translates to "the white zone is for the loading and unloading of passengers only".
Posted by: Joel Reed Parker | June 22, 2007 10:13 AM
I guess no one wanted to worry about writing actual text. This is wandering off topic, but Japanese games do this all the time. Trace Memory has random unrelated English passages as decoration on plaques and as faux-handwriting in diaries, and Klonoa: Empire of Dreams for the GBA has an overworld map that clearly is trying to look like a hand-drawn map with notes scribbled on it, except the notes are plucked from what looks like the EULA of a graphic design tool, which is really rather adorable.
Posted by: Shih Tzu | June 22, 2007 11:57 AM
"So there's a lot of rushing around in the times you should be having fun, and there are issues with characters not remembering previous conversations you've had with them"
All of that, really, sounds like what real life boils down to most of the time though. So while it may not work for in-game fun, it does, in a rather poetic way, mimic the real situations we have.
Also, a lot of people I know have trouble remembering conversations we've had... So I don't know if I need new friends or if that says something negative about how memorable I may be.
Both the way that the dynamics (apparently) play out as well as the way they are spoken of in this post also provide an interesting little bit of second-hand commentary on culture in general right now. Too much rushing when we "should be having fun".
I think a lot of these life-sim type of games have a fair bit of interesting commentary on our life embedded in them in a similar way. I poked around Kudos for a while in May, and I found it really poignant the way the game presented some of your choices. Like playing games or reading books reducing boredom BUT increasing loneliness for instance. The increased loneliness in turn decreases happiness in general, and seems to have an effect on how your day at work is reported at the end of the day (good day, shitty day etc.)
Sure its an obvious dynamic from a design stand-point when you're dealing with various personal stats reacting to external events, but it is interesting to see the expression of isolation affecting mood and perception of other events displayed in numerical "stat" form. Not to say that I changed my life because of the game, but it did get me thinking about how I myself experience my own life, the choices I make in the activities I pursue and how that in turn affect my experience of life events.
To link this to another recent post, it really was an 'Oh My God' (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2007/06/gamesetq_your_oh_my_god_moment.php) moment for me with a game to have my attention directed so strongly toward my own "self" just through a simple nuance of the game.
Posted by: Daniel | June 22, 2007 1:46 PM
Of course, I gotta jump in on this:
"So - can there ever be a successful Western dating game? Or is it just too niche, too odd, too taboo, and not something people want to be doing on their own, without real people?"
Actually, I'd argue that people enjoy dating sims precisely because they're odd and taboo. The key is in exactly what you highlight-- it is an opportunity to represent yourself as someone else with no repercussions. Why waste that opportunity by middling in the territory of the familiar?
Being too close to mundane also creates a lot of "should I ask my wife if I can play?" Moments. You need some degrees of separation; I think it was a strategic error on the part of Brooktown High to personalize and normalize the experience so much.
Posted by: Leigh | June 22, 2007 6:30 PM
i what to do this because i think it is fun
Posted by: jayde | November 4, 2008 4:58 AM
i really love this game.... can u do one for free on the internet.....
Posted by: kate | December 20, 2009 8:06 PM