Year: 2024
Duration: 5 weeks
Team size: 3
Role: Main Designer
Description: A short narrative-based game about the elementary school social hierarchy.
The story in depth
This game talks about social hierarchy, how easy it is to fall into the trap of ‘hurting others to get what you want’, and classic school stereotypes.
The story takes place over one school lunch that lasts about 30 minutes.
Story introduction
You are a new kid who recently moved to this area: your mom got a better job opening nearby. You were the popular kid at your first school, the top dog. You knew all the happenings, the people, the behaviours and such. Then you had to move schools. At this new school, you used the same techniques, behaviours and ways of thinking. But this was a new environment. Your techniques didn’t work, your behaviour was so out of place. So, they bullied you. When you fought back however, the bullies changed on you and made sure you were suspended instead. Resulting in you having to change schools. Now you know better. You must be smart to try to become the top dog again. That starts with getting to know who you’re dealing with.
Story progression
The player wants to become popular at their new school. At a certain point they find out that this school has a voting system to become “the lunch queen”. It’s the title given to the student with the best behaviour each month. As it turns out, a certain girl has been getting this crown for over 9 months in a row, and it’s not because she’s the nicest of the bunch. After the player knows this, their entire goal becomes kicking the girl known as Jessica of her throne. To do this, the player needs to lie, steal, and bully the different kids in their class.
In the end, the player manages not to win the crown themselves, but rather sabotage the crown that is placed on Jessica’s head. After that, the player earns the respect of some, while losing it from others.
Was it really worth it?
The process
We started off with a list of scenarios from the book: “The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations” by Georges Polti. From that list we came to one scenario we would like to explore: Self-sacrifice
We brainstormed about different types of self-sacrifice and eventually came to the topic of popularity. What would people do to become or be viewed as popular? What things would you give up to achieve your goal? Your personal belongings, your time, your interests/hobbies, your morals? How far would someone go, given the right motivation?
If given the time, the time in-game would ideally be around three days. Because when talking about social hierarchies and making connections, big changes cannot really occur on such a short notice, even when talking about children.
But since the project duration was so short, and since this is only a prototype, we kept the in-game time to 30 minutes. Not many big changes could be made in that time, but the player would at least have made a start to become the most popular child in their class.