by redle » Thu, 13Mar28 00:20
There are certainly some pluses and minuses here. As the author says, it's basically a rewrite of the original hhs at this point. From that view point it is a fairly accurate recreation. And, since there have already been any number of comments about what people like about the original (as well as the myriad of offshoots), I'm going to skip over any fanboyish commentary. I generally like what I see, but I'm going to focus mainly on areas I feel should be improved.
The graphics/GUI system are generally nice and intuitive. There are some exceptions, such as the school rules and policies pages. Still, it is certainly a step up from the floating window screens of C#.
The game does suffer from an overabundance of unnecessary and repetitive clicking. On Sundays, why do I need to click on my choices for each time of the day? I only ever had 1 choice for any of the options. It would be much better if every day, whether Sunday or not, this popped up with 3 things already selected (the only options if there is only 1, or my last selected option if more than one). Let me simply click ok to repeat or click on only the option I want to change.
Also, way too many fades: Click, show me the time of day... click, show image... click, time of day... click, imagine... click, etc. The addition of all the fades in and out here only add to the feel of repetition. That's 2 full sets of fading in and out for ever 1 image I get to see. Why not have the time on the main page (which is when I'm interested in knowing the day or time anyway), and skip it on images? I think, ok, start of a new day... what's today? How long before I get another paycheck? Hmmm, no way to find out until after I've made my choices... Dang, by then it will be too late. Ok, made my choices and ready to see today's images. Stupid text screen... get out of my way, I'm looking for the image. Click, oh, wait... I needed to know what day it was.
The reputation thing has already been brought up by others, but it bears repeating. It is the single element of the game that determines if you keep playing or if you hit, game over! Therefore, the player needs to have some control over this. That control should be fairly obvious. While my reputation did occasionally go up, I haven't the slightest idea how I did it. As for going down, the gym can be a big early deathtrap. The gym I have never understood in this game (as in the original). I've been to elementary school gyms, high schools, colleges, professional stadiums, and never, even when going to a new one where I don't know my way around, have I ever found myself in the women's changing room when I thought I would be walking onto the basketball court. I choose, as principal of the school, to go and see how my sports teams or physical education classes are doing, and I find myself in the women's changing room by mistake? It basically means I just need to avoid the gym altogether if I'm trying to build reputation. Make it an event, add a new destination, something...
Continuing on reputation and the whole core of the game, I guess you can view it from two perspectives.
1. I'm a good, honest, typical principal who wants to run the school as it should be run. In this case, you simply wait for money, upgrade when you get it, and events and options never change. You repeat the same scenes over and over again, max all normal stats, keep 'troubling' stats at 0, and carry on day in and day out.
2. I'm trying to corrupt this school (which, lets face it, is the actual point of the game) and fill it with as much sex as I can. In this case, one would assume that there is a way to actually do this successfully. Sure, you can try to force sex on the students too quickly, and on society as well. Your reputation falters and you get fired. But, if you bide your time (or try to see how efficiently and quickly you can accomplish it), eventually you can change the morals and get the corrupt school of your dreams.
Unfortunately, that isn't the case. You can get the school to a corrupt state, but it is never sustainable. As it becomes corrupt, reputation falls. You get fired. Unless you are trying to produce an after school tv drama showing that perspective number 1 is the only choice because 2 will always fail, the game falls apart at this point. Doing like the original, and setting some arbitrary end date and saying, hey, it's corrupt, you win.... isn't really a valid option. Sure, I made it to the randomly selected end date, and the school was corrupt, but I could also see the communities trend to shut me down. It was only going to be a matter of time and things would return to the way they had been, and I would be out of a job or in jail.
Whether I become a ruthless mob boss, such that reputation doesn't matter. No one can shut me down because I have too much power and they fear me. Or I corrupt the community to accept that this is how it should be and my reputation soars as corruption increases. Or I gain so much income and spread so much wealth about the community that my reputation freezes at 50 as everyone chooses to look the other way for their cut. Add your own bs story to completion here...
As for repetition of images and lack of events and such, it's a beta. It's assumed more will be added.
Orbs are a whole book of their own. I'm going to mostly skip them. But I will add, either make them come fairly frequently, so the player is simply deciding which order to spend them rather than how to get them; or make the choice of when and which orb you get clear to the player.