Friday 6 February 2009

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble

... scandalous trouble!

So, there's this game. It's about high school girls sneaking around, prying into things, finding out secrets, flirting, and who knows what else. It's done in a fantasy 1920's, flappers and old-fashion and all. On a board-game setup. It's won some awards for innovation and writing.

It also has one or two saucy, scandalous elements in it. You'd think a publisher would carefully check a game for any problematic features before releasing it. Wouldn't you?

Alas... There's now a day missing in BigFish's New Releases chart, as all mention of the game has been scrubbed away. Apparently, customers complained. Some complained wildly without having even played the game, simply suspecting that it was up to no good. (The mention of 'bullying' really sets some people off.) Others got far enough into the game for the plot to start getting darker and Freaked Out.

(See, there's a *reason* Fatal Hearts played so carefully with the lesbian angle! It's there, but it's easy to miss if you're not looking for it.)

It can still be obtained on BigFish if you have a direct link to the game page, but I would recommend visiting the developer's site instead.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Really? I'm currently playing through Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble and it doesn't seem that scandalous to me. There's a few tongue-in-cheek moments but nothing I'd get into a flap over - although I am only part way through the game.

I'm guessing the title does lend itself to knee jerk reactions. I think I double-taked on it the first time I read that title on GameTunnel.

Whiner said...

I have only played the early bits of it myself. I've seen the scene that supposedly triggered the final "no, we can't sell this" but I haven't seen it in context, and if you haven't gotten there yet it would be a spoiler to tell you.

From what I can tell, there is at some point a somewhat shocking event which forces the player to figure out how to respond to it. Not a big problem if you're used to dark/dramatic titles, but well out of line with typical BigFishGames content.

Unknown said...

I guess. So far the narrative has been raising the stakes somewhat from act to act, but nothing that crosses the line (well, my line ;). There's been a few eyebrow raising moments but nothing that wasn't worth more than a light chuckle.

However I can see Big Fish's point of view. It's a very, well, indie title, and so may not fit in with their image. But it seemed pretty obvious from a minimal playthough that that was what the game was going to be.

Unknown said...

Ah, I just stumbled upon the scene in question over at IndieGamer. I can see how could cause problems ;). It really needs the context around that screenshot to explain it, I guess (and no, I'm not up to that point yet).