The strange appeal of School-based games

Saved by the bell

When you're the one in School, the only thing you can possible think about is getting the hell out of there as expediently as humanly possible, but the second you're spat out the otherside of education into the harsh and unforgiving world, it is that very comfort of scholastic structure that you find yourself longing for. Which may lead into one of the reasons why so many out there find the school-based style of video game so very appealing to their sensibilities; because it reminds them of a time where it felt like anything was possible and the world was boundless. Both things which, as anyone above school age will tell you, are not preeminent truths of the world. But to the point; isn't it strange that such a theme is present in some of the most popular and/or beloved games of their genre; is there something transcendent, or simply just profound, hidden in the formula of the school system? And no, when I'm talking about this style of game I'm not lauding up games like 'Yandere Simulator', I'm more talking classics like...

Life is Strange. I know I have my issues with DONTNOD and every single one of their games, and the original Life is Strange is no exception to that rule, but I would have to be delusional not to see the profound effect that series has had. Heck, it's got three games and a spin-off related to it's characters; that has to count for something! Only the first Life is Strange, and the spin off, is school based, but it remains a favourite in many people's eyes for it's characterisation of a young girl going through the year of her Art School university whilst struggling with fantastical powers and the doom their coming has hastened. DONTNOD made heavy use of the typical power tropes that arise around School structures in order to explore sensations of being outcasted and popularity dynamics in a lesser sense, and explore relationships and how younger people connect on a deeper, and consequentially more painful, level to one another. I think they didn't really did anything meaningful with that position; but I am in the vast minority, it would seem.

One such game I have a much easier time getting behind is the Rockstar classic Bully, because of course. Bully is a game that takes the typical open world formula of Grand Theft Auto, completing missions across a slowly expanding world as your social prestige and means increase, and shrinks it into a tightly packed town dominated by Bullworth Academy. Here Rockstar explores the tropes of school society again, although through their typical hyper exaggerated lens that blows up this image into school factions defined by their tropey identity, which are toyed about with throughout the narrative as hardcore competitive gangs might in other Rockstar games. Bully painstakingly goes through each aspect of School life to make it work as an open world game, from having a time-table for which ignoring it earns you the ire of School Prefects that will hunt you down as Police would, to attending lessons that present you with minigames which award abilities that upgrade the open world exploration experience for completing them.

Bully presents a fantasy where the player, a delinquent who has been kicked out of every school they've ever been to, is a scrappy underdog in a world of liars and cheats where School is an extension of the hard streets outside. It feeds into that fantasy of school life that some like to indulge in, which mixes the comfort of living in a world of structure with the thrill of being that wrench in the system who stands up to the motes of power and 'breaks the wheel' to quote that one series. There's less an examination of actual School life in Bully, and more a use of it as a blanket on which typical GTA worlds are projected; but given how attractive those worlds of crime already are, the translation prints out perfectly and then some. There's something honestly a little insightful about portraying the social hierarchy of school-life as a literal microcosm of adult society which helps make the Bully package just infectious with it's charm. That's probably why people have been eager for a sequel for so very long now.

But of course, this idea could not exist in my head for a whisper of a second without Persona soon following suit. The ATLUS spin-off from their much more existential JRPG franchise, Persona has blown up into their main money maker on account of the premise and execution being just so darn approachable. You don't have to get into some strange new universe where people have cat ears on their heads, or it's entirely acceptable to have half your body covered in blue paint; instead you're lured into a seemingly normal scholastic world that is slowly turned on it's head by the introduction of over worldly elements in a manner not so dissimilar to the set-up for 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure'. Which is fitting, because apparently Persona was inspired for some of it's choices by the good work of JoJo. Which makes sense; the way these games use Personas is actually quite similar to how Araki uses Stands.

It's the school setting in particular which is perhaps the biggest hallmark of Persona in it's distinction from Shin Megami Tensi; because whereas you can expect your big JRPG battles to play out with the very familiar and fun 'weakness'/'strengths' elemental combat system which ATLUS rock, the downtime for these games are almost just as, if not more, important than the action. You attend school on the daily, plan out your extra-curricular activities, work on building yourself as a person, and grow closer to the community all around you. It's a recipe for self improvement that feels utterly idealised when read out as a laundry list, but when gamified like ATLUS does it, that concept becomes approachable and heartfelt. The terrestrial school-kid setting of Persona humanises the setting and the characters so that they feel real and their struggles become just as real. Identifiability is really the key here.

By and large we keep coming back to this sense of 'grounding' that the school trope brings to the stories it's implemented in. Because attending and learning at school is a sort of experience that most everyone can relate to, and thus requires less of a investment to become attached to. If you want to then use that setting to tell some mundane story about school life or an exaggerated commentary on societal cliques; the way forward has been smoothened by the intrinsic personal connection that the player has immediately established with their setting. Of course with that comes risk, as some people find the setting to be too mundane or pastiche; but for the moment it would appear that the general winds of fandom have blown to favouring these styles of story for the moment; which is why even as companies like ATLUS expand their horizons with other styles of games, it's the tantalizing promise of a Persona 6 which has most of their western fans frothing at the mouth.

There's definitely an art to nailing this style of presentation and a balancing game stringent on the genre you're working with. I happen to think that the Bully version of this trope is perhaps a tad annoying with the whole 'truancy' system, and I think Life is Strange is just generally hammy in most of it's significant direction choices (particularly the supernatural stuff; but Max being a cookie-cutter 'not like the other girls' protagonist didn't help things) and Persona is my Golden boy because of course it is, I love that thing. But everyone who is a fan of school-set games have their own compunction, whether because it reminds them of the structure of school life that they love, or see games as a wish fulfilment for how they wished a personally turbulent part of their lives would have gone; there is something special here for everyone. Unless you hate school-based games and wish ATLUS would spend their efforts on literally anything else. Those people exist too. I see you.

What made Bully Special?

Canis Canem Edit.

Rockstar is a game company with an envious library, storied history and incomparable number of accolades within the gaming world. Time and time again they've managed to wow the gaming world with their unique brand of quality production, biting satire and dry wit that never fails to charm and impress audiences. Throughout the years they managed to release hit after hit with their violent Manhunt and fun Grand Theft Auto games, and even proved themselves capable of telling emotional epics with the Red Dead games, L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3 (I love that game, I don't care what anyone else says.) Although, between all of those blockbusters was one game that, in comparison to the rest of their catalogue, can't help but seem a little out of place. Amidst the bevy of varied tails that ultimately all feature adults murdering each other, came out a game about teenagers and school. This game would go on to become something of cult classic, amassing countless fans and, I can only imagine, a ludicrous amount of requests for a sequel over the years. This game was: Bully.

In 2004, Rockstar had just finished with putting together what many consider to be one of their finest games of all time, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was a kind of game like no other, pushing open world exploration to the scope within which it largely remains to this day and boasting a veritable who's-who of famous faces in the cast list. The folk at Rockstar had the chance to work with such legendary talent as: Samuel. L. Jackson, Chris Penn and Frank Vincent; and had the opportunity to delve into slightly more straight-faced issues as they realized parodies of the Crips vs Bloods and the L.A. Riots. Rockstar's signature goofy antics and over prevailing irreverence still shone through, but the whole product radiated with a different kind of calibre to their previous work. San Andreas had become a gaming cultural icon, even more so then their previous smash hits, and that wasn't something to be taken lightly. Sure, the cost of marketing the game had cost the company their relationship with the biggest gaming trade show of the time, E3, but they were bigger than E3 now, their work had crossed the cultural barrier into the mainstream. (Helped partially by the 'Jack Thompson's of the world.)

Fans old and new were enraptured with the studio and eager to see where they would go in the future, where would the criminal-chronicles of GTA take them to next? Rockstar, however, had a different idea about where to focus their efforts, and started work on a game that almost seemed like a parody of their own work. Instead of telling the story of hardened, cocaine-addled, gangsters in their own version of sun-bleached Miami; Rockstar's next game would shift focus to a reform school in New England. Their typical low-life protagonist would be replaced with a troubled youth on the road to expulsion, and instead of running various illicit money making enterprises, players would be running between classes to get an education. It was like Rockstar took the 'Bugsy Malone' approach to their own formula and came out with a game concept that was even more ludicrous then their usual offerings. Surely there was no way that this, inside joke of a game, would resonate with their fans in the same manner as their bread-and-butter, GTA. And yet, maybe it would amass a whole new type of fan.

As a youngling, Bully was one of my go-to games of the time, (partially because it was the only Rockstar game with a 'Teen' rating) and so I can attest to having raked up countless hundreds of hours with the original PS2 release. Not only that, but I even ended up bagging the Xbox 360 'Scholarship Edition' and the Wii version, (also 'Scholarship') and I have my eye on the PC version too. (Not sure why I haven't already got it, honestly.) So as you can likely deduce, I am a ready-made fan. With that in mind, I am perhaps in the perfect position to go over exactly what it was that made Bully such a special experience and why one should not miss out on this game, even though it is now 13 years old. (Wait. 13 Years!? Oh god- here comes the existential crisis...)

In basic setup, Bully is almost identical to any other GTA game of the 3D era. Players are introduced to the world of Bullworth through a selection of easy-to-forget busybody missions whilst finding themselves barred from the larger world in a move vaguely resembling 'narrative progression. (It wouldn't be until 'GTA: Episodes from Liberty City' that Rockstar got around to ditching that formula, and until GTA V to realize that a chapter's worth of tutorial missions is just a tad too much.) Yet despite this familiarity, the base game of Bully manages to stand out from other Rockstar titles due to two key factors; A. the way that they handle the School setting and B. the faction system. (I'm be talking about B first, because I'm so zany and unpredictable. Woo wee!)

Back in Grand Theft Auto 2, (You know, before the games were 3D) Rockstar toyed with a revolutionary faction system to define mission structure and help flesh-out the retrofuturistic world of 'Anywhere, USA'. (Clearly your 'ideas' guy deserves a raise.) Bully expanded upon that rudimentary faction system into something that colours the entire game and guides the narrative. The whole game revolves around being an out-of-place kid in a school full of cliques; by performing quests and tasks for folk, Jimmy can help to befriend factions that would otherwise kick his face in without a second look. Really work on these groups and you'll be able to call upon the aid of the scrawny Nerds to go up against the jacked Jocks. (Not the most even match-up in hindsight.) This simple mechanic helped differentiate Bully from any other Open world game of the age, as players would find that their possible interactions with the world would dynamically change as the story progressed. This helped instill a real sense of consequence that was somewhat missing from earlier GTA titles. (Consequently, Bully is one of the very few open world Rockstar titles that I continued to play after the credits.)

Bullworth Academy is a very different kettle of fish to other Rockstar worlds, as it is one that runs on strict rules with even stricter punishments. Protagonist Jimmy is expected to attend class, get home before curfew, stay out of the girls dormitories, oh, and try not to beat other students to a bloody pulp on no provocation. Failure to heed these rules did not end in being chased by police (Unless you commit said crimes outside the School in later chapters) but rather being hunted by prefects who, in a shocking show of power, are apparently completely allowed to face slam you to the floor for bumping into a child. (It's not excessive force if they don't have a badge!) Being a student myself when I first played this game, I certainly related with the rigid structure of school life (albeit, without all the constant rule-breaking) and found myself compelled to immerse into Jimmy's world. Something that would take an active effort on my part for any of the GTA games.

Together these factors laid the groundwork for a truly different type of Rockstar game, whilst still ultimately familiar. It was like jumping into a brand new book series after you'd watched the Netflix adaptation, people knew the basics but there was so much more to comb through. For my part, I loved the light 'RPG' mechanics in the game wherein Jimmy Hopkins can improve his skills by attending class or hunting down specific collectibles. It truly helped to paint the feeling of gameplay progression as you steadily became able to fight with more elaborate combos or craft more prank tools at your chemistry set. Somehow this felt more meaningful then gathering a cadre of guns and properties, you were actually working on bettering yourself. (Wow, that sounded cheesy.)

The main cast of Bully are much what you would expect from a Rockstar game. You've got your no-nonsense bad apple protagonist, Jimmy, (I guess there's some 'good' in there somewhere if we're being liberal with our use of that word) the dirt-eating guide character who is so ready to betray you for no real reason that it's not even funny, Gary (Who I swear to god is a younger Ocelot from 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater') and a whole cast of colourful side characters to propel your character along. That last group are really the one's who shine in the game, as Rockstar found a way to make them mostly unique and memorable whilst still revolving around the typical school archetypes of Nerds, Bullies, Preppies, Greaser, Jocks and Townies.

From a narrative perspective, there is nothing particularly special about Bully beyond the way that it manages to take an atypical Rockstar 'Revenge'/'Take over the city' plot and transpose it to the world of school life. You'll find the odd moments and character motivations that spring out of nowhere, but the heart of the story still shines through and nothing is truly awfully written, in fact, I'm not sure whether or not the Housers are even capable of truly bad writing. Critiques aside, the journey of Jimmy is simple and fun enough for me to have replayed it several times, and I particularly like how climatic the final chapter gets. (Call it average, all and all.)

Bullworth Academy and Town are some of the real stars of the show as, for the first time that I can remember, we got to see the world builders at Rockstar put all of their talent into bringing to life a relatively small world space. (Especially when compared to their last open world; the entirety of San Andreas.) What results is a world space that is full of variety, charm and detail in it's every crack that I could give a semi-reliable tour of the place even now. (I often argue that a memorable game world is a darn good one.) You have the sprawling grounds of the Academy to roam, the high streets in town, the Fun Fair by the cape, the trashy residentals on the second landmass, the trailer park on the third, the Asylum and the industrial district. All of these distinct areas are memorable and feature at least one cool mission on their premises (with an exception to the trailer park, for which I cannot recall a single mission.) There were fighting missions, tailing missions, chasing mission, mini-game missions, and even one significant stealth/infiltration mission. (There's a game after my own heart!)

When presented with the query: What made Bully so special? I think that the answer would have to be the extent to which the setting, world and characters were oh, so relateable. Previous Rockstar games have been set all over America and parodied all walks of life, every one of them recognizable but not all of them familiar, especially not for a non-American. Los Santos' Vinewood would resonate a lot more with LA locals than a Londoner and Miami residents probably got a bigger kick out of Vice City than anyone else. Although they were both undeniably great games, something about that disconnect made it just that little bit harder to absorb oneself into the world. Bully managed to overcome that drawback with it's rural 'anytown' setting, everyday school aesthetic; and, even though the typical 'media blogger' may draw issue from it, the humorous stereotypical residents. Bully did just enough to differentiate itself from Grand Theft Auto in a positive way, whilst still retaining all the things that we love about those games. Just writing this blog had made me incredibly nostalgic for the old game, likely due to that unshakable droning theme which I've now got stuck in your head as well as my own. Too bad that, if rumors out of Rockstar are to be believed, all plans on a potential sequel have been dead in the water for several years now. But we never know what the future might hold for the quaint town of Bullworth...

Video Game jobs

Workung 9 to 5, what a way to make a living!

In the world of fictional story telling, we are all ruled by our desires to be something extraordinary. Whether that be a particularly skillful individual or particularly lucky one, a great many of wish to shirk our more mundane daily duties and embark on some epic, life-changing adventure. In particular, one thing that none of us want to deal with is the responsibility and effort that comes with a soul-crushing nowhere job. (Unless you're one of the lucky ones doing what they love. In which case, god speed to you good sir.) With that in mind, isn't it a little bit funny when those power-fantasy driven video games that we play enforce some dull job upon us?

I'm not talking about being tricked into doing various repetitive task, or rather not just that, I mean the times in which the developers thought it apropos to simulate a real-life job within their world and have players slog through it. Of course, some games are built around such a premise and those I take no issue with. Classic video game 'Paper Boy', for example, has players simulate the life of a bicycle-bound newspaper delivery boy who has the worrying tendency to smash the front windows of everyone too cheap to subscribe to his service. (Sounds like this kid has a future in the Mafia.) Other games, however, are clearly focused around other endeavours and yet take time out of their 'save the world' schedule to have you waste time in exchange for chump change.

One set of games which made an absolute habit out of this practice throughout it's entire main-lineup is the Fable series. These games are based around the well-worn concept of a born hero struggling to save the, very English, kingdom of Albion from the baddie of the week. Of course, such campaigns are hardly cheap for an aspiring hero. One needs to keep themselves flush with a stead supply of healing potions, new armours and weapons, and the latest fashionable haircut (and I'm just listing the essentials) none of which is handed to the player for free. Thus, in every game there comes a time wherein the hero must take to the streets and perform 'jobs' in order to fund their adventures, at least until they can get into more profitable endeavours. (Like real estate. I'm serious.) In Fable 3 your Hero is given the choice of being a blacksmith (fitting enough), Lute player (okay...), and Pie Maker. (How many pies does this society realistically need?) Not only is this the best way to raise income in the early game, but it is the most direct source of capital for the late game too, meaning that even once the Hero raises to the highest office of the land, (as they do in every game) the citizens of Albion can still enjoy the presence of their reigning monarch at the local pie stand.

Another title that approaches the concept of 'jobs' in a manner that is a little more fitting, would be American highschool simulator; Bully. Just as with most Rockstar games, Bully is full of side activities for the player to embark on to various ends; some confer respect with particular factions, most award some sort of collectible upon their completion and a few give cold hard cash. But unlike other Rockstar games, In Bully the protagonist is a highschool kid, meaning that the side jobs available to him are suitably- part time. In Bully, players are given the choice to join a paper route in order to make some extra pocket money, or take to mowing lawns to get what they need. Both tasks are as tedious as they sound but offer enough consistent cash to make them worthwhile pass-times. Plus, unlike in real life, you rarely have to wait for new cash-in-hand opportunities as the grass seems to magically grow the second before you go to cut it. Bully is kind enough to award money for completing quests too, meaning that one isn't forced to subject Jimmy Hopkins to such vivid glimpses of his future careers if they don't want to. (Choice is nice.)

Looking towards other Rockstar games, The Grand Theft Auto franchise is full of side jobs throughout their titles. (Especially in the 3D era) In 3, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and both Vice cities, you can assume the role of a taxi driver in a makeshift version of 'Crazy Taxi'; San Andreas and Vice City both have prominent meta game threads whereupon you run a chop shop in order to be rewarded with unique vehicles and one can even find a rare job in Los Santos wherein you become a part-time pimp. (Okay, that might just be exact clone of the Taxi mini-game in a different vehicle but I'll count it.) In the same vein, the Saints Row series also had a decent number of jobs for the player to partake in, although the tended to get more outlandish as the games did. In Saints Row 2 you could become a reality TV cop or a Demolition derby driver, whilst in Saint Row 4 you ended up trafficking weapons and starring in a murderous version of Takeshi's Castle.

Seeing as how things are threatening to get a little too exciting, let's tone things down to the most sedate level possible; namely, the jobs of Skyrim. As this is a title that take place in a fictionalized version of the dark ages, it is only fitting for the daily life of Tamriel to reflect that- simpler time. And, as this franchise is a lot more poe-faced than Fable, that means you won't be getting any 'guitar hero' style lute mini games. (Maybe in TES6.) In Skyrim, one can make an honest living by partaking in three peaceful job opportunities, lumberjack, miner and farm hand. All of these activities are mostly automated and just require the player to have the right tool for the job, (Except for farming, in which there is no requirement) and they are all excessively boring for a player to partake in. Whatsmore, the 'living' you make from these jobs is hardly enough to keep fed all day, let alone support you throughout the game. This is a key example of a video game job that literally exists for nothing more than role play potential.

Okay, this next topic may not have a one-to-one comparison to a real job, but it's still a game concept formed around the work of manual labour, so I'd be remiss to disclude Death Stranding from my list. In Kojima's latest art-house thriller,(?) the protagonist is thrown into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world in which his assigned task is the transporting of key materials all across America. (Think U-haul, only without the trucks.) This mean that aside from all of the weird supernatural goings on and bigger than life characters, the meat of the gameplay is essentially just the act of walking from one point to another for hours on end. In that way, Death Stranding does truly capture the tedium of cross-country courier work. (I assume Couriers have to fight off bandits and other worldly ink monsters too.)

There is one game out there that is notable for the way how it features 'going to work' as one of the key game play features. It simulates finding a job, keeping a job, and trying to keep your sanity in the moments in between. And no, it's not some psychological horror game, (Although that description I just made up did sound like a cool indie title)I'm talking about 'The Sims'. As a game that attempts to simulate the going-ons of everyday life, to varying levels of success, it only makes sense that the working life is represented within the gameplay. Throughout the years Maxis have adapted the way that they've presented jobs, but since Sims 3 they seemed to have hit a sweet spot between having players act out some jobs and having them plain disappear for 8 hours for others. (That's how you tell the difference between boring jobs and jobs so boring that game developers can't even figure how to pretend it's fun.)

At the end of the day the inclusion of real life jobs in video games can seem perfunctory, but I like to see the situation as one of perspective. In these adventures wherein the lionshare of time is spent robbing banks or fighting dragons, it's nice to take a step back now and then and appreciate the slower moments. (Even if your appreciation is marred by the fact that your character is currently partaking in back breaking labour.) At that point is because a question of pacing, which I think is a discussion that is very unique within the world of games compared to other forms of creative media. Although I will say, at least one of the jobs I mentioned today does very little to calm my nerves and instead invokes vivid spikes of hypertension akin to PTSD. But that's just me.