While I was away, Jim sent this to me with a “I think this is one for you” attached. Yes, after Princess Maker, Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble and living opposite a girls’ school in Bath, I’m RPS’ Teenage girl specialist and only a restraining order or chemical castration can stop me. In short, Mean Girls is coming to the PC. How they doing it? It’s Puzzle Quest… but with Lindsay Lohan. Clueless and Pretty In Pink to follow. Blimey.
Why I’m actually half-sold in this conceptually beneath the cut.
Well, it’s because I actually kinda buy into the explanation given to MTV by Legacy Interactive’s Ariella Lehrer, where she claims that while she dug Puzzle Quest abstractly, she couldn’t buy into the setting. Of course, the magic of Puzzle Quest was that it was such an extreme collision of genres it didn’t make any sense. As anyone who’s played it knows, it’s literally a light-weight TBS, but every time a combat would normally have happened, we go to a game of Bejeweled, as if a mischevious programmer had cut and pasted something into the code he shouldn’t. And it shouldn’t work. But it does!
Why not try seeing if the odd closure that linking casual-puzzle games by a narrative allows can work with something even more disparate? Dangerous High School Girls – who I have finished code of, but need to play some more desperately – demonstrated it’s not nearly as strange as you may think. Excuted with wit and charm, this could have… well, wit and charm. Or, at least, be a hilarious oddity, which is good enough for me.
They’re also following it with Clueless as Jojo’s Fashion School and Pretty in Pink as some kind of hidden picture game apparently, both of which sound a lot more limited and less appealing. Clearly pretty in pink should be some kind of graphic adventure where you just have to remember to wear some manner of belt with that dress she makes.
On the bright side, you get to go off with Duckie if you like.
And take it away, Duckie.
For the record, this is a lot like what happens when RPS hits the dancefloor.
What’s a light-weight RPS? Would that be Destructoid?
I believe that’s a classic Kieronism.
Shouldn’t that be lightweight TBS? Nothing moved until you did.
Can I cry now? Or should I shave my beard and then cry?
Basic anatomy-lessons would have done the artist of that top image a world of good. I say this in the assumption that this is from the game, and made by someone who was paid to do it, ofcourse. It’s blatantly traced (poorly).
Aside from that, I really don’t have much of an opinion on the game. I tried, I really did.
I find these girls in the above picture a little scary. I like people with noses and I find the absence of them uncomfortable.
Lets plough.
I’m hanging tight for the Mary Kate and Ashley MMO, to be honest.
Having now seen Kieron dance, I can vouch for that video.
Other things:
That Pretty in Pink is a hidden picture game is tremendously disappointing, but Mean Girls might just work out. They’re missing the potential of these games so much that it’s actually quite heartbreaking, though.
A Mean Girls game using the social anthropology and even the African wild metaphor of the original film would be something quite remarkable, I think.
Ahhh, but you HAD an unlocked copy of DHSGiT, Kieron, for nearly two months. You were warned, but your review copy expired at the beginning of August… Now, you’ll have to come back, begging for a new one. Which is good, because yesterday we released an update.
Just email me, and we’ll get you back into trouble.
I had never realised that Duckie was Watch out from Hot Shots.
I’m not sure.. but I think they’re electrical outlets.. so you could recharge your phone during your date, I guess.
“I had never realised that Duckie was Watch out from Hot Shots.”
Wash Out, actually. I hate that I know that.
no. just no
On Fumarole: Hot Shots is great, don’t feel bad.
On Article: Halla yeah!
Wash Out? Wasn’t the point that he was almost blind?
If it retains the humour of Mean Girls then I’m all for it. We loved that film when we were at Uni.
A Mean Girls Puzzle Quest-’em-up?
That’s so fetch!
In the original ending, she did choose Duckie.
But Molly Ringwald had a word or two to say about that.
Ewwww. Girls. RPS has got gays.
Does anyone remember the last time they saw actual music on MTV? And why are they suddenly getting so many red hot scoops like this?
MTV’s gaming blog is actually not that bad of a read, and they’ve got good game journalists contributing. Rather stay here for the comments and atmosphere, though. Feels more honest here.
“Wash Out? Wasn’t the point that he was almost blind?”
No, it was because he was a wash out. Same joke as Dead Meat, they were playing the Top Gun clichés. The characters are so obvious that even their peers know what’s going to happen, so they gave them their nicknames.
I am not ashamed to know that. Hot Shots was 11 year old Springy’s favourite film.
Er, Puzzle Quest is an RPG. There’s only TBS in it if you consider moving your RPG avatar on a map TBS.
I think calling Puzzle Quest a TBS is justified during combat. Each Match-3 pick or round requires a bit of thought as to how the opponent might exploit your move. That is the fun you’re paying for, in spite of the trite quests and lousy narrative.
Wait… I live opposite a girls school in Bath too. Is it possible I’ve been in close proximity to that beard without realising? Maybe that would explain why I’ve needed to shave twice as often as normal over the last few weeks, it’s influence is compelling…
Mean girls…girl are mean..shit
And they complain men are narrow minded, stereotyping and sexist in their game development…
Describing the combat as TBS doesn’t work in the context of the article, which describes the whole game as TBS and then says the combat swaps in Bejeweled. It’s an RPG with Bejeweled for combat. Yes, the combat is turn-based and mildly strategic, but then so is Bejeweled.