The Approach
After assembling our team of 4 for UCSC's SVC Hacks, we received our theme: connection. We immediately thought of creating a dating sim, as this is a beloved game genre among our team (myself included).
Overall, dating sims are heavily focused on making yourself appealing to others. We initially thought of several ways to make our dating sim distinct, which included: personal growth represented through stat increases, having dating be unlockable by succeeding the friendship phase first, etc. Due to technical and time constraints, we decided to have players befriend each character first before they can choose a character to date, which can be unlocked by passing a short quiz about their character of choice. The correct answers for the quizzes could only be obtained if players responded in a way that helped them connect with the characters and if they paid attention.
We had each dateable character represent a different tenet of healthy relationships: vulnerability, empathy, and self-love. Through interacting with these dateable characters, we wanted our players to learn about these tenets and embody these tenets as well.
Inspiration
I joined the ALT Games (Alternative Learning Technologies and Games) Lab at the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year. The main investigator, Sam Shields, was eager to have me join as Game Writer for an updated version of their project, Academical. As someone who had designed chatbots in the past, I was looking for more opportunities to explore other areas of narrative and conversation design.
Results
Shortly before our submission deadline, we were able to showcase our game at our campus’s Indie Playtest Night, where capstone projects from the Games & Playable Media students and games from indie developers were on display. Our players helped us find potential bugs, and we were able to see what parts of the game resonated with them. Players praised the dialogue and art style, and pointed out errors for us to fix. We were incredibly grateful for the opportunity to showcase our game and for the people who playtested it.
To our delight, we received first place in the games category at SVC Hacks! We also received great feedback from judges, and what we could have implemented to make Coral Campus’s experience better. For example, a dialogue log would have allowed players to read past conversations, and the pacing could have been less abrupt to allow for better storytelling. Our game was praised for its humor, the characters representing relationship tenets, and the overall message of connecting meaningfully. We were happy to see that our game resonated with a variety of people, and that our hard work paid off.
Dive into the world of Coral Campus here!