Sweet Sixteen Years Of Surviving High School

Good afternoon, students! Since the mid-2000s, a fanbase that consisted of casual teenaged players were infatuated with making decisions for a young protagonist throughout a storyline set in a North American high school [44] [56]. Since many of us have found our high school years tough at times, the developers sure did not call the game “Surviving High School” for no reason. Although it is important to make the premise relatable to provide engaging plots, it is also important to ensure that the gameplay is casual yet encouraging with simplicity and some control of how a story goes. Get your books out ready for your history lesson, students! Not only we are going to wish Surviving High School a happy sweet sixteenth anniversary [20], we will also see how it has evolved throughout the years. As much as the new upcoming colour for the Nintendo Switch Lite is a shade of indigo that briefly reminds plenty of 2000s kids of the Nintendo Gamecube and one of the first Game Boy Advance models that shares its colour scheme [39] [40] [41] [57] [70], this trip through Memory Lane will be sure to remind you of every era of Surviving High School.

Any disruption during this lesson will result in detention! You have been warned! [59]

It all began in a mobile phone game that was developed by Centerscore back in Spring 2005 [46]. Often weekly, a new episode would be released for players to be invested in, making the experience of playing the game every week feel quite like watching a new episode of a drama series on television every week. The huge difference was allowing the audience to decide what will be said next. The visual novel series then progressed in the late 2000s with the instalments of Surviving High School ‘07 and Surviving High School ’08 [44] [56]. High school scenarios may be clichéd and predictable, but they can still appeal to teenaged players to an extent as these clichés at least make the young characters quite relatable and fairly realistic. Furthermore, the way the storylines managed to be quite engaging and relatable for a teenaged audience made the games successful. I am pretty sure some of us miss the feeling of pressing the arrow buttons on a flip phone or a slide phone sometimes, including simmers who remember The Sims 2 being mobilised in either a connected version or unconnected version [66]. Nevertheless, I am sure we prefer playing mobile games on touchscreens these days.

At times, choosing what a protagonist would say next would be within some form of challenge, like trying to answer a math question correctly. As you can see, the overall experience would have been appealing to casual gamers who are into romance and drama set in a high school in fiction. [24]

I know that there would often be a few stereotypes in a high school scenario, but a sign of good writing would be knowing how to portray them well. [56]

The game and its premise progressed into an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch in 2009 with updated visuals for further improvement and appeal to a new teenaged audience [19] [46] [61]. It was also available for DSiWare in 2010, appealing to some Nintendo nerds who are into fictional high school scenarios [41]. Another notable example of the series progressing in the early 2010s was Surviving High School 11, a chapter of the franchise for mobile devices [22] [35] [67]. The premise received a reboot in about 2012 after the app was available for the iPad and Android devices in 2011 [4] [19] [20] [59]. Both timelines were set in a fictional high school known as “Twin Branches High” [19] [61] [62]. In 2014, it was announced that the series would be retired after a series finale [60], possibly in favour of focusing on another app set in a high school. It is quite a shame that there was never some kind of British equivalent of Surviving High School that featured students in school uniforms to be more relatable to British teenaged players, but who knows? A brand new era might establish such a concept brought into action, but there will be some explanation for that later.

Surviving High School 11 was pretty much me in 2011. [67]

Aside from how I remember trying out the version of Surviving High School for smartphones and tablets just before it was retired [19], I quite like how all three ports of it featured a few minigames to provide some gameplay variety that prevents the progress of going through a story from going stale and maintain casual for its prime target audience [4]. [60]

In 2013, High School Story was released for mobile devices [48] [50]. I remember playing the heck out of the app on my iPad and adoring it about a year later. I loved building my own high school and secretly wished it were the school I went to as a teenager. The premise of the game was basically building a high school, like how I could build your own Ponyville in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic app when I was in college [23]. It was heartwarming how the game’s first storyline is centred around how to deal with bullying in association with the Cybersmile Foundation as the character Autumn from the reboot of Surviving High School makes an appearance to help another character named Hope who was cyberbullied [1] [48] [58]. Another character from the reboot of Surviving High School who also appeared in High School Story is Wes [63]. New characters in the app include:

• Payton, a prep [1]
• Mia, a cheerleader [48]
• Julian, a jock [48]
• Koh, a rebel [48]

The crossover they had with Monster High in 2015 was clawsome [29] [48]! In Summer 2018, Pixelberry Studios decided that it would be time to release a final update for the app and focus more on a next chapter that will be discussed later [50].

The things I loved about playing High School Story were how the students were customisable, the kinds of traits they had depending on the clique they were part of and how they could be paired up on dates or break up all based on the player’s choices [47] [48]. [Williams, 2014]

I admire the writers of High School Story for carefully handling real-life issues, such as sexism in gaming and eating disorders in a mature and compassionate manner [48] [50]. The crossover with Monster High was fitting as there were two webisodes based on the series of doll lines associated with an organisation that deals with a specific teen issue, such as low self-esteem and learning to not take anger and insecurities out on people [36] [37]. [47]

In late 2014, a spin-off of High School Story by the name of “Hollywood U: Rising Stars” was released and strutted its stunning aspects of being any kind of celebrity in the same engine [52] [53]. In the game, you could build on your Hollywood-themed university, like how you would build your own Springfield in The Simpsons: Tapped Out [21]. Lisa Valentine’s portrayal was a parody of how Miley Cyrus went for a more adult-oriented chapter of her career in 2013 [3] [34]. Crash Yamaguchi was known as the reckless but friendly stunt guy [26] [31] [53]. Quite fittingly, Hollywood U was known to consist of more mature matters at times, compared to High School Story [48] [53]. There was even a crossover with the students from High School Story in the app back in 2015 [33]. The same applied to a quest in High School Story with the stars from Hollywood U, making it two crossover promotions for the price of one [26]. Since about mid-2017, there has not been a new update for the app due to the retirement of High School Story. Nevertheless, both games are still available on the App Store to this day [49] [54]. There may be a way to make their premise relevant again soon that will be explained later.

Just like in High School Story, the playable characters in Hollywood U could be customised and go on dates to form a relationship [48] [53]. How bringing two different cliques to a party resulted in a new character after a specific amount of time in both games was like how bringing two fish to mate resulted in a specific appearance of their egg in Fish With Attitude [25] [53]. [54]

And let us not forget about the workshop that helps students of the university level up, along with the A-listers [53]! [Williams, 2014]

Pixelberry Studios may have partially retired High School Story [50], but we still got the see its main characters in brand new designs in Choices: Stories You Play, a storytelling app that lets the player choose how each story goes [46] [51] [58]. The faces and the anatomy of each character from High School Story are more realistic to match the art style of the rest of the stories in the app [5] [6] [7] [51]. The first book was released in September 2017, beginning a new era of High School Story as a sequel that is set two years after the events of the app [5]. Later that year, some characters from Hollywood U: Rising Stars, including Ethan Blake and Crash Yamaguchi made an appearance in “Red Carpet Diaries” [32]. Furthermore, the Red Carpet Diaries books were established in the late 2010s as visual novel adaptions of Hollywood U [12] [13] [14]. As for the other High School Story books, the characters from the High School Story game all graduate at the end of the third book [7]. I would say the High School Story books in Choices were all part of a spiritual successor to the Surviving High School series and its reboot, not just a visual novel adaption of High School Story.

Choices: Stories You Play features quite a big variety of different premises for the player to voyage through, including a sequel to High School Story that serves as a spiritual successor to the Surviving High School series that lasted from 2005 to 2014 [5] [6] [7]. [5]

Let us not forget about the brand new characters in the spiritual successor who make the setting fresher. [9]

The High School Story series in Choices was expanded with the “Class Act” series from late 2018 to early 2020 as a soft reboot, similar to how Surviving High School was rebooted back in 2012 [8] [9] [10] [59]. To enhance the faithfulness to the success of High School Story even further, the app’s theme song sung by Laura Shigihara was featured in the books in both trilogies [55]. Although both the High School Story trilogies in Choices are fascinating to those who cherished the times they had whilst playing the High School Story app back in the mid-2010s [48] [49], some fans of Choices may prefer The Freshmen and The Sophomore, the original stories that take place in a college campus [15] [16]. Moreover, there ought to be a British equivalent of Surviving High School or High School Story that is set in a high school in England with the students in uniforms to make the app a little more relatable to British high school students. Remember the uniform Lacey from Athena Academy wore during the run of High School Story [28]? On the other hand, I think there can be an official sequel or soft reboot of that app heavily based on the Class Act series in the future of mobile gaming [8] [9] [10].

It would make sense to feature many aspects of the Class Act trilogy in a rather unexpected sequel to the High School Story game to introduce its legacy to new and younger mobile gamers at some point in the 2020s. [10]

Oh! And please do not forget to allow same-sex dating in honour of supporting LGBT rights [48] [53]! [13]

It is quite wholesome to celebrate the sweet sixteenth anniversary of Surviving High School, just like how many fellow animal crossers celebrated the first anniversary of Animal Crossing: New Horizons about a month ago [38] [43]. We also ought to wish Club Penguin a sweet sixteenth anniversary later this year too [17]. Besides, the school that was referred to as “Club Penguin University” was introduced back in 2013 [18]. I would be delighted to be an official sequel to or soft reboot of the High School Story app [68], like how there will be an official sequel to My Talking Angela this Summer after its soft launch [64] [65] [71] [72]. If such a concept will be brought into action for good old mid-2010s time’s sake, then High School Story 2 ought to consist of familiar elements that made its predecessor successful but also have some new aspects to stay fresh for new teenaged players. Even though it has been over a year since the United Kingdom went into lockdown [2], I am more than happy to keep following my passion for writing, including a hobby in video game journalism I have first developed back in late 2017 [69]. There goes the bell! Off to recess you go! Do not forget to do some revision on the subject tonight.

A sequel to High School Story should be as honourable as My Talking Angela 2 seems to be just by what has been revealed in its trailer [65] [71] [72]. As previously stated, I believe its premise can be a soft reboot of the predecessor loosely based on the events of the Class Act series from Choices: Stories You Play [8] [9] [10]. Perhaps Kimi Chen and Owen Harris can be once again featured as references to Surviving High School [27] [30]. The same idea can apply to a sequel to Hollywood U that could be titled “Hollywood U: Red Carpet Stories”. [Williams, 2014]

Although the idea of a sequel to the High School Story game with even more customisation and new stories that handle real-life issues respectfully and accurately would be amazing, a sudden revival of the Surviving High School series ought to be yet another soft reboot for a new crowd of young mobile gamers. Class dismissed! [61]

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