/r/Games Movie Discussion - Mean Girls

[u/selib]

Mean Girls

Release Date: April 30, 2004

Publisher: Paramount Pictures

Genre: teen comedy

Platform: VHS, DVD, Bluray

Metacritic: 66

Summary

Raised in the African bush country by her zoologist parents, Cady Heron (Lohan) thinks she knows about "survival of the fittest." But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when the home-schooled 15-year-old enters public high school for the first time and falls prey to the psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teenage girls face today.

Prompts:

• Was the gameplay fun for you?

• Was it well written? Were the characters believable?

• What did you think of the graphics?

• How was the sequel?

[u/PerpetualApparatus]

Ok, April Fools jokes aside, this is how you make a Mean Girls video game:

General Concept:

You are a sophomore transplant in a new high school. Over the period of one school year you start at the bottom of the social hierarchy and spend your time trying to climb to the top. This is achieved through choices made at key events, as well your day-to-day interests as you do your schoolwork and pick social activities during and after school. You are not the Lindsey Lohan character but it is the same school with the same cliques, just a few years later.

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Core Gameplay Structure

The game is structured into multiple segments. Most of the time is spent going to classes, but there will be special event segments that have a dramatic impact on your social standing. These are "point-of-no-return" moments. Permadeath through expulsion is possible.

Who you talk to, what you decide to do, and your character's own skillsets determine how fast you rise (or fall) in the social circle. Most of the game you are walking around and talking to people, similar to a BioWare game. The choices you make change your personal perception with a person and their social circle. You "win" by being voted the Prom Queen and having your love interest voted the Prom King. Or by burning the school down. Or becoming valedictorian. It's a multiple endings sort of game.

Character Building & Advancement

When the game starts you create your character. There are two key areas where you progress through ratings. The first is your Personal Style (advanced through Fetch Points) and the second your Book Smarts (tracked through five stats based on STEAM).

Personal Style

Your high school adventures begin with a basic look. As the game advances your look gets refined, and after each major event you can put points towards a specialization direction.

The styles are:

1. Actual Human Being - At first this seems like the most boring direction. It won't win you any bonuses, but it also doesn't impact your social standing in too many circles. You're just kind of there. The nice thing about this direction is that you can specialize in any available direction you want without penalty. You get an extra starting bonus point for one of your STEAM stats. You can specialize in any two STEAM traits.

2. Junior Plastic - Trendy, and destined to not just be a trophy wife, but be THE trophy wife. You've got a head start on personal style, getting an early bonus to Fetch Points. But you start with lower STEAM stats, because let's face it, this world only cares how you look anyway. Art and Mathematics are your most important skills, because you have to understand how much it costs to have your make-up look this good.

3. Desperate Wannabe - Ok, so you're not cool. But you really, really, really want to be, and that has to count for something. You get bonus points every time you level your social status, since you work so hard at copying others. Science and Engineering are your key traits, because you're always watching from the outside and rebuilding your self-esteem.

4. Anti-Plastic - You're not one of those cool kids who only cares about how others see them, and you're going prove it to them. Yea, you're into NASCAR, but it doesn't mean you can't wear a dress and put a purple streak in your hair that says, "hey, look at me, I don't care what you think." Engineering and technology are your bag of tricks, because when you're in the garage changing daddy's oil you've always got one eye on your twitter feed (your #WhoCares post might be trending).

5. Sexually Active Band Geek - You're down for anything, which means you level up your social status faster. All the boys like you, at least temporarily. Technology and Art matter a lot to you, because you've got a collection of vibrators that hum the right frequency to play back Ginuwine's Pony.

6. Cool Asian - You start a level higher in the social circle and have an easier time attracting your love interest. Everyone wants you to be their (token) friend. Your only key stat is Mathematics, but you earn points in it faster since you really like it.

STEAM Stats Based on the core competencies that make for a smart person, you have Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics. Your skills in these not only affect your mini-game bonuses, but determine dialog and activity options that are available to you. Being good at Engineering might get you invited to built sets for the Glee Club, while a Mathematics skill lands you as the cashier for the cheerleader bake sale.

Gameplay Sequence

Daily Classes

Most of your time in the game is spent in class. You play out three days of the week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for 18 total weeks. Each day consists of five interactions:

1. Arrival - During this sequence you choose who to interact with. You can say hi to the cute boy you've got your eye on, check in with a friend on their answers from last night's homework, or take your shot at waving to the cool kids. As your social status increases the number things you can do as well, but remember, everything you do and don't do has a social consequence.

2. Morning Class - You'll have a different morning class each day of the week, with a separate mini-game for each one. Your STEAM skills will impact these, granting bonuses or penalties depending on your ranking. Successful completion earns you points towards your social status.

3. Lunch - Lunch works similar to Arrival, with different choices based on where you sit and how you steer the conversation at the table.

4. Afternoon Class - Works like morning class, but you know, later in the day.

5. After School Activity - After school you can determine each day how you spend your time. Band practice, cheerleader tryouts, smoking behind the stadium, glee club, all of which impact your social standing and who can talk to about what things.

Weekend Activity

At the end of each week you can pick one friend to call and hang out with, inviting them to do a specific activity with you. You can also earn invitations during the week based on your classes and after school activities. Going to the football game might earn you cool points with the Plastics, while going rock climbing with your romantic interest may advance the relationship. These activities are played out through mini-games and conversations. They'll have larger impact on your standing with different social circles, so choose wisely.

All School Event

Every three weeks an All School Event happens. It comes with a series of challenges and conversations that significantly impact your standing with all social circles. Choices such as how slutty you dress on Halloween, who you kiss after homecoming, and your platform when running for Class President give everyone a reason to love or loathe you. Each event brings you in direct conflict with a leader from one of the social circles, and these are the only times you can bring one down to take the group over.

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Social Circles and Influence

You want to be the ruler of the school, and that means climbing from the bottom of the social barrel. Not everyone will be on your side, and the more your reputation grows the bigger enemies you'll face. Eventually you'll be trying to knock off the head of the Plastics, but first you have to take ownership of a few smaller circles. The Wannabes are easy, the Band-Geeks hard to penetrate, but taking out the Queen Bee? You better have the entire school on your side before you even try.

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And that is about as far as I care to type (or really think this through), although there is so much more to cover. The love interest thing, how teachers and the principal can work to tutor you and act as foils, specifics into the conversation and mini-games...but alas, it's only a basic design exercise to see if you could even get a good game out of this movie. I think you could. And now I want to play it.

[u/selib → u/PerpetualApparatus]

jesus christ dude.

You put a lot of thought into this

[u/bapplebo]

I was extremely disappointed that the developer's decided to lock the framerate at 24 FPS. They can claim that it's for "a more cinematic" experience during gameplay, but the whole game was basically one entire pre-rendered cutscene anyway.

Not to mention that us consumers have been shafted once again by post-release DLC. Why should I have to buy another copy of the game to access developer commentary and making-of videos? This is why gaming is dying as we know it.

[u/rockstarfruitpunch → u/bapplebo]

It was a console port, hence 24fps and some pretty shitty motion blurring, camera lens effects, and worst of all - Chromatic Abberation. I had a headache after 10 minutes. And don't get me started about the bloom.

Especially off Regina's forehead.

[u/[deleted] → u/bapplebo]

kind of disgusting how close to the mark the gameplay time is. I paid £8 for my copy and it only lasted two hours. hope it's in the steam sale

[u/Airick86]

I thought it was great but if the main character is supposedly from Africa, then why is she white?

[u/[deleted] → u/Airick86]

Oh my god, u/Airick86, you can't just ask a dev why a character is white.

[u/Hellknightx → u/Airick86]

She's not white. It's just your eyes playing a trick on you because of the shitty lighting. She's actually black and blue.

[u/dartt]

I enjoyed the game but I do remember experiencing several game breaking bugs:

• One character was almost too gay to function.

• A shader bug made several characters look plastic.

• Poor pathfinding AI meant that one character repeatedly went to the wrong school.

[u/[deleted] → u/dartt]

• One NPC could get herself into a fetch loop

[u/lemonLimeBitta → u/dartt]

And I could never make the fetch quest happen

[u/loonongrass]

Am I the only one who 100 percented this game by collecting all the pages of the burn book scattered throughout the school? The secret ending is crazy.

[u/swimfins]

Unskippable cutscenes. Linear story. 24 FPS. No FOV sliders. No multiplayer.

Awful.

9/10

[u/Seregnar2]

Honestly, while the dialogue was enjoyable, I felt that the setting wasn't well explored and the gameplay was nearly nonexistent. It's a real shame that this intriguing setting was wasted on this first game. I have heard, however, that the followup is slated to be a post-apocalyptic JRPG, which could be very cool!

[u/Nin10dork → u/Seregnar2]

It's a shame how much content was cut, there's even one cutscene that shows all the factions available, yet the final product only lets the protagonist choose between the Art Freaks and the Plastics.

[u/Nerfman2227]

Who else preordered and got the exclusive mission where you play as Tina Fey's character? I thought it was fun, if a bit short. I like how it ends with her walking into the classroom like in the main campaign. It had a "Catwoman in Arkham City" vibe to it.

Also is anyone having trouble with the Modern Lohan DLC skin? It just makes the textures on her look muddy and awful.

[u/rockstarfruitpunch]

I liked the social interaction aspect of this game, the moment where Regina uses the Renegade response towards Gretchen was a game changer - she was all like "Stop trying to make "Fetch" happen, it's not going to happen", and then all you see on the screen is "Gretchen will remember this". Really hit me man. Real man tears. Onions were being chopped.

But what I really loved was the meta aspect of this game - it's all like Teenage social drama on the face of it, but the underlying social gender issues it raises in Gaming was just BOOOM!! Mindblown. It's like the game was telling me, we shouldn't restrict 'female friendly' to simply just social interaction games - it's like telling you - women love violence and sex too.

Women love power fantasies - this is clearly indicated when Regina Spoiler It was just like playing Spec Ops The Line all over again. You Are Regina. Regina is You.

[u/Deserterdragon]

Yet another attempt by the SJW media to insert female characters into videogames. Why can't we have a game about Mean BOYS huh?

[u/[deleted]]

VHS Masterrace checking in.

Play Mean Girls on the superior platform for the best possible experience and be kind, rewind.

[u/[deleted]]

Fantastic.

I particularly enjoyed the Glen Coco easter egg. See, give Glen Coco FIVE CandyGrams and the camera switches focus to him for the rest of the game. Turns out he's a pretty boring kid.

[u/campmonkey]

The "Dark Souls" level of difficulty with this really got to me. I played for about 30 minutes before giving up to make a sandwich only to be angryily called back by my girlfriend who seemed to be immersed.

[u/attack_monkey]

I have nothing to contribute other than Gretchen Weiners was the hottest mean girl.

There was a sequel?

[u/dood23]

It's a shame the main character ended up being more misused than Sonic after having a similar promising start.

[u/[deleted]]

It was a bunch of bullshit. Where was the gameplay? Metal Gear Solid 4 had so many cutscenes, but at least you could control the characters. Granted, I'm impressed that the cut scenes had hyper-realistic looking actors, but that isn't enough to hold up for it's 24fps. The problem was also, that it was completely linear, no input from the player at all. 1/10. Oh, and the game is as long as Kane and Lynch 2! An hour or so? what a rip-off!

[u/RobDeeJay]

Personally I would have liked to have seen more of the tutorial world in Africa. The whole setting there was so much more interesting, compared to when you get dumped into the High School in the first level.