Teen Days: A New Concept of Dating Sim
This was my final project for LCC 6215 Games Design as a Cultural Practice (Fall 2004), a design document for a dating sim for girls. Dating sims are a popular game genre in Japan, where they come from; in the rest of the world they appeal to a niche audience, because they are seldom translated from Japanese, and because they can easily be turned into pornographic games. Since the main attraction of the game seems to be displaying images of cute girls, the gameplay has never been the forte of dating sims. Even though they are aimed at male audiences, they are appealing to girls as well because the gameplay revolves around socializing and building relationships, which is not easily found in other game genres.
My intention was proposing a dating sim featuring good gameplay, for a heterosexual female teenage market. Since the size of the project was too big to build a prototype, I presented a design document that included a survey of dating sisms and other relevant games that set significant examples. Then the document outlined the main components of the game, setting, social interactions, minigames, and possible goals, and included mock-ups to give an idea of the visual design.
This document gives a gist of my original idea. I still had not decided whether to design a game or write a paper.
This is the proposal of the game design. At this point, I still thought of a dating sim for both females and males of both sexual orientation.
Phase III (.pdf, 1.48 Mb)
This is the final document, containing a review of relevant games, as well as an extensive description of the game environment and mechanics.
A further elaboration of this document, with more detailed descriptions of every mechanic and how they could be implemented, would make this proposal ready for a pitch.