Depictions of College/University life

[WuzzyFuzzy]

Although it's been a really long time since I attended college/university, what I see here in these games is nothing like I remember. They all seem to be extensions of high school, full of sophomoric silliness and petty arguments.

For my undergrad I was in a school of 30k+ students. A professor, especially of entry level subjects could care less if one attended class. There were no lockers as one might have classes in several different buildings that were blocks apart. There were no "principals", only deans, which would have taken an act of congress to ever see. We met other students in class (maybe), frats or sororities (if one was snobbishly inclined), but mostly in clubs/bars. If you lived on campus you could meet others of the same gender as there were no coed dorms at that time. In my case, I lived in an apartment. Went to school, worked a little, partied a little, went back home.

My graduate degree was at a smaller college, but even then we went to school, then left. Studied and studied some more.

But in all my six years, no fights, no yelling in the halls, no gangs, no cliques.

Mostly I am curious as to why many of these devs seem to be pandering to high school aged folks. It seems to be they are not the ones with the credit cards. Why not create stories with more realistic backdrops?

 

[Carrera]

It's probably because the people who write these games didn't attend college themselves, and if they did it was probably a junior college. At most, they've probably watched some 80s titty comedy movie depictions of college life like Revenge of the Nerds.

I actually dropped out about 6 months in myself and I never experienced anything other than eat, sleep (rarely), study and go to class. Might've changed if I had joined a sorority or whatever but that was a clique I couldn't tolerate.

Don't think I ever saw anyone from college outside of college except for maybe in passing.

 

[Veileos]

Because what you described sounds pretty boring honestly and not many people want to read about the average experience. Devs ramp up the drama so players have something to read about.

 

[Carrera]

Because what you described sounds pretty boring honestly and not many people want to read about the average experience. Devs ramp up the drama so players have something to read about.

That's true, it was/is boring, but it doesn't change the point the OP was making. YOu can still increase the "drama" but not make it a highschool experience. (probably a better way to say it, but the brain ain't workin' at the moment.)

 

[Meaning Less]

frats or sororities

The whole concept of frats and sororities is already alien to many if not most countries outside of america, so I wouldn't doubt many people from the outside actually take what they see in games and movies from the USA as the "standard american college experience".

 

[fyl3toys]

I went to college in a big city. It was freakin awesome & wild. And nothing like any of these games...

 

[Doorknob22]

Some tropes are too convenient to give up, even if they are not grounded to reality. The airhead bimbo, the weak nerd, the jock bully, etc. It's a matter of convenience/laziness.

 

[Hildegardt]

I always thought that colleges in these games are only colleges in name for reasons of morality and law.
So jailbait basically, because patrons like them young, but Patreon doesn't.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Thing about college.... it's basically welcome to adult life.... You could been "all that" in high school then you find out.. you are a nobody... just another cog in the machine..

Then again fiction is not about reality. And hardly ANY of these kind of games come close to reflect reality. It would be terrible for entertainment (for most parts).

It's far from portrayed in likes of "Animal House, Revenge of the nerds" etc.

 

[Grozar]

More realistic ?, that means there will be no hot chicks, no drama, no attraction. Who will play and patrons ?

 

[fyl3toys]

I had all sorts of hot girls at my college. Many of them willing to pose nude for me.

 

[WuzzyFuzzy]

Thanks for all the replies. I did not intend to imply I had no fun...on the contrary. But it was in a much more mature fashion than is depicted in these games.

I can understand the tropes and the tendency to stereotype different cultures and social constructs. Having never attended a school outside the US I can't speak from experience. But given the number of games that are supposed to be set in college, I am surprised at how many show students attending in uniforms. Is that a thing elsewhere? The only equivalent here would be one of the military academies. But other than those, no schools require students to do so.

In regard to wild times...since plugging into this site a couple of years ago I have been really surprised at the animosity towards depictions of sharing/swinging/group activities. I thought going to school in the 70s would have made me some ancient relic prone to ridicule about my sexual practices of the day. But I find that on this site I am far less conservative that most. We had a lot of fun. In the same rooms as others while doing our thing. Swapping, etc, and not thinking it a big deal. I have come to realize that many have very fragile egos...or maybe not. I don't know. But it has been a surprise.

 

[Doorknob22]

That is very true, i mean if the games good why does it really matter, i know for realism but theres always like a trade off. Like it might take longer to think of stuff thats more realistic so you either get that or you get more content

To be honest I'm not terrified of tropes and clichés. Some of them are popular because they are true, others are popular because people enjoy the fantasy (mature women will always be busty in porn, for example). However, it's all a matter of moderation: if you cram all the tropes and clichés into one game (or TV show, movie, etc) it might feel unoriginal or even boring. And the other way is also true: too much realism will probably result in a boring product as well. My advise would be to strive for realism but use tropes where needed, but when you do add some twists to make them slightly less copy-paste clones of previous products.

 

[desmosome]

BaDIK is basically a spoof on the American Pie style frat movies from the 90s or whatever. It does an ok job portraying this movie version of college life. Of course, this frat life is not something most people go through. It's probably an extremely small percentage that center their entire college experience around frats and sororities. Most would just hang out at off-campus bars/clubs with your close friends and occasionally go to those college parties if they had some connections.

But anyways, even BaDIK suffers from the high school vibes just like every other college game. The scope is just too small. The classrooms are tiny. They have those dinky high school desks. You don't see any large group of student body. There is apparently only one time slot for each course, so everyone taking the course will end up in the same class.

 

[WuzzyFuzzy]

even BaDIK suffers from the high school vibes just like every other college game. The scope is just too small.

I tried playing that game and like just about every other college-themed game here I tossed it. I know it's hugely popular, which is one reason why these others attempt to emulate it, but I couldn't get through the reality distortion field.

In one game I tried, the characters were in law school (so that's at least four years of undergrad before admittance) yet, there were fist-fights and silliness going on.

 

[Otcho_Shogun]

https://f95zone.to/threads/shale-hill-secrets-v0-11-1-love-joint.78583/

Shale Hill Secret is a pretty solid college game if I remember correctly. At the beginning the MC lives rarely sees the Love interest he lives with because they have different majors and courses and their timeline doesn't overlap enough. Also it's a mixture of girls you meet at college and outside of college, like in bars and shops. It has a pretty realistic vibe I think. Not perfect, but definitely better than most collge-name-only games on here.