by Dale Chappell

Created on: July 07, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2011

Rating: 2 of 5

Modeled after a board game, this half-baked attempt needs a great deal of refining before anyone would pay $20 to play the next level. Mousechief, the independent game developer who produced the game Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble gets failing grades for it's lack of an audience. Touted as an adult oriented game, these playground antics do not satisfy a mature audience's desire for cheeky gameplay. These "dangerous" high school girls are about as threatening as the little old neighbor lady yelling at you to get off of her grass.

Firing up the demo we are put in the mood for some roaring twenties fun with the opening credits and old-time plinky piano music. The first task is to choose a character to lead up your party of poorly behaved young women. Having played the demo twice, no noticeable difference in game play was found between individual girls.

The gameplay tutorial is well designed and soon you are recruting others for your team. Unfortunately, even your new friends have to be gained through rude bickering. When the story begins to unfold through a rather disjointed form of communication called "parley", the "what just happened?" factor kicks in. Even in the demo, after jumping through hoops of inane puzzles, players will get to the point of just not caring where the story is going.

Your tools are fib, expose, taunt, accept, and flirt. Fib is like playing liars poker with a deck of cards. Taunt involves selecting one a few choices of nasty comments to send your opponent running off in tears. Expose is the "Wheel of Fortune" with words opposed to letters, with little challenge. Flirt is probably the most bizarre as you randomly try to match up eye wiggles with reasonable thoughts.

The graphics are overall a nice package, but you do find yourself scrolling around the screen to find the next destination or task. The soft cartoon artwork is slightly interactive although there is no animation.

The soundtrack and sound effects are the strongest part of the game and probably the only polished aspect. Fun music and neat little sound effects are abundant and very well embedded into the game.

Although the game does display unique creativity and innovation, the storyline and game play can't save this game. The demo was enough to demonstrate the potential of the Mousechief crew, but to shell out $20, that will have to wait for another title from the developers.

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