Artificial Academy: Gameplay

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Subject:Changing to new hgame template

Illusion

all characters are at least 18


Artificial Academy [edit]

Gameplay

Technical Help

Modding


Main menu

  • First Button to create new class. A class must be created and named in order to play. The Character Maker provides a pre-made class to play with.
  • Second Button to load previous class.
  • Third Button to edit sound/voice options.
  • Fourth Button to quit game.

Your Bedroom

Your bedroom (male)

Here is where you begin and end every school day. You have the following options:

  • Lower left blue button - exits the game, with confirmation dialog
  • Lower right blue - quit to main menu, with confirmation dialog
  • Lower right tile - at night, continues to morning, in the morning, begins the school day
  • Upper right class book - display classroom, with varying configuration options depending on the time of day

Save/Load Class

The save button
The game doesn't automatically save. The only known way to save, is to wait for the school day to finish.

At night time, the save and load buttons appear beside the exit buttons. Any unsaved progress will be lost on quitting the game. Loading a class will return to your bedroom at night, the same time and day that was last saved.

Your Classroom

An example of a completely filled classroom.
This displays a top-down diagram of the class seating arrangement; each box represents an empty desk, or the student who is seated there. Buttons that appear beneath the desk arrangement:




  • Rankings - Displays the top 3 characters in various activities. More explained here.
  • Leaderboards - Displays full class rankings in Popularity, Athletics and Study.
  • Club - Set the club for the selected student to attend. This determines which sport the student practices and in which club they do it in.
  • Uniform - Customize the uniform for selected students (female only, male uniforms cannot be configured.) This can also be used to set a standard uniform for all students.
  • Transfer out - Removes student from any occupied desk selected. The student will be removed from the class save file, and all stats will then be lost.
  • Transfer in - Adds a student to an empty desk from a selection menu of students in Character Maker data.
  • Fill class - Fills all empty desks semi-randomly with students in Character Maker data.

Rankings and Leaderboards can be viewed during nighttime or morning, but the configuration buttons only appear at night. It is important to understand that characters created with the Editor only funtion as a template in class creation: any changes made afterwards, both inside the Editor or to class members, has no effect on the other. Completely invisible to the player, the game also assigns a set of AI-behavior to the added classmates in order to prevent two or more characters of the same type acting the same, which would most likely happen when choosing several males, since there are only five types to select from.

View/Select Character

The active character — the one that will be played during the school day — is marked with a star, and can be changed only in the morning by selecting any other student. Selecting a student at any time will show a heart if that student is in a love relationship, along with a heart above their partner(s).

The School Day

Starting the day

The school day begins at the river bank approaching the school.

General Controls

Top Buttons

Park2.png
The top buttons are for group activites. See Group Interactions below.

Right Buttons

Select Character (book):
Select a specific classmate to target. You will automatically run to and interact with that classmate.
Note: The A and S keys, and the mousewheel, can also be used to select another character available in the current area.
Go to location (school building and compass)
Move your character to a specific location. You will choose this on the map after selecting the button.
Interact (running figure)
Run to and interact with the classmate you're currently targetting, shown in the upper left corner. A target can be selected from the class book, or you can use the mousewheel to scroll through nearby classmates.
Stop (standing figure)
Stops your character.
Follow (two running figures)
Follow someone around without interacting with them.
Interrupt/Compete (pink icon)
This toggle controls how you approach characters who are already interacting. [Important note: To Interrupt, target either character, to Compete, target who you want to chase away].
Interrupt mode splits the target character away from whoever they're interacting with. Either character with a "Friends" or better relationship toward the other will reduce disposition toward you.
Compete Mode competes with the targetted character for the attention of the other, and forces the third party to choose. The character with the higher disposition rating will be chosen (in case of a tie, other factors such as preferences and reciprocal disposition may determine.) The character chosen will have increased disposition and bad moods will be cleared; the rejected character will enter a bad mood (anger or depression.) If "both" are chosen, the challenger will still suffer a bad mood, while the other will be cleared of moods.
Move to next period (bottom right button)
End the current free time and move to the next period of the day. The text on the icon will change depending on what the next period is.

Camera Controls

The camera cannot be adjusted in world view, but during dialogs and H-scenes, after pressing the SPACE bar, the camera can be moved with the mouse or keyboard:

  • Rotate - Left-Click.
  • Pan Up/Down - Right-Click and drag up and down.
  • Pan Left/Right - Both-Click and drag left and right.
  • Zoom-in on center - Mousewheel or Right-Click and drag left and right.
  • Move center In/Out - Both-Click and drag up and down.
  • Reset Camera - 'R' key. Resets view on target character(s). In H-scenes, this will reset the camera to a different point-of-view depending on the subposition chosen.
  • Focus on Face/Breast/Waist - Left-Click on body part when cursor arrow turns green. This resets the camera's center on that position.
  • Take Screenshot - PRT SCR key; saves a .bmp image of the current camera view in the data/cap folder.

The 'A' key is labeled "Change Target", but it simply pulls the camera back in intervals, while 'S' moves it forward in intervals.

Display Options

Numbered 1-0, these toggle on and off rendering of visual features in interactions and H-mode, some of them are self-explanatory.

  • 1 - Show Self: Show/hide active character. H-mode only.
  • 2 - Show Penis: Active character's penis/dildo. H-mode only.
  • 3 - Show Partner. H-mode only.
  • 4 - Show Partner's Penis. H-mode only.
  • 5 - Show Background: Show/hide characters in the current room outside H. Can reduce distractions and provide better screenshots, but hiding figures also conceals other characters entering during H. H-mode only.
  • 6 - Show Shadows: Can reduce render processing, speeding up framerates by removing the shadow textures. If the performance boost is significant, you may consider lowering texture resolution or removing shadow textures set in the launcher's custom configuration, second tab.
  • 7 - Show Cel Shading: Interior figure shadowing; heightens depth and dimension of characters. Uses the same texture size as shadows. Removing this can also improve performance.
  • 8 - Show Outlines: Show or remove line-art emulation on figure edges. Outlines can accentuate low anti-aliasing settings, and removing them may smooth model appearance with no processing cost.
  • 9 - Show Center Crosshair: Show/hide the camera's focus when using Camera Controls.
  • 0 - Focus on Selected Body Part: Enable/disable focus on the body by Left-Clicking. The cursor will not turn green over body parts when this is disabled. H-mode only.

Time

The day is divided into four phases:

  • Study
  • Lunch
  • Practice
  • After school/Go home

You can do special actions with the girls in each phase, like invite her to go study with you in the study phase, or have lunch with her in the lunch phase. The bell will toll at the end of each time period and you assemble in the class or end up in your home after school. You can always end a part of the day by clicking the yellow button in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Time in each phase passes in realtime, even when alt-tabbed out of the application, but pauses when in the configuration menu, the ESC help display, and map and character selection menus. After a long period, each day phase will automatically end. Most interactions initiated by the player will speed up the passage of time, with "big" activities such as Study, Lunch, Practice, and especially H taking up a larger chunk of time.


During each period, the player starts with 200 action points, which represent time. Here are actions and point costs (incomplete):

Action Cost
Group activity (study, lunch, practice) 40
Activity (study, lunch, practice) 20
Talk about love/sex/studying/sports 2
Initiate conversation 1
Go to person 1
Go to location 1
Initiate H-scene 50
Hug 5
Kiss 10
Fondle 10
Confess or Break Up (successful) 150
Confess or Break Up (unsuccessful) 0

Other actions: Enter a bathroom or changing room with another person: 2 (entering alone uses 0 points)

Check Jizhou statue: Half of your remaining points (if you do this at the start of a period, you use 100 points!)

The cost for initiating conversation with a character who is occupied will still be applied. This happens when they're involved in a competition, in a fight, or during their cool-down after losing one.

If an NPC initiates a conversation, no points are used up. Even if the player is asked to go to a Group Study/Practice/Lunch and accepts, 0 points are deducted.

One consequence of this system governing passage of time, is that idling will allow NPCs to take a larger number of actions per turn than would normally be able to. Since the NPCs interact at a much slower pace than the player is capable of doing, this may be a good way to allow their relationships to "catch up" to a level that will make things more interesting. Since time passes while traveling and during H-scenes, slow moving player characters and extended H-scenes allow for the NPC interaction as well.

Map

The map

The most important feature of the map is that it has some areas that are reserved for a certain gender. This is useful if you want to find a place where you and your partner can be in peace.

  • Black writing: Entry to all.
  • Blue writing: Male entry only, applies to changing rooms.
  • Red writing: Female entry only, applies to changing rooms.

When heading towards a location, the character will journey via the path marked on the map, going through all of the locations along the way. Your speed is determined by the level of your character's athletic skill, as well as personality, for instance; a male that is "Manly" and has maximum athletic skill will move insanely fast. Warning: Having a high speed is a double-edged sword because you are not able to stop your character before he/she runs into the girls'/boys' bathroom/locker room. It will hurt your reputation and relations with the girls/boys if you do not respect their privacy, so caution with high speeds is highly recommended.

Your character may get stopped by other characters in other locations on the way to his destination.

Interaction

To interact, select a character from the class book, or click "Move to target" for the target that is already selected. You will then be given a choice of 24 actions to select within 20-30 seconds, until "Nevermind" will be selected by default. Blue represents normal actions, while pink represents romantic/H-actions.

Pressing the SPACE bar during any interaction delays the timing of that interaction, but does not pause any background activity, and other characters may still interrupt, for better or worse.

For each action, the percentage displayed in the upper left corner represents the success rate of that action, based on that character's disposition and factors in quirks of the personality type and subconscious traits, bad moods, and for some actions, horniness, location and others present. Actual success or failure is only known from the character's reactions; though some personality types are more direct and some more ambiguous, familiarity with their responses becomes a guide to interpreting them.

Classmates will initiate the same actions on others at percentage chances dependent on similar factors. When they interact with the active character, you will be given the choice of approving (blue button) or rejecting (red button). If faced with characters competing for your attention, the blue and red buttons appear over the ones to select, with the purple for "I don't know" beneath.

Keep in mind that interaction is basically a one way communication: a question and an answer. The game keeps different info stored based on who took the initiative. In this way, it is possible that one NPC regularly talks with you about love or sex, while on the other hand, doesn't hardly allow any talk on your initiative. This mechanism also explains why getting a negative responce isn't always bad, being on the NPC interest's list can still improve relationships indirectly over time.

Next to the actual current state of the relationship, mood, has a huge impact on the outcome, and it is therefore wise to pay attention to the background music, and in case of doubt, first ask a character how they feel. Current mood functions more or less act as a bonus or modifier, which means that it can improve or decrease the result, but it will never change a 'like each other' state into a 'hate' or 'dislike'.

Normal Actions

Normal actions are indicated with blue icons.

Askabout.jpg Ask about someone (question mark with figure of a person): Asks the character their opinion of a classmate. The percentage shown indicates their approval of that person. If their approval of you is too low, however, they may not be willing to tell you anything.
Howru.jpg Ask how they feel (question mark over graph): Asks the classmate how they are doing. The percentage shown indicates their current mood and attitude toward you. The character will also indicate if they are sad or angry, giving you a hint of when to use the Calm/Cheer actions.
Calm.jpg Calm down (cup of tea): Can be used when you do something to make a classmate angry, in order to avoid losing approval. Often useful towards Irritable characters. Will also perk up an NPC who says they are "Sleepy" or "Tired," thus improving their disposition towards the player's character.
Cheer up (thumbs up): Can be used to cheer up a classmate after rejecting their confession to avoid losing approval. Can also be used to cheer up a classmate if you choose the opposing classmate as they compete for you. Often useful on Negative characters.
Talkstudies.jpg Talk about studying (open book): Is most useful when combined with the "Study Together" action and with characters who have a high education level.
Talksports.jpg Talk about sports (sports equipment): Is most useful when combined with the "Ask to practice together" button and with characters who have a high athletic ability.
Talklove.jpg Talk about love (girl holding heart): Can help to move a relationship beyond just friendship and is more effective after performing activities together. Can also increase the likelihood that a classmate will accept Hug/Kiss actions from you. A high resulting percentage indicates a good chance. Works best on classmates with high virtue.
Talksex.jpg Talk about sex (male/female symbols): Increases both speaker and target character's horniness. Horniness increases success rate of H-actions, which any character may take advantage of. A character with high enough horniness may take the initiative to attempt their own H-actions. A high resulting percentage indicates a good chance. Works best on classmates with low virtue or high disposition.
Pointout.jpg Bring attention to someone (figure of person inside eye): Increases the chance of the classmate interacting with the person being pointed out. Can increase your approval with the classmate when pointing out someone they like.This button is very important for managing other classmates' relationships.
Confess.jpg Confess (heart): Use it to confess to a character. If they agree, you will become a couple. Using the "Talk about love" or "Talk about sex" actions beforehand, may increase the chances of them accepting.
Nevermind.jpg Nevermind (word bubble with ellipsis): Exits the interaction menu without choosing an action.
Followme.jpg Ask to follow (duck): Asks the character to follow you. Can be used to bring a character to a 'safe' location for H-actions.
Later.jpg Ask to meet up later (clock): Asks a character to go to a specific location during next period. Has a higher success rate than "Follow me". Speaking with the character at that location next period grants a huge increase towards disposition, whether you meet them there or bring them there yourself. The same applies if another character asks you to meet them later.
Goaway.jpg Ask to leave (door): Asks the character to leave the location.
Behavior.jpg Admonish lewd behaviour (green rectangle): Reduces target's horniness; the reverse effect of "Talk about sex".
Insult.jpg Insult someone (building): Insults another classmate. May decrease the target's opinion of that classmate, but could very easily backfire and decrease their opinion of you. Its most powerful use is when someone interrupts you when talking or performing H-actions. Use it on the character you were engaged with to insult the character who interupted you. Use it wisely, as this is a double-edged sword.
Fight.jpg Pick a fight (middle finger): Fights with another character. Can be used on your rivals if they get too close to one of your love interests.
Togetherstudy.jpg

Morning - Ask to study together (crossed pens): Asks the classmate to help you study. If the classmate has a higher education level than you, then your own education level will increase. Combines well with the "Ask about studying" action.

Lunchtime - Ask to eat lunch together (lunchbox): Asks the classmate to eat lunch with you. Eating together increases your relationship status.
Club Activities - Ask to practice together (flexed arms): Asks the classmate to help you practice sports. If the classmate has a higher athletic level than you, then your own athletic level will increase. Combines well with the "Talk about sports" action.
After School - Ask to walk home together (boy and girl figures together): Asks the classmate to walk home with you. Using this will end the day and send you back home.


H-Actions

H-Actions are indicated with a pink icon.

Using the "Talk about love/sex" action beforehand can increase the chance of success with H-actions. Also, chances are greatly increased by asking while the classmate is in a horny mood, which is indicated with the "sexy" background music.

Note: If either you or your classmate's sexual orientation is incompatible, attempts to have sex will absolutely fail, even when getting a high response.

H hug.jpg Hug (black and white cherubs): Hug the character.
File:H kiss.jpg Kiss (lips): Kiss the character.
H grope.jpg Grope (hand reaching for skirt): Touch the character. A random action is choosen between touching private parts, caressing the chest, or patting the head.
H dome.jpg Sex as the bottom (pink 'M' shaped arrow): Asks the character to do something to you. If successful, enters H-mode with that character in an active position.
H doyou.jpg Sex as the top (blue 'S' shaped arrow): Tries to do something to the classmate. If successful, enters H-mode with that character in a passive position.
Invite to house (picture of a house): Asks the character to come to your house for sex. Your house is considered the ultimate 'safe' location. All sexual positions will be available and the classmate will be much more likely to fully undress during sex. Is only available at the end of the day, after club activities are over. It is possible to use this action two times after each other, for example; with both partners, but only when the first session didn't consume too much time.

Group Actions

Group actions are performed with the three blue buttons at the top of the normal gameplay screen. These actions are used to promote socializing among large groups of classmates, and the very last one (at the end to the right.) alternates between different types, depending on the time of day.

Call everyone over:

Asks every classmate in the game to come to your location. Gathering classmates together in one place increases the chances they will interact with each other. This action button is always there.

Draw everyone's attention to someone:

Works the same as "Draw attention to someone", but affects everyone in your location. This action button is always there.

Ask to do activities together:

Works the same as the other "Activity" buttons in the interaction menu, but asks everyone in the location. This action button changes depending on the time of day. If morning, the action is "Invite all to study", while during lunchtime, it is replaced by "Invite all to lunch", with mid-day being "Invite all to practice", and after school leaves you with "Invite all to walk home". These four actions are all similar to their respective singular actions, only they ask every classmate in the area, instead of just one.

NPC Relations

Jinzou statue

When the day is over and you're back in your room you can check the relations of all the characters. Click on the classbook (top right). If you click on a character, you see a heart icon next to their picture if he/she is in a relationship. (Although NPC's can start sex without being lovers). This gives a brief view of classmates' relationships; for more detail you would have to start the day from different characters and click on the jinzou statue on entering the map. Be aware that the statue only shows each classmate's opinion of your current character. Your character may have a different opinion of them.

Character Dispositions

Relations

During the game you will probably want to know more about the character dispositions, i.e. how the characters feel about each other. One tip is to ask "How are you" to the person you're interested in. The % you see from answer will roughly tell you how his/her relation is to you. If it is above 100% he/she likes you, less than 50% and he/she couldn't care less about you.

You can get a better picture of the relations between all the characters in the class by pressing on the jinzou statue.

  • Purple: Indicates hate 0
  • Dark Blue: Indicates distant 1-3
  • Cyan: Indicates stranger 4-6
  • Green: Indicates friend 7-9
  • Yellow: Indicates close friend 10-12
  • Pink: Indicates that the char is infatuated 13-14
  • Red: In a love relationship 0-14 (see below)

The following labels based on Raiko and Sogekihei's UI translation.

Purple:

  • "Needs to die": Worst case of hate. The character will answer negatively to almost everything you say.
  • "Normalfag": When disposition has been driven down by seeing the character in sex.
  • "Can go to hell": This character has been left in an angry mood by the active character, and may soon pick a fight.
  • "My nemesis": Happens when 2 classmates fight often.

Blue:

  • "Who?": The lack of interaction with someone lead to this.
  • "Whore!": Happens when a character see another having sex.
  • "Wrong gender": Preferences might match, but gender/orientation doesn't.
  • "Piece of shit": Close to hate, the reasons are the same, too: lack of interaction, interruption, fight, etc.

Cyan:

  • "Whatever": Don't know each other and tastes don't really match.
  • "No idea": Don't know each other but could be able to be friends.

Green:

  • "Classmates": Know each other a bit, plain friendship.
  • "Great fellow!": Good Friendship, the relation could easily rise to another level.
  • "I might like them": Like it says, the character is clearly interested.
  • Sexfriend: Happens when you have sex with someone while their thought is still green. (need the perverted trait and a low virtue)

Yellow:

  • "Friend": Happens when two character are close but one is not interested (often happens with a character straight and the other gay or bi)
  • More like lover than friend...: In that state sex is possible with some effort and confession can succeed.
  • Want to lick you: The character is sexually attired.
  • "I'm horny"!: Even more than "Want to lick you" this trait can lead to sex.

Pink:

  • "Close friend": like "Friend" this one happens a lot with characters who are close but not interested.
  • "Must be love!": This is the highest relationship if this character is an incompatible gender/orientation, or has maximum virtue and is already in a relationship.
  • "Wanna have sex!": Happens when you have sex with someone but don't step up to an official relationship.
  • "Like an angel": Happens when someone is really interested and close to the player, they can come and confess or ask for sex in this state.

Red:

  • "Current Lover": Love has fallen below 13, and they may choose to break up the lower their Love drops. This state also gives a high success rate for breaking up with them. Note that a simple mood can put a character in this state, and can be cleared up as easily.
  • "MAI WAIFU": Best love relationship.
  • "No Cheating!": They have seen your character in intimate contact with another character; in this status they will pursue, compete for attention, and offer sex more often. However, when taken home, will be at minimum horniness and clothed [needs more verification.] Characters who have this status with the active character will take steps to make it up to them, if their disposition is still high enough. But take care, this can mask a "Current Lover" disposition.
  • "I'll get you!": Any character with the Evil trait will kill their lover rather than break up. It's still possible to bring the relationship back up to a survival level, but any encounter with the Evil character may trigger the murder in the attempt.

Murder

Murder committed

Under specific conditions a character may be able to kill another. If your current player character is murdered, the screen will flash red and you'll be kicked back to the title screen. If it's anyone else, a day will pass after the red flash. The victim's table will have flowers on it, and handcuffs will be at the suspects table (You can reassign people to them).

Any character with the Evil trait will commit murder rather than break up with a lover. If the Evil character is left for too long or if their disposition drops sharply enough to cause a break-up, such as an attack from their lover, or rejection in favor of rival competitor, the murder can happen on any future encounter between the murderer and intended victim.

It is possible to improve a relationship enough to clear murderous intent, though it becomes less possible as the killer's disposition toward the victim drops toward 0%. Murder can also be prevented from the start of the day by removing potential victim or killer from the class, clearing the relationship data. The murder will be postponed while playing the murderer as main character, and breaking up with the victim will prevent it completely. Attempting to break up with the murderer while playing the victim will lead to instant death and return to main menu.

Rankings

Thank you to Pariah23 & Ryozu for the UI translation.

The Top Students rankings are as follows from left to right

  • Confessions Received : Who received the most confessions of love (accepted or not.)
  • Rejected Confessions: Who confessed the most and was rejected.
  • Most Partners: Who has had the most relationships.
  • Most Sexual Encounters: Who has had sex the most.
  • Virgins Deflowered: Who has had sex with the most virgins.
  • Changing Room Invaders: Who has gone in the opposite sex's locker-room/bathroom more often.
  • Most Fights Won: Who has won the most fistfights.

Translated Help Screens

Screen2.png
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