Coolest Girls in School

[Janine]

Reproduced (Source) from www.geekillustrated.com by Camille Nurka

Two Aussie geek girls have created a new mobile phone game uniquely for young women that shakes and stirs old school stereotypes.

The Coolest Girl in School lets players live out their high school fantasies,with the following tantalising (and controversial), parameters for play: "Experiment with fashion! Experiment with drugs! Experiment with sexuality! Cut class! Spread rumors! And avoid dying of embarrassment - literally!"

In Coolest Girl, fashion and communication reign supreme, bribery and corruption are essential survival skills.

All this is bound to raise the ire of some, and sure enough, the game has been dubbed 'toxic' to young women by some conservative groups, and the Australian Family Association has called for the game to be banned.

Camille Nurka chats with its two mums, Holly Owen of cross platform entertainment group Champagne for the Ladies, and Karyn Lanthois, principal of mobile content connoisseur's Kukan Studio.
Tell me a little bit about the game and how it works? What age group is the game aimed at?

Holly: Coolest Girl In School is a mobile RPG (role playing game), the first one in the world made specifically for a female audience. Set in high school it allows players to laugh at the fickle nature of high school hierarchies, subvert stereotypes and most importantly, have FUN! In it players create their character (name it and dress it from an extensive wardrobe) then go out into the world (home, school, material world- the shopping complex) and interact with non-player characters (school mates, parents and teachers). Interactions occur as multiple choice questions and every answer affects your personality points (score).

The game is aimed at girls (and guys who get it) who are mature enough to know the difference between real life and a mobile game and have a sense of humor. We feel it would appeal to people 15 and over. Obviously there are many people under 15 who are media literate and have a sophisticated sense of humor who would also enjoy the game.

It's Grand Theft Auto for girls.

What inspired you to make a mobile phone game for girls?

Holly: Initially I set out to make a game that I would like but the fact is, around 60% of mobile gamers are women and very few developers create mobile titles specifically for them. It’s a hugely underserved market. That said all of my work is written from a feminine perspective and my protagonists are always women.

Karyn: As a mobile game producer I was distinctly aware of the fact that there are no other games like this in the market... subversive games for chicks that enjoy popular culture. Kukan Studio was interested Coolest Girl in School not because of potential profit making but because it was a concept that HAD TO be explored. I am immensely satisfied that the final product met all its objectives plus more.

Did you consciously choose the mobile format because you thought it would be a better medium to market to girls? And does the game suit the mobile phone better than a PC interface/Playstation console? Does it have the potential to move across into other game formats?

Holly: Initially I was developing Coolest Girl In School for console or PC. Jo Kerlogue, the game’s artist was involved from the start. (I try not to do projects without her - she’s awesome). A year or so into the development I started working in mobile and loved it. That women made up the majority of gamers on this platform and not the minority was very appealing as was the significantly reduced cost of creating a mobile game.

I adapted the concept for Coolest Girl In School considerably and took it to Karyn, executive producer of Kukan Studio. I’d wanted to work on something with Karyn since the minute we met. I really admired Kukan's work and had wanted to find a way to collaborate with them. Their games have great narratives and when it comes to mobile content they really know their stuff. Luckily Karyn liked the idea and agreed that Kukan Studio would co-produce Coolest Girl In School.

Karyn: I have seen first hand and read research that proves to me girls have a relationship with their mobile device that is different on the whole to the way guys interact. The game is perfectly suited to a mobile. I can imagine that if it were on a console you may self-edit your responses in front of other people watching but as a solo-experience you can truly explore your chosen characters experience.

Having said that the concept itself could be adapted to a variety of mediums and with Holly's wit at the wheel I could see this as anything from a movie to an Xbox title. Holly has mentioned she dreams of it being a musical with Sonic Youth as the band... stay tuned :)

Your critics, as well as gaming critics in general, tend to assume a linear correspondence between fiction and reality.

For example, the idea that violent computer games cause violence in the world, or in your case, that the negotiation of social relations in Coolest Girl in School will be reproduced or imitated by the girls who play it. How do you respond to this kind of reasoning?

Holly: I think women of all ages are a hell of a lot smarter than society gives them/us credit for. If we are going to be chicken and egg about this then I think one doesn’t have to be a genius to realise violence (which is not a feature in Coolest Girl In School), pre-dates gaming. The same applies to pregnancy, puberty, etc… To suggest that young women reproduce without thought things they see, hear or do in games is highly patronising and simply untrue. Whenever I hear people using this tired argument I always wonder whether they have played any of the games they are ‘blaming’ for societal problems.

In the case of Coolest Girl In School, most of the people writing about it had never played a mobile game- most of them didn’t know what one was. One journalist even thought a mobile game for girls meant we went around to their houses and took them shopping! It is easy to see why people who don’t know what they are talking about get scared and start bandying around terms like ‘toxic’ and ‘grossly irresponsible’.

Karyn: I can either groan or laugh here. Did watching 'Puberty Blues' get me pregnant to my surfer boyfriend? Did Dolly magazine corrupt me? No! The attention turned to Coolest Girl in School was unexpected (Really it was!). We did not set out to be sensationalist. But it has raised this issue and I am thankful it is getting explored. I will be interested to see what girls who play this game have to say.

Do you think young women are much more tech- and media-savvy than protectionist discourses give them credit for?

Holly: Without a doubt. Young women are far more media literate than many of the people speaking for them.

Karyn: I know they are! I actually believe they read and watch media with a healthy dose of sceptacism. Don't forget they actually grew up with computers and can absorb their media from multiple-channels (msn, myspace, mobile phone, tv) AT THE SAME TIME. I think they are a bit sick and wary of mass-media conglomerations trying to market to them and prefer to find their own heroes by word of mouth or virally online. The 'protectionist discourses' have most likely given our game some street cred.

It seems to me that with games like Civilisation and so on, boys can build civilisations and destroy their opponents by building up armies – why is there so much fuss about girls building their social standing and destroying social status of rival powers? Why are strategic games aimed at boys left alone, and games like yours aimed at girls inviting so much commentary?

Holly: I don’t know the answer to this, if indeed there is just one answer but I do feel that the old ‘boys will be boys’ saying may still hold true for some parents. Is it that people feel they need to protect young women? Something tells me that perhaps the fear and stigma surrounding teen pregnancy may have something to do with it.

This is obviously something that is not associated with raising males. That said there are a lot of women who play games like Civilisation too, so perhaps we also have to look at the theme of Coolest Girl In School - high school. As someone who has taught in high schools I can say that our game has nothing on the real thing. I think a lot of people would be seeking to ban high school and not our game if they spent any time in one.

Karyn: I totally feel like the moral panic surrounding the game has to do with it being targeted to girls. It is quite dissapointing that as a society we seek to over-protect our daughters in such a patronising way. C'mon... is being a bit bitchy and cutting class to go the mall akin to mass slaughter and carnage? Hardly!

Perhaps it's because the behaviors in the game are seen as being more attainable to the player in real life than being a conqueror of a Roman army. SIMS is a strategy game that is perceived as acceptable for the same age-group that our game is targeted to. Now in SIMS you play as an adult and undertake very adult activities. Sexual adventure, complicity and lieing are encourgaed in SIMS but I do not see a comparable moral outrage.

This game is reminiscent of films like Clueless, Legally Blonde and Mean Girls, as well as mags aimed at teenage girls, like Dolly. Films like Mean Girls, it seems to me, have developed a sophistication, and a refinement of the genre of girl teen flicks. These kinds of films reveal and obviate the social structures of school and college, gender and power in a way that previous films of the genre didn’t do. They surreptitiously poke fun at white middle class school/college life, at the same time as they wrap it all up neatly into a clichéd plot structure.

How indebted is this game to these genres?

Holly: Heavily indebted - crediting the films, television series and teen magazines that Coolest Girl In School draws from would be similar in length to Gwyneth Paltrow’s academy award acceptance that sounded like she was reading the phone book. I have never seen Legally Blonde but all the great John Hughes flicks, Heathers, Carrie, Degrassi Jnr High, Saved by the Bell, Beverley Hills 90210, The Wonder Years, Heartbreak High, Grange Hill and more contemporary offerings like Clueless, Mean Girls, The OC, Daria (swoon) etc have all influenced Coolest Girl In School to some extent as they deal with high school as a central theme. The game play structure is based on teen girl mag multiple choice quizzes so Dolly et al are also a huge influence. I guess more to the point, the way that we engaged with these films, television series and magazines was more of an influence than the works themselves.

I have really enjoyed recent offerings that are more self aware. In the same way that movies like Scream set about deconstructing the conventions of Horror (which are largely about gender and power and most importantly sexuality - virgins never die), teen flicks have been doing the same. Audiences are more aware of filmic and societal conventions and how gender and power come into play.

Subversion and deconstruction have become main stream entertainment as young people’s media literacy increases and surpasses that of older audiences. I think a great example of this is Quentin Tarantino’s character’s monologue in Sleep With Me in which he says, “What's a film about, what's it really about? What genre does it take?” He then goes on to 'Cause the whole idea, man, is subversion. You want subversion on a massive level.” He then goes on to explain the homoerotic subtext of Top Gun to Duane. I think teen movies are definitely catering to a media literate audience.

Unlike the neat wrap up/tres sad ending in Mean Girls reminiscent of Women’s films of the 40’s (i.e. Mildred Pierce where Mildred got to run around being a fabulous beauty owning her own pie franchise and having illicit dalliances with men outside of wedlock until the last 5 minutes where an almost unbelievably fake ending was tacked on and she had to change her wicked ways and go back to being a submissive housewife to her drop kick of a husband), Coolest Girl In School has no predetermined ending and certainly no final moral blow. That’s the beauty of games. Even as the writer and director you have no idea how it ends for the protagonist.

Karyn: Holly said it all beautifully. I got Holly's concept straight away and saw how it sat in the 'highschool genre'. It's really important that it doesn't have a neat moral message. Aside from it not being fun – it's less patronising.

Is this a new feminist landscape in which these genres are operating? Do you see Coolest Girl in School as a product, or an innovation, of a changing feminist landscape? (I’m using the word ‘feminist’ here deliberately... feel free to dispute the term/ use the word ‘postfeminist’ instead, whatever)

Holly: I am happy to use the term feminist and I definitely identify as being afeminist. I often joke about 5th wave feminism as a way of trying to stay on top of the ‘changing feminist landscape.’ Having been outside of academia for some time it is strange viewing the world from a position that is not as informed by or structured around an existing school of thought/philosophy/discourse. I feel quite out of touch.

Coolest Girl In School is an innovation in the sense that it is the world’s first mobile RPG aimed at women. (Women are rarely the primary audience for mobile product, usually young men are the primary audience). It is also produced by two women, Karyn and myself, technically produced by a woman (Karyn), written and directed by a woman (myself), and all the art work is by a woman (Jo Kerlogue). This wasn’t intentional but we realise now when attending game conferences that it certainly is not the norm. That said this game will not be something that will appeal to all women- we are in no way suggesting that – that would be offensive, reductive and ridiculous.

Years ago when the initial concept for Coolest Girl In School came about I was sitting on the couch with my husband and he asked if I wanted to play a console game. My reply was something like, “I’d rather be dead.” The challenge was then on to create one I would want to play. Selfish huh!

I guess the biggest change in the feminist landscape that influenced my life was the 90s riot grrrl movement that started as a response to the DC Hardcore movement. I used to have a community radio show after school (so did Karyn Lanthois – snap - her’s was probably a lot better), and remember the excitement of seeing all girl bands and women lugging equipment to gigs for themselves and not for their boyfriends’ band. I remember it being a change in the scene here that you could actually see happening instead of something I had just read about in journals or books. I think the whole idea that if you see something you don’t like then change it and if you want to be somewhere then go there and if you wished something existed but it doesn’t then make it.

The DIY approach of Riot Grrrl and the universal ramifications of a bunch of women just deciding to start bands and perform in a scene that was pretty male dominated is something that will stay with me forever. There wasn’t a game that I wanted to play so I set about making one. I certainly don’t think it is going to change the world but it feels a hell of a lot better than bitching and moaning and wishing something I wanted to play existed.

Karyn: I refer to myself as an equalist and have always lived my life that 'everyone' deserves the same opportunities and respect. I have often found myself doing things that are a bit non-traditional for a lady but I like to think its because I just did what I wanted to do and didn't listen to any naysayers. I'd like to point out that the programming of Coolest Girl in School was done by guys (who deserve a shout-out for being incredibly talented and knowledgeable). There is sadly a lack of women programmers in mobile development but that is another story.

In gaming terms, Coolest Girl in School is a simulation, very much in the same vein as the Sims - fairly open-ended, but relies on a balancing of strategies in order to work. How open-ended is Coolest Girl in School to play? How open is it to creative strategising – ie. Finding several different ways, instead of one or two, to achieve a desired outcome?

Holly: Coolest Girl In School is actually an RPG (role playing game)- the world’s first mobile RPG for women. In terms of strategy it’s actually quite a hard game. Trying to please every non-player character is tough and strategies have to be constantly changing as more is learnt as the game progresses. There is no one way to succeed in Coolest Girl In School and the non-player characters can be very unpredictable and flippant.

Karyn: I keep playing Coolest and get a different outcome each time. I am actually quite bad at getting a high score! You see I can't help myself and end up with a high tough and arty score but never get cool, smart or hot enough to have many friends. A tip is to use the 'secret stash' codes to bribe various characters. You can also check out characters MySpace pages to get clues on their likes and dislikes.

Do you think Coolest Girl in School taps into girls’ and young women’s real life experiences of strategising in gendered social structures?

Holly: Many events in Coolest Girl In School are based on something that happened to myself or someone I know. I wrote to everyone asking for embarrassing stories. So yes, Coolest Girl In School definitely taps into young women’s real life experiences but it exaggerates them and subverts them so that they a funny and fun.

Karyn: I think highs chool is easier to remember with the passing of time so it maybe a case of your age that determines how well you think it replicates the real high school experience. It is much easier to laugh at the conformist structure of 'groups' and being popular (or not) when it didn't happen yesterday.

The one issue I have with Coolest Girl is that, from what I know of it, it serves to reinforce our ideas of what’s ‘normal’ and desirable (ie. Being heterosexual, white and middle-class). It seems to me that Coolest Girl in School contains an underlying assumption that all teenage girls necessarily want social status and power in the way that the game depicts. There are few questions that follow from this concern:

a) Is there a counter-culture character that you can play? Like a bookworm or loner?

Holly: Abso-freaking-lutely! When you create your character you mix and match between subcultures. You can choose to be in whole or part, indie, fashionista, nyerd, emo, sportpo, bogan, bush pig, cooly d (hip hop), mystic dolphin (new age hippie) or tragical. I think you should play the game so you have an accurate understanding of it. I think you may be relying on things you have read which are not altogether accurate as they have been written by people who have never seen the game.

And let’s not forget, did the ‘typical’ girl ever win in any of the films or television series?

b) Are there strategies in the game which allow you to subvert the dominant culture or hierarchy?

Holly: Yes indeed. Would it be any fun if it didn’t? We have to get you a copy.

c) Does it explore alternate sexualities?

Holly: Basically just straight, gay, bi. Nothing too interesting- we had to make sure the game file size wasn’t too hefty and this meant for Coolest Girl In School v.1 (but wait- there will be more), we had to cull some of our potential plotlines and characters.

Karyn: You play the game as you really are, how you wish you were or just a complete fantasy. I don't think it assumes teenage girls want social status, I think it pokes fun at that notion! The player will have to decide for themselves. It would be no fun if we told you the end huh?

It seems difficult for a game to fully explore teen issues like drugs, sex, shoplifting etc. (and I can’t help but think of Degrassi here) in a meaningful way that allows young people to properly consider how they approach these issues.

Do you think that by incorporating teen issues into a game format it gives teens a space in which to engage with these issues?

Holly: I loved Degrassi! (My friends and I spent ages trying to perfect our Canadian accents so we could re-enact episodes). I think the important thing to remember is that Coolest Girl In School is entertainment and not educational.

Proper consideration of teen issues are impossible in a game of this format and file size. Teens can definitely engage with these issues in the game but it is in no way meant to be for any other purpose than pleasure. It is certainly not indented to be instructional or educational.

Karyn: I think Coolest without drugs sex and shoplifting would be like Law and Order without the murder. Do we really think our teenagers are not talking about this stuff? Of course they are. I think that having these illicit themes woven into a game without making moral judgement (but some horrendous and funny consequences) makes the game relvant and credible.

The Coolest Girl in School sounds very informed by a North American school experience. Is this true, do you think? If so, how well would it translate in a different cultural setting, like Australia (it’s being tested here, I think)?

Holly: Whilst the high school theme is universal (in the western world anyway), Coolest Girl In School is uniquely Australian. Besides, the way Australians consume North American culture is qualitatively different from the way that North Americans consume North American culture. It was really important for me to write a game where bogan chicks argued the merits of Holdens Vs. Fords and not Hummers Vs. Town cars. We have sportos playing footy not jocks being quarterbacks.

Again check out the website (Aussie dictionary is on its way for US and UK audiences).

Karyn: There is no doubt that Australian culture is very much informed by North America but the game is definitely Aussie.