Introducing The Merit Academy

This is the first entry in the development journal for The Merit Academy, so it should start with the obvious question: what is it?

The Merit Academy is a single-player, narrative-driven school-life simulation and social strategy RPG. You enrol at an elite academy where everything is measured, and your decisions shape your reputation, your relationships, your results and your future.

That sentence could describe a lot of games. Here is what I mean by it.

A school that keeps going without you

The idea the whole project grew from is simple. In most school games the world waits. Characters stand where the designer put them until you walk up and press a button.

I want the opposite. Students and teachers at the academy have their own schedules. They go to lessons, train with their clubs, study in the library, meet each other and go back to their rooms. If you do nothing at all, the day still happens.

It also means people are not always available. Someone in a lesson is in a lesson. Someone at practice is at practice. Finding the right person at the right moment becomes part of the game instead of a menu.

You are part of a larger world, not the only person in it doing anything interesting.

What you actually do

• Go to class. Lessons are interactive. You read the material, answer questions and get things wrong.
• Prepare for exams. Quizzes and mock exams tell you where you stand. The real ones count.
• Get to know people. Characters have personalities, motives and opinions of you. Relationships move slowly.
• Develop. Academic, physical and social abilities grow through what you spend your days on.
• Explore the campus. Classrooms, the library, residences, sports facilities, shops and cafés.
• Live with your choices. People remember. Opportunities open and close.

Where development stands

The game is in development and it is not publicly playable. There is a private build that I use to build and test these systems, and some of them are already working in it. Others are half-built, and some are still only a design.

I do not want that distinction to blur. Everywhere on this site, each mechanic carries one of four labels: Implemented, In development, Experimental or Planned. If something is described without the word "implemented" next to it, assume it is not done.

There is no release date. I will not name one until I can stand behind it.

The screenshots at the end of this entry are from that build as it looks today, labelled build 0.0.0. It is early, and it will change. I plan to post new ones as the game does, so you can watch it move.

What this journal is for

I will write here as the game is built: what got done, what changed, what did not work. Some entries will be about design, some about the world, some about the technical side of simulating a school full of people.

The next two entries look at the two systems furthest along: the living academy, and interactive lessons.

If you want to follow along, the journal has an RSS feed. Thank you for reading the first one.