travisgmoore:

Max, Julian, and Wes from Pixelberry’s High School Story @hssgame.

I’ve been meaning to do this image practically since I first started playing the game, but now is the perfect time for two reasons:

First, it’s Pride Month, and these are my three favorite LIs from the game (Julian’s my main guy, but I also enjoyed the photobooth dates with Max and Wes). This is a fully LGBT-inclusive game where anyone can date anyone regardless of gender. The great thing about the stories in this game (and in the Choices visual novel version of it) is that because your MC can be either male or female, it creates a world where sexuality in a non-issue and completely destigmatized. For example, I’m sure it’s very romantic if you’re playing a female MC when star football player Julian jumps into the stands to ask you out in front of the whole school, but it’s even more amazing when you’re playing a male MC and it’s treated exactly the same–school jock asks out the boy he likes with all of his teammates cheering him on. It’s actually really powerful. Likewise, in Choices, as a male MC you can start dating Caleb after he’s broken up with his girlfriend without anyone having to explain what bisexuality is. No one questions that he liked a girl, now he likes a boy. It’s amazing. I wish the real world was like that.

I also want to note that although Max is usually the villain of the story, his photobooth date series is probably the best of the bunch because it really fleshes him out as a character and shows a more vulnerable side to him.

Second, I wanted to get this image out this month because just this week Pixelberry released its final quest for HSS, meaning the story has come to an end, which is kind of sad. Since these characters all graduated last week in the Choices story as well, I’m not sure what that means for them, if we’ll see them in future stories, or if they’re being retired. If nothing else, I guess we can create them in The Sims and play them there. But whatever the case, it’s a great cast and I’m sure I’m not the only one who will miss them.

Anyway, if you haven’t played this game in either its original form, or on Choices, I highly recommend it. At its core, it’s about being true to yourself, about accepting yourself and others, and I think that’s a theme worth promoting.

PS. One of these days I want to do an image of just the NPCs I created for this game. The first batch you create (the nerds, the jocks, the preps, the cheerleaders) are in some ways more canon than the later all-stars because they’ve been a part of my school for so long, and I want to pay tribute to them as well, even if no one else knows who they are.