Dead Or School

**Dead Or School** (デッド・オア・スクール, ***Dead Or School***?), is an indie hack-and-slash game for the PC, initially released via Steam Early Access on July 13, 2018. It is currently available there and through DMM Games in Japan. Ports for the Playstation 4 and the Nintendo Switch were released on August 29, 2019.

It was later released for the PS4 and Switch in the UK, Austria, The Netherlands and Switzerland by Marvelous Europe on March 13, 2020.

## Staff

 **Tomomi "Max" Yamaguchi** |  | Overall Programming

## Gameplay

The game is a 2D platformer set on 3D-rendered dungeons, incorporating the aforementioned action style with RPG elements in a system dubbed *"Metroidvania"* by some gamers. There are many branching paths, some to advance the plot and the others leading to optional sections. The latter parts often have an item to get or a Refugee to rescue, sometimes accompanied by challenge sequences or simple puzzles.

Weapons and attachments can be collected from defeated enemies, found at random in item boxes or purchased from vending machines *(standalone/from the memory spots)* The former comes in three categories: Melee, Gun and Launcher.

* Melee weapons have a durability rating with varying sizes, kinds and attack power.
* Guns are mostly automatic or single shot.
* Launchers are typically one-shot, one-kill heavy cannons.

Melee weapons with 0 durability will become dull but can still be used with attack power significantly reduced. Empty Guns and Launchers cannot be equipped. When HP damage reaches a low level, the uniform will break and certain stats will increase.

Health restoration, weapon *(plus uniform)* repairs and ammo replenishment will be done automatically when accessing a memory spot.

All types can be fortified with reinforcement gears and money or given a new random ability with a modification gear. Up to two attachments can be applied to each weapon, though some categories do not work with certain types. *(i.e. Ammo Plus doesn't work on Launchers, Hardness has no effect on Guns, etc.)*

Character development is multi-faceted: Aside from increasing base stats for HP, Stamina and Equipment Weight Limit, The player has the option to distribute points to a skill tree for activating and improving special abilities divided per weapon type. Stat bonuses and skill points are not only obtained from level-ups, but also from clearing sub-quests and defeating bosses in simulator battles.

## Plot

"*Don't talk about hopes and dreams to girls who live in a pit, because hoping is the beginning of despair.*"—**Dead Or School Promotional Video**

In a dystopian future, many human beings were afflicted with an unknown virus that turned them into Mutants. The battle between the surviving humans and the mutants was fierce, leading to a decisive confrontation to determine which species will take control. The war raged on for 3 years but the mutants ultimately proved too much for humanity, leaving them with no choice but to give up life on the surface and take refuge underground.

Fearing invasion by the mutants, the humans constantly went further below, digging as deep as they could. Civilization, culture and technological know-how was almost completely lost to time as the humans desperately continued to escape from their sworn enemies in the decades to come...

78 years later, a group of youths from Ikebukuro secretly planned to ascend to the upper world using a still-functioning elevator. They were ambushed by Mutants en route but survived the attack thanks to Hisako, daughter of the Ikebukuro underground settlement's head. Hisako herself however, was also very curious about what the surface world was like despite a long-standing law among underground dwellers that it was a taboo subject with a corresponding punishment.

Hisako's grandmother humored the former's curiosity, sharing what little memories she had left of the place she once called home. She starts by handing Hisako the uniform she used to wear, then shares stories about *"school"*, a paradise where children play and learn together. This inspires Hisako to aim for the surface and find a school to go to while gathering friends along the way.

## Characters

* Hisako
* Yurika
* Daiba
* Yuki
* Fou
* Dr. Yoshitaka
* Chairman Isao

## Development

The director Mokuseizaiju *(real name Ryouhei Ono)* started out as a doujinshi artist. He was quite prolific in the Comic Market scene and usually did fanzines of classics and contemporary series, doing some unorthodox crossovers on occassion like putting together the characters of a certain Super Robot series and a famous anime idol group in the same universe. He later started doing original adult comic stories, but his most notable work was **How to Draw an H Doujinshi** (Hな同人誌の描き方, *H na Doujinshi no Kakikata*, ***How to Draw an H Doujinshi***?), one that mixes erotic entertainment with basic knowledge-sharing for budding artists. He also released a couple of tutorial videos on Youtube teaching his style of speed-drawing. Mokuseizaiju eventually retired from drawing erotic comics in 2016 despite it being his primary source of income at the time, having dropped out of high school years prior to pursue his dream of becoming a mainstream comic artist.

He eventually came up with his own original SF comic series titled Machine Doll Nanami-Chan. Mokuseizaiju initally submitted the manuscript to a certain publishing outfit, only for it to end up getting rejected. He later put up the comic in his blog, and uploaded read-aloud excerpts in various video sites. Machine Doll Nanami-Chan was later released under the Manga Gocha label. The series is currently ongoing (albeit on an irregular basis) with three standalone published issues in circulation plus a one-shot prequel story released in typical self-published erotic comic format that focused on a different set of characters.

As Mokuseizaiju mentioned in part 1 of his development vlog, the manga's reception was good, but the sales numbers were not enough to make ends meet. Because of this, he planned to create a game that would possibly sell over a million copies but knew fully well that he could not do it alone. Using the savings from his prior endeavors, he rented a commercial space at a shopping district in Kouenji to use as an office and looked for people to assist in his new project.

Joining Mokuseizaiju in his game development quest were illustrator/animator Gaku Ninomiya and programmer Tomomi Yamaguchi.

With this, the indie company Studio Nanafushi came into being. Their office was later refurbished as a small bar called "365" because Mokuseizaiju wanted a source of steady income in between drawing comics and making games. The idea behind the naming convention is that all items in the menu are valued at 365 Yen.

The staff also pitched in with the bar's interior detailing. Part 5 of the vlog showed Yamaguchi doing concrete sculpts in between working on the game program. Kouenji Bar 365 was completed a year later. During the daytime, it was a game development workplace but at night, it was an establishment that served food and drinks.

Studio Nanafushi's first game was to be a hack-and-slash 2D action-platformer that featured a young girl as the protagonist, set in the same universe as Mokuseizaiju's comic series.

Aside from his role as director, Mokuseizaiju will also handle human character design, scenario writing and level map layout. Ninomiya is in charge of monster designs and level environments rendered with Unity 3D as well as 2D animation using Spine Pro. Yamaguchi will oversee all the Unity programming aspects.

The first order of business was to put together a promotional video to submit to Steam Greenlight. Subsequent parts of the development vlog documented this, as well as some proposed additions to the game proper. Due to numerous labor-intensive features they wanted to incorporate, the production time took a lot longer than expected even with part-time help. As a result, Studio Nanafushi overshot the originally intended release date of March 2017. Their development funds were also dwindling to a worrying degree.

To this end, they recorded a video that had Mokuseizaiju reading a script with machine-translated English for the crowdfunding website Indiegogo. The appeal page also featured a manga shown both in Japanese and English asking for assistance with the game's development. The team was able to raise $6010 *(20% of their intended goal)* from 84 backers which somehow sustained production. The base version of the game was finally completed after roughly 3 years. Though they passed Steam Greenlight ranking at #4 and got an initial version ready for Steam Early Access, many of the proposed features had to either be simplified, delayed or abandoned altogether, like detailed weapon modification, some equipment types, carrying refugees to a specific destination, among others.

Throughout the Early Access period, numerous bugs were worked on, and there were instances that the save data of the game was affected to the point that the staff had to warn players to refrain from playing or back up their saves until a fix could be implemented. Another common problem was the English and Chinese language parts had some inconsistent points and/or missed segments because the commissioned translators weren't able to keep up.

The game started with 2 languages, Japanese and English. Chinese was later added in version 2.00, and Russian was incorporated in 7.03.

## Gallery

### Early Development Screenshots

Title Image from the Promotional Video with the original release date. This image was subsequently used for the EXE prompt of the PC version as well as the startup icon for the console games.Weapon Customization was slated to be more detailed, utilizing different objects to change attack property and defense.There were originally 5 weapon categories, including hand-to-hand with knuckles. The onscreen cut-in was animated and reflects what equipment the player is currently using.The initial Skill Tree Menu, divided into Sword, Machine Gun, Knuckles, Chainsaw and Flamethrower categories.Refugees originally had to be escorted to a safe zone in the tradition of Dead Rising.The animated cut-in was also meant to serve as Hisako's conversation avatar. Shown here is Rika, a refugee character that did not make it to the final release.

### Final Version Screenshots

Title ScreenThe final Skill Tree menu in the game, trimmed down to three categories.Hisako in Harajuku Station.
### Console Release Covers

PS4 Version (JP).Switch Version (JP).PS4 Version (EU).Switch Version (EU).
### Trailers

Dead Or School - Launch Trailer【木星在住】三人で作ったゲームSTEAMで発売！！【dead or school】DEAD OR SCHOOL【PV】Nintendo SwitchDEAD OR SCHOOL - Announcement Trailer (EU) -NINTENDO SWITCH - PLAYSTATION 4-
## PC Release & Update History

Main article: Dead Or School/PC Release & Update History
## Console Release

The PS4 and Switch ports were first released on August 29, 2019 in Japan and later in the UK and other European territories on March 13, 2020.

Both console versions have content similar to 7.02, with some differences as follows:

* Longer load times and slight processing delay in saving for physical copies.
* Weapon Select is R/R1 button by default.
* The system does not auto-save when fortifying or modifying weapons.
* For the Switch version, certain minor animation frames were removed to prevent slowdown.

At present, the 7.03 update has not yet been applied to the console versions.

## Notes & Trivia

* The plot of Dead Or School is meant to be a "what-if" side story based on the Machine Doll Nanami-Chan manga, with common elements between the two becoming more and more obvious as the game story progresses.
* The first trailer mistakenly had the copyright date of 2008 instead of 2017/2018. This was corrected in subsequent videos and other promotional material.
* There is no music credit because the BGM tracks used in the game were from free web resources.
* Hisako's voice actress Renge Todo was credited in-game for performing four roles: the main character herself, Yurika, Hisako's mother and grandmother. The voices for the latter two can only be heard in the video, not the game proper. Yurika's parts cannot be found in the game nor on any related promotional media.
* If the player tries to go beyond the currently available stages in earlier versions of the PC edition, a small skit will play out where Yurika and Daiba *(plus Yuki after Akihabara has been cleared)* will tell Hisako that due to circumstances beyond their control *(specifically how hard it is for only 3 people to make 1 area within a month's time)*, they have no choice but to stay on the train until the update is complete. A preview teaser will follow where the iArm display will show highlights of the stage that is currently in development.

## External Links

* https://www.nanafushi.jp/
* https://store.steampowered.com/app/789760/DEAD\_OR\_SCHOOL/
* https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dead-or-school#/
* https://marvelousgames.com/blogs/games/dead-or-school