Goodbye Volcano High Download
Delilah Fadden
It's the final year of high school, and graduation looms on the horizon. Will the students of Volcano High have enough time to figure themselves out before it's all over? Is it too late to tell their crush how they feel? Are they even ready for what comes next? Goodbye Volcano High is a cinematic narrative game about the end of an era, and the beginning of a love story.
Set in a world of anthropomorphic dinosaurs, the game centers on the members of the band VVorm Drama; the non-binary lead vocalist Fang the pterodactyl (Lachlan Watson),[2] guitarist Trish the triceratops (Ozioma Akagha)[3] and drummer Reed the velociraptor (Mark Whitten),[3] alongside the school's student council president Naomi the parasaurolophus (Allegra Clark)[3] and Fang's brother Naser (Abe Bueno-Jallad),[3] - as they venture through the highs and lows of their final year as Volcano High seniors with graduation looming over the horizon while coming to terms with their own impending extinction from an asteroid.
The game was initially announced during PlayStation's "Future of Gaming" online presentation on 11 June 2020, with a release window of 2021.[4][5][6] In August 2021, KO_OP announced a delay of Goodbye Volcano High's release until sometime in 2022. The developers wanted to avoid crunch related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and had already brought in a new writing team from Sweet Baby Inc. in June 2020 to reboot the game's entire narrative direction.[7][8][9] The new narrative direction was largely inspired by the experiences of high school seniors graduating during the pandemic.[10] In November 2022, the game was delayed to 2023.[11] A new gameplay trailer premiered during a PlayStation "State of Play" presentation on 23 February 2023, announcing a release date of 15 June[12] but was delayed to 29 August.[13] Prior to release, demos of the game were showcased at the 2023 Game Developers Conference as part of the "Day of the Devs" selection,[14] PAX East 2023, and at the 2023 Tribeca Festival as part of the "Games & Immersive Experience" selection.[15]
There's something immortal about the golden era of high school movies and TV shows - a solid block of hyper-American 90s and early 00s dramedies that shaped, for better or worse, how a generation parsed teenhood and the idea of growing up. There were the pop-infused Brat Pack movies, the early edginess of Degrassi Junior High and My So-Called Life, and the cult classic Freaks and Geeks; we have Clueless, Cruel Intentions, 10 Things I Hate About You. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, beloved by so many, remains the last line of defence for Joss Whedon apologists. These projects didn't just have exceptionally savvy audio direction, but a genuine understanding of music as a narrative transceiver in a formative period when you're figuring out how to exist in a body and a world that doesn't become you.
It's usually not clear, fully-formed memories that bring you back to high school's greatest hits. Sometimes all it takes is a tiny sensorial cue - a whiff of bad cologne, or the way the sun hits your street in the evening. But more often than not, it's music. It's a riff, a vocal hook, a melody, a track on your Discman when your parents argued in the car. It was a taut, rollicking rhythm that gave you enough momentum to shake off the real world for a few minutes, the first big hit from a small local band, or the song everyone was into that summer when it was so hot that your friend's hula girl bobblehead melted on the car dashboard. The best coming-of-age soundtracks are powerful for a reason; the magic that swirls around first bands and the raw energy of young songwriting even more so.
Goodbye Volcano High takes this unquantifiable high school vibe, drenches it in exquisitely catchy power-pop, and creates an absolute belter of a story that marries slice-of-life dinosaur teendom with a slow, inescapable horror. For protagonist Fang, heading back to school is complicated. It's the start of senior year, and they've had a pretty rough summer, albeit one where they gave themselves a sweet new makeover that feels more like a low-key suit of armour. They've been writing new music for their band Worm Drama, determined to go on tour after graduation without realising that their bandmates have slightly different priorities. Fang worries their parents aren't fully in sync with their goal as a musician with no plans for college; they've also relatively recently come out as non-binary. All this tumult is compounded by looming disaster - not entirely surprising if you're familiar with the fate of the dinosaurs, but devastating all the same.
But it's "Pretty Heroes" - the big finale song named after an in-game anime that sounds suspiciously like Sailor Moon - that well and truly broke me. This is one of the few teen narratives that stabs you straight in the heart and twists the knife in deep, and I'd do it all over again just to experience the music in context for maximum heartbreak. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of high school stories - ones created by adults to navel gaze about their forgotten youth and project old regrets onto a fresh canvas, and ones created by actual teenagers. Goodbye Volcano High is one of the first times I've been able to fully inhabit a high school narrative without feeling the cynical, calculating spectre of a grown writer in every quip or interaction; this hits hard when you think about how, while teen icons like Whedon et al. have been accused of being abusive, awful people, they were also awfully successful at framing how an entire generation remembers and idealise high school. If Volcano High is KO_OP's love letter to the chutzpah of youth - to living, loving and dying on your own terms - it does so blissfully free of these restraints.
After I finished Goodbye Volcano High, after a brief recess where I had a little cry, I found myself rewatching The OC. In college I'd mostly absorbed parts of the show when someone left it on in the next room. In the wake of Volcano High, it wasn't just "California" that I wanted to hear, but the series-defining sequence of lone misfit Ryan (Ben McKenzie) emerging from his ritzy new digs into merciless white-hot sunlight, next to a glistening infinity pool with all of Newport Beach at his feet. The OC has little to do with Volcano High beyond the idyllic beachy high school setting - they're completely different types of stories. But Ryan and the poolhouse is an almost perfect visual inversion of Volcano High's emotionally ruinous end - a reminder not to go gently into that good light, a crystal-clear moment of collective wonder and defiance in the face of something unknowable and unchangeable.
Goodbye Volcano High takes us through the life of Fang, a non-binary, anthropomorphic pterodactyl as they navigate their final year of high school. With them are their two best friends and bandmates, Trish the triceratops on guitar and Reed the velociraptor on drums. Their band, Worm Drama, has managed to secure an audition for a battle of the bands that, if won, would get them a spot to play at a local festival. Fang wants nothing more but to become a touring musician but not everyone in the band is on board with this idea.
goodbyevolcanohigh.com
Check out the game and see the power of spine at its finest. I created all of the advanced rigs within the game and 95% of the smaller unique rigs. I also helped animate within an extremely amazing animation team. I'm extremely proud of everyone that helped make this possible. Take a look at some of my other work at www.jrdelanuez.com
The other major part of the narrative is coming of age at the end of high school. This will play out like a visual novel/dating sim by the looks of the latest trailer. KO_OP has said the game will have multiple dialogue choices and a branching narrative based on how you choose to interact with characters. Similar to the angsty music game We Are OFK, Goodbye Volcano High will also include a hefty helping of texting and social media in-world that players will use to progress relationships and narratives.
In Goodbye Volcano High you follow the story of Fang, the lead-singer and driving force of a struggling high school band who may have a chance of making it big. There are quite a few problems between Fang and her dreams, but the biggest is probably the fact that a cataclysmic event is going to wipe out all of the dinosaurs. Hopefully Fang will at least be able to have a wonderful senior year, succeed with her band and accept the end before it comes.
Snoot Game quickly rose to popularity in the /v/ board, gaining a cult following among anons due to its surprisingly high quality, character development, and emotional impact, and boosted Fang's profile into being perceived as a cute love interest.
I completely forgot about this game! I had been interested in it before but it just took so long to get released that it wound up falling off my radar.
Hmm. While this review was a healthy precaution not to set one's expectations too high, after watching about 20 minutes of a playthrough just now for a bit more clarity, I'll have to somewhat disagree on the writing quality. While what we have here is a good distance from realistic, comparable writing would make for a decent cartoon, which seems like what the developers were going for here (interactive cartoon). The comparison to Life is Strange in that regard feels especially misplaced. So far I find this five times more interesting than any installment of that franchise I've played to date and the ways the play mechanics appear to convey the conflicted thought processes going on in Fang's head look especially intriguing! When you characterize that as a highlight of the experience, I'll bet you're right about that.
I sense a sappy story indeed, but hey, I have a sappy side. I'm not sensing that this will emerge as my "game of the year" pick or anything, but may have to give it a shot for myself after all.