Sprung

Background

Sprung touted a script involving the work of Colleen McGuinness, who wrote an episode and served as story editor for other episodes of the FOX television series North Shore. It also seeked to build an identity as a title for a slightly more mature audience than expected for the then-fledgling Nintendo DS (Sprung was released within weeks of the system launch), dealing with mildly raunchy dating subject matter--though there is no truly explicit or gratuitous sexuality. Instead, it sports the more mischievous and comic side, going no further than scantily clad good-looking guys and gals, and  high school-grade sexual humor (in one instance a character refers to someone he dislikes as being a member of "The Circle Jerks"). The game sports the appropriate "T for Teen" ESRB rating as a result.

Gameplay Overview

Sprung's gameplay is reminiscent of classic point-and-click adventure games. While you don't necessarily directly control an avatar as s/he moves from environment to environment, progress hinges on correctly using items in your inventory (in this case presenting them to the right person at the right time) and deducing the appropriate response to what other characters are saying to you. The bulk of the game is entirely dialogue-driven; there is no traditional "pixel hunt" gameplay for finding items, and no discernible "puzzles" for you to solve. There are a scant amount of "mini-games" for you to contend with, though these really manifest themselves in the form of memory challenges within the dialogue text itself (as opposed to being full-on, separate mini-games).