What to include in an open world school sim?

I'm making a very open world school sim and I'm just wondering - what types of things would be best to include in a school simulation game? I'll list the ones that I'm thinking of, and then I'm gonna leave the floor open for anyone who would like to suggest what else should fit into a game like this. So... thinking about school sims:

• Real-time system: A clock that measures what time it is, and classes that start at certain times that you must walk to the room when the bell goes off.
• Relationship system: A variable that can vary from -100 => 0 => 100 that indicates how well acquainted you are with a person.
• Bullying/Fighting: combat where stronger kids beat younger kids, you are given a decision to fight or not. if you get in a fight, you gain an ally and popularity, but have to go to the principal's office and gain a demerit
• Class minigames: minigames that represent classes, getting graded from A to F based on your daily performance, with an overall grade at the end of the semester
• Assignments: Choose to study at certain times to finish assignments by a certain deadline dictated by your calendar/schedule
• Explorable town: Explore a town with shops that you can use your hard-earned money to buy items of luxury
• Part-time jobs: get a part-time job in the city to get money so that you can buy stuff.
• Wagging school: you are allowed to wag school but there is a chance that you get caught by a truancy officer and sent to the principal with a demerit
• Drug dealers: drugs are being sold to kids, so you can choose to report it to the principal and he'll be locked up, or you can buy drugs, get high, and have a chance of getting in trouble (or not)
• Demerits: 3 demerits get you a meeting with your parents and the principal, 6 demerits get you suspended, 9 demerits get you expelled (game over! save file deleted)
• Pickpocketing: Pickpocket from fellow students or teachers with the chance of getting caught
• Dating: Date girls and possibly gain a future partner at the end of the day
• Graduation: Graduation day, where you possibly graduate with your friends, or watch all your friends graduate without you and have to repeat another year without them (bad ending)

Now I open it up for discussion for other mechanics that you might find within school sims. Cheers ^_^

I meant to do a simulation game a while back myself but I don't know where the other person went off too ~.~ But anyway,

What about a reward system? Schools do field trips all the time (only the good get to go.) or even you can get brownie points with the staff

much like your relationship system except you can sucker the staff into doing what you want to do.

I'm not a big fan of real-time systems, because they basically mean "if you don't make time in your actual life to play the game somewhere in time X through Y, you get penalized in some fashion."  Even if it is "don't get certain bonuses," it penalizes casual players.  

I would definitely do an in-game clock, but not have it be a real-time clock.  Sort of like Harvest Moon --- the clock always advances, until your character goes to sleep.  

This sounds sort of like Rune Factory 2's school.  

Things I would add:

* Different school years.  Perhaps you only get to advance to the next grade level if your GPA was over, say, 2.0.  And you had to graduate within, say, 6 years.  Different school years = different puzzles, classes, the hero becomes stronger (higher max level cap)...

* Overall storyline.  Why am I in school?  Maybe the school is a set of gifted students preparing for the Zombie/whatever Apocalypse (set in the future, so we can justify, say, a Simulation being the exam)?  Or, maybe we find near the end of the game that the students are all dead --- and their grades send them to Heaven or Hell.    Or they are slowly being mind controlled, so the hero needs to fight the Evil which is taking over the school...    

* Dating/relationships:  If these are high enough, maybe the love interest joins your party.   But, if the relationship drops off too much, you lose them for good.

* Part time jobs:  Mini-games perhaps?  If you don't do well enough, you can get fired.  Do well and your pay goes up (as does the difficulty).  Perhaps skill in this also increases the hero's stats or grants new Skills (more advanced item crafting perhaps)

* Item crafting:  A workshop or cooking class where the hero learns to make better armor/weapons/healing items/etc.  Students improve their crafting skills and can find items by battling/stealing/whatever.  As in Rune Factory.

* Sneaking:  Maybe if you can peek behind the teacher's desk, you find some plot crucial items IF none of the other students see you...otherwise, you get in big trouble.

* Cliques:  Some cliques won't accept you, others will pretend to accept you (and be nasty behind your back).  Perhaps some people are, well, Informants who would pass on your less-than-lawful deeds to the school...

The school exams could be puzzle/action combinations like "See if you can return the Chalice.  I've put it in that cave over there."   If the school is Evil or being infiltrated by Evil, that justifies why in the world a school would try to kill its students (check tvtropes for "Uriah Gambit")...

"Teacher, there was a huge dragon in that cave! We barely got out alive!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dan.  You went to that cave?  That wasn't the one I said.  You get a demerit for not following directions!"  (NOTE: It was; the teacher wants Dan dead)

If you are doing the "students are already dead" route, then a TPK (Total Party Kill) must result in their waking up the next day, not a Game Over.  This is also a little tip-off that something strange is going on here...

Hope these ideas help.

I think it depends on the world the "sim" is base on,

i.e a anime world, a harry potter world or reality.

I persionaly would go with a sim of the real world but add a twist , so the school could be a special school where the students learn to deal with objects with strange powers. that way u have an open book as to where the environment goes.

for example there could a class that studies the effect of a mirror that when someone stares at it the end up in a world where everything is reflected or in someway different from their own.

I think what you have so far is great but I always try to keep my options open.

You could possibly add clubs for after school activities, such as a ghost hunter club that explores the school at night

Good idea with the real time system, however if you add this touch of reality I suggest adding breaks or having weekends. Also I think you should get the option of breaking into school once its closed (since you have a real time system going) to steal test answers and prank teachers/students. 

I would love to have way more games with the mechanics like the ones you've mentioned, and also specifically, more school simulators (not the scripted, linear, story based stuff). But I think to make them really fun, they would need to be truly dynamic like they are supposed to be, and with many randomized elements. But I'm not sure if it would be possible in RPG Maker.

So, the things I would include:

Random Events - They just would make playing the game much more diverse, with fun, unexpected things happening in the game world. For example, someone randomly bullying someone, and you could just watch, walk away, or help the victim, or the bully. Fights between different types of npcs, and food fights, oh yeah, that's the stuff. Kinda like the ones in Bully, but they would just happen on their own.

Radiant AI - Bethesda's Radiant AI like AI for npcs. It wouldn't be so fun to see all of the npcs in the school simulation game always standing in the same place at a certain hour, and what's amazing about Radiant AI is that the npcs have a set of specific goals, and it's up to them how they will accomplish them. So it would be really fun in a school simulation game.

I'm not 100% sure if any of these two would be possible in RPG Maker, but I thought I list them anyway.

Besides these those two, I think features you've mentioned would already make a game like that very fun to play.

I would definitely have after-school clubs. Possibly even band and orchestra class options. Although I agree with whitesphere. Use an in-game clock. Like what if some people have to go to actual school and so can't play during those hours? One fun idea would be to make a computer club that can actually change things in the world. This is an idea I had, (it was going to be set in the modern world, though not really school), you can talk to them and get them to change stuff in the world. My idea was kind of like a "cheat/secrets" system, although you could also have them try to hack into the school to get tests. Though for the former, how I thought you could support this was say the computer was infused with magic (like I said, my idea was for the modern world...except with magic).

Extracurricular activities.  Clubs.  Hell, maybe intramural sports if you can pull it off. 

A way to track the player's reputation should be in order, as well as creative ways of integrating reputation into CORE gameplay (RPGs=Combat).

SOCIAL EVENTS.  Parties.  Beer pong.  Music.  You won't be able to find any public domain music that kids listen to unless your work is a period piece.

I'm sure there's an iPhone script out there that will allow you to simulate managing a network of friends.

If you're willing, you should include in-universe books.  Maybe even public domain books (with proper credit) if the story takes place in something resembling the real world.  There is a script that turns documents into in-game "books," I just can't find it right now.

You could make quests out of going to class, field trips, club meetings, sporting events, etc.