School Tycoon

Back when I was in primary school, I had a few different ideas about how everything should be run. First, I obviously wanted to make the entire day a mix of recess and lunch, followed by watching movies for each subject instead of being taught. Second, the school day would never be longer than a few hours and every day would basically be Friday. Thinking back on this, I can see why I never wanted to nor did become a teacher. I think my students would have loved me, but they wouldn’t learn a thing all day. However, School Tycoon gave me the chance to flex my teaching muscles anyway and see exactly how bad (or hey, maybe even good!) of a teacher I would be if I were to take over a school today.

Rule the School

School Tycoon is somewhat of a relative to other tycoon games, like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Zoo Tycoon, and had many of the same features. What set it apart, however, was that it was a far more simplified experience that was aimed at a younger audience.

No doubt this was done to hopefully get kids interested in tycoon games for when they grew older, and it would seem it did the job because they’re even bigger now than ever. The premise of School Tycoon is that you’re put in charge of a school and tasked with brightening up the campus, hiring teachers, constructing new buildings, and keeping the schoolkids engaged all without going bankrupt. Pretty simple premise and entirely relatable to other tycoon games.

The difference here is that there is just a lot less to manage and this title is far less stressful than Planet Coaster, which is introduces a whole new level of stress which I won’t get into. Your main focus will probably trying to keep your students happy while paying your teachers/staff just enough to keep them without skimping on the campus. These elements aside, it gets tricky because you’re never sure where your income actually originates – either a major challenge or oversight – and micromanaging student and staff happiness can be hard itself. Though your school is ranked on student performance, which can be improved by hiring better teachers, you’ll also be expected to build arcades and mini golf courses to keep the kids happy. Seems counterproductive, but it somehow works.

Help Your School Thrive

Trying to get your school to be successful is no easy task. Unfortunately, this is not a result of the game having a real strategy to follow, but is actually caused by a bunch of bugs that were never addressed. Perhaps the most frustrating bug is that when you save and exit a game that you had saved up money in the bank, you may return in your next session to actually be in debt. Or (and this may not be a bug) you may encounter disaster after disaster, seemingly without end. Even one hurricane/tornado/what have you can devastate you, but the game really piles on and makes it impossible to progress if you’re unlucky.

While the game as a whole is lighthearted, has standard graphics for the time, and an actually impressive sound design, the features of the gameplay are almost entirely upended by these occurrences and make playing it past a certain point more difficult than its worth.

Pros

• Easy to play
• Graphics are fine
• Management elements done well

Cons

• Disasters far too frequent, progression impossible some games
• Tons of game breaking bugs/glitches
• Simplicity overshadowed by unfair difficulty from oversights