Academia: School Simulator Review (PC)

An expanded cafeteria would make sure that my students have enough food in their bellies to stay focused on their lessons. But better teachers can deliver more info in better ways, leading to more of them acing the end of the year exams. Alternately I could invest in more counseling to limit infractions and in more janitors to keep everything clean. There are never enough resources to go around in Academia: School Simulator.

As the name hints, this is a simulation experience focused on education management. Squeaky Wheel Studio is handling both the development and the publishing of the title, offered on the PC. The team says the most recent patch should be considered the final content-focused one and that they will only introduce updates bug fixing is required.

The concept is deceivingly simple: starting with money and a few workers create an academic institution. The player gets to build the classrooms, hire the teachers, manage the schedule. There are also administrative tasks that need to be dealt with, both by hired characters (always customize the principal) and by the gamers themselves. A good academy requires constant tweaking and a lot of attention for the monetary balance.

Players need to put up everything from classrooms to offices, using a variety of materials for walls and floors. They also have to take care of the staff that makes the entire school run as well as possible. Research opens up both more things to build to improve the institution and w3ays to automate operations for extra efficiency.

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Academia: School Simulator tracks a variety of stats, all of them consolidated into motivation, for all the students. I spend 10 minutes each simulated school day reading the detailed info of random students and evaluating how they can best develop. If you fail to keep them satisfied, they can abandon school or move to a rival. This is a problem because each of them comes with an attached stipend that funds operations. Grants, basically well-developed side quests, offer another source of income.

In the campaign mode, one needs to carefully keep a keen eye on finances. It is hard to keep a school clean, the students well-fed, and truancy to a minimum. But there’s a clear sense of achievement when a year ends (after 10 in-game days) and the player lead school moves up the ranks and beats out its rival.

Academia: School Simulator also has a good tutorial, for those who do not want to fail at least one campaign to learn some core ideas. A more open sandbox mode is also available, removing pressure and allowing players to create their ideal school in peace.

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But I like the tension of the campaign. Grants might be a crutch but they give players direction. I also appreciate the way a limited budget pushes me to develop bit by bit, organically, without space to put together a new layout from scratch. Growth is messy and some students will fail.

Academia: School Simulator uses a top-down perspective with funny, bright, abstract-looking characters and environments. The graphics are expressive but simple. Players can choose to zoom on one character and get detailed information on their status and their activity. But most of the time gamers will stay zoomed out to have a clearer view of how their academia is doing. The sound design is less interesting than the graphics and I quickly replaced the soundtrack with a mix of ‘80s anti-school-themed rock, which fits the theme much better.

The biggest problem with the presentation is that the user interface is not streamlined. Details about how a player is doing are relatively easy to obtain to act upon. But creating new areas, especially the process of placing items, is a little annoying as it involves a lot of digging through menus and categories. As familiarity with the layout increases, it gets easier to work with but it always feels a little underbaked.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion