Reviews

Skool Daze is simply a legend in its own lunchtime.

Naturally, a legend in a school lunchtime.

In this game, you play the hero, Eric. A misunderstood youth by his teachers (So disruptive, says one. Basically, he is very lazy, says another), and he's going to be in a whole load of hot water when the school report arrives.

So the only solution is to get the combination to the safe, and steal the report.

As Eric, you have to break all the shields in the school to get the secret combination to the safe from the teachers. This wouldn't be so hard if it wasn't for the small detail of being compelled to attend lessons, and of course, not get caught doing your deeds by the teachers - or being grassed up by the school swot.

The teachers are the usual bunch of varied people you find in any school - a brutal headmaster, who walks around menacingly with his cane, the gentle and eccentric science teacher, the geography teacher who wants to appear cool to the kids but never quite pulls it off, and the history teacher that's older than most of the history he teaches. Then there's your mates - the school bully, the kid who thinks he's too cool, the swot, and of course all the anonymous little kids you want nothing to do with - well, except to occasionally knock down to use as a jumping stool to get a particularly inaccessible shield.

The game is very well presented, and extremely engaging. A nice touch is being able to change the names of all the main characters - and who doesn't change the teachers names to match your own school teachers? It is just as unfair as a real school - you get into trouble for things you didn't do, and because of school overcrowding, you sometimes get shoved out of your chair and even though it wasn't your fault, you STILL get the punishment. And at the end, there's always the desperate attempt to halt the inevitable, and with the day of reckoning nigh as you have more than 10,000 lines, and Mr. Whacker, the headmaster, is marching purposefully towards you to expel you...and you just need one more shield to win... oh, the frustration!

Skool Daze is simply one of the classic games of its day. It is very simply, excellent in every respect.

One of the undisputed classics of Spectrum softography.

Original and funny.

The game that pulled me to the spectrum from the hand held machines. The first "video adventure" I played and one of the games I have better memories.

Skooldaze is fantastic. I can still remember going back to my mate's house in 1984 (or whenever the game was released) after messing about in the snow* at the park, and seeing Skooldaze for the first time. It was amazing. It was one of those few times where, like with Knightlore or Doom (PC) you stare at the screen in disbelief. Here was something you hadn't thought possible, in this case a large number of independent people, moving about a realistic game world in the shape of a school, and doing all the things that traditionally went on in schools, such as kids rushing about, teachers shouting, both pupils and teachers writing on blackboards, kids being late for lessons and the teachers dishing out lines, etc. The pupils also used catapults, which was a bit anachronistic in 1984, and totally ancient now (it's all knives and guns now, in our American-ised schools). And wow!, the game was so atmospheric.


* Snow - white, wet, freezing stuff that used to fall from the sky around here in winter. Now it's just rain and the occasional sleet. Thanks global warming...


And playing Skooldaze was even better than watching it! It played like a dream, with you able to catapult teachers (and if you were quick you could scarper, and so some other poor kid would get the blame, and the lines), punch your mates, write on blackboards, skive of lessons (or turn up for them, but thankfully you don't have to do any actual work when there), and the controls are very easy to use.

And when you tire of messing around causing havoc, there is the actual game objective to do. Either shoot or touch each shield that hangs on the walls, until they all flash, and then catapult the teachers who will each say a letter. These letters, chosen randomly at the start of each game, together will form the combination of the safe that you have to open to get your school report, so you can alter it before your parents see it. Only... The history teacher is so old that he cannot be trusted to remember his letter, so it's been hypnotically implanted into his mind - to get him to say his letter you have to write his date of birth on a blackboard for him to see. And to find his DOB you have to listen to the questions and answer in his classes.

Believe me, it's far, far more fun than it might sound. And speaking of sound, the ingame sound is sparse but effective, the graphics are very nice indeed, and the controls are well laid out and easy to use. You can even rename the skoolkids and the teachers (a real stroke of genius, as it made all of us schoolkids (at the time) relate the game to real life).

Minus points? Well, it's too easy when you get used to it (although still enormous fun), there's no pause or abort function, and, well that's it really. Oh, you can't delete something on a blackboard, you can't wipe it off (the teachers do, when they start a lesson, though). Those minus points don't lessen the game by anything much, though, so it's a 5/5 game for me!

This has to be the most original game ever!

The idea of the game was to run around the school (or should that be skool?!) and retrieving your school report before your parents read it!

The way you did this was by attending lessons and through out the day catapulting shields, kids etc. and getting the combination to the safe before you got 10000 lines (which would result in expulsion).

Fast, addictive and very amusing to punch the boffin, Einstein who knew the answer to every question the teachers asked.

The game is a side push-scroller with four teachers (one a headmaster, Mr. Wacker), four larger kids (one of them is you, the main player called Eric) and the others are smaller kids who just run around and attend lessons.

A real winner this game.

1984 - Microsphere (UK)
by David Reidy and Keith Warrington

Probably the most original game ever made for the speccy followed by Trashman, in my perspective. Great plot in a very well thought out game. You could either just fool around, teasing teachers and colleagues or actually play the game, both ways provide great fun.
The authors later made the brilliant sequel "Back to Skool" has you all know, and later produced another lesser known gem but equally brilliant, within the same genre, called "Contact Sam Cruise", which is mandatory to any "Skool Daze" fan.

"Skool Daze" is by far one of the most iconic games of the Spectrum era.

Excellent game with plenty of original details.

It reminds me of the best days of the Spectrum.

Sir Clive Sinclair should be thinking of games like this when he invented his machine back in 1982.

Great atmosphere ! Superb game ! Both authors must be proud !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPfFeOxLMw

a great game the sequel was much better but the variety was a welcom add on at the time the video link shows more of this rpg? lol grea game great times awful sound effects

Well, this is one of my all-time personal favourites. Ten out of ten for originality. It's so much fun to fire the catapult, especially if you can be sneaky enough to cause one of your classmates to take the blame for it. Always satisfyingly hilarious, that is. :)

Good use of BRIGHT attributes to shade the walls and give the background graphics some depth. The in-game characters are memorable and it's good how the "main characters" instantly stand out well from the pack of "generic pupils". It's really quite amazing how many sprites are moving around the screen at the same time.

Only problem for me is that I've spent so much time just randomly larking around in the game, I've never actually completed it. Maybe one day I will achieve this!

Taking on the school boy role of Eric was an amazing experience , no longer were you confined to the boredom of real school life , you could scrawl on blackboards , punch the swot , fire your trusty catapult at teachers - and if you so desired - actually play the game the way it was intended and try and retrieve your terrible school report from Mr Whackers safe .

Firing at the school shields and then deflecting the shots onto each teachers head would give you a piece of code to scribble down , get all the codes in time and unlock the safe and save the day , sounds easy ! But the day to day distractions of school life soon put your best plans to rest .

Its a fabulous game , one that really does stand the test of time , its got a one more go addiction , the graphics are clear , its fun to play and quite rightly takes its place in the top 5 spectrum games of all time , and on wos actually won the spectrum game world cup !

What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said? It's one of the spectrum's most fondly remembered games and with good reason too. And like all true classics, it's still great fun to play.

Fantastic game, I had a lot of fun just running around the school causing havoc and writing rude things on the blackboards (well, it was a while ago!)

I really liked the graphical style of these Microsphere games, colourful and stylish. Highly recommended!

I'm more familiar with Back to Skool and so I'll always prefer that game but this is pretty charmful too, I just can't help playing this and wishing I was playing the other game. If I played this one back in the day I would probably enjoy it more than I did but I didn't. Still it's a jolly game to play and you can still be a mischievous bastard and have great fun doing so.

A Spectrum classic.

This is a very original game that takes place in a school and you're Eric, who must remove your awful school report from the staffroom safe by introducing the combination consisting of four letters.

How to get these four letters is an amazing adventure inside the school, avoiding the bully, the swot (also a snitch, who will cause you a lot of problems) and other school mates, the teachers, even a mumps epidemic!... while attending (or not, it's up to you!) every classroom.

Play truants, hit anyone with your catapult, write in the blackboard and many other pranks that you didn't dare to do in a real school... or did you?

Incredible you wont see this all time top 5 ZX videogame at the top of the official WOS list.

Yes, it has its flaws (the start of movement when you push key, scroll...) but they are "lovingly integrated" making a totally immersive experience.

Further, it's a "personal computer" game, not a conversion, imitation or whatever. Playability benefits the most and adds to the experience.

In brief, lots of strengths to shape an unforgetable title, with overwhelming personality, crushing presence.

A perfect illustration for the 8 bits world

So long ago, and this gem looks more than time-tested. There's a story of rediscovering this game to very young children, to compare with nowadays favs and discover something new.
Hard to believe 6 years old, 7 years old ones, amused by the qaop emulator version of skool daze, referring to it as "the one at school". Funny how they ask for something as simple as the up keys..."how do you go upstairs?", leaving Eric long time lying on the ground after being hit instead of trying with S key, jumping crazy far from the shields and so on...
Being used to simpler games, they have a completely new experience, lots of keys ... or even the unpayable name changing ritual.

With Skool Daze we reached one of the great goals of the Spectrum. A game that could perfectly change the history of our machine. That is, if it does not appear, what course would the development of the ZX games catalog without SD have followed?



Today and for a long time, games allow almost infinite actions. In 1984/5 I hardly move (one or at most two axes) and I shoot, or perhaps jump (only rarely both). With Skool Daze there are a large number of possible actions, and they all have a logic and a specific purpose. The fun is continuous and at the same time the tension (make mistakes and you will be punished with the typical lines of sentences that you write on the board. 10000 means being expelled, repeating the course and therefore defeat.




Nothing remotely like it had ever been seen before.
A new era was born.

Skool Daze is a true wonder of digital fun and entertainment.
The first thing I should say is that I am not a #FAN# of video games, they are something that I like and appreciate, but I understand that to be really interesting they must go out of the way and propose new challenges.



This game is one of those that best achieves that goal.
It's funny how David S. Reidy didn't really seem to be a dedicated video game programmer but instead entered that world out of a sense of opportunity. Without a doubt that relative ignorance of the world of videogames helped him create one that went beyond the canons. Add to that Keith Warrington invaluable artistic help and ... the combination of all those factors was great.
With Skool Daze you can relive childhood. (Or you could, I remember it was very popular with Spectrum gamers.)

That aspect of having so much freedom of action that you don't even have to know the objective or the mission is a winning detail.
In fact, so many have played Skool Daze with no clue what to really do, and still love the game.


Probably the least aged game of the entire Spectrum catalog

I had the illusion to review one of my favs before 2020 end, so high quality review I was preparing for it because it's precisely illusion the graphic engine of this GAME; anyway here it is:





This is a school that is "alive". That is, things continually happen. You cannot pretend to stand still and do nothing and nothing happens to you. As in a (real world) school you have to fulfill your student obligations and as in a (real) school you are not alone, you have companions. And as in a school (again, a real one) unforeseen events and adverse situations happen that must be solved with imagination (with the imagination of a child). So in this game you don't have to navigate mazes or chase enemies or avoid aliens. You have to avoid being expelled! . This is a great genius sprinkled with details, which by being humble, make this one of the greatest.

Last but not least, how good it has to be that the worst thing that can be said it has is the sound, and yet you are presented with an unforgettable intro tune.