While Two Point Campus is lovely in that comedic vein Theme Hospital had, I think Let’s School fits my aspirations better. I don’t want to ruin someone’s life at the end of their educational career. I want to do it as early as I possibly can! Being Dyslexic and often viewing my time in education as (to delicately put it) “crap,” I often find myself in cycles figuring out what could have been done better. The large-scale infrastructure of mass education is to teach as many as possible, the ones that don’t fit in are the “acceptable” failures.

Management in the most 90s fashion possible, Let’s School lets you control the schedule of each class to some extent. You’ll be building the school up, gaining reputation, and in a recent “Semester update,” building inter-school relationships with other head teachers, planning afterschool clubs, as well as community building. However, I’m overlooking the one thing that a lot of games seem to forget now, graphs and tables I don’t understand. Developed by Chinese studio Pathea Games, known for My Time at Sandrock and My Time at Portia, Let’s School also takes a private or Asian-centric idea to school in several respects.

Far more business-centric, there is a hands-off approach I’ve found to be more productive to success, both for the business and for the students. In an attempt to see as much of Let’s School as I could in the weeks we’ve had with the latest update, I ran multiple saves both in the campaign and the obligatory sandbox mode we all expect and appreciate from management titles. I never expected Let’s School to be Frostpunk-levels of micromanagement and difficulty, but I did expect something a little more somehow.

A podcast game through and through, I found myself sitting back just watching the days go by, checking in on schedules, training stuff up, and assigning new students to classes or staff to incidents. Rarely I’d find myself having to build a new wing of the school, and doing the bare minimum would get perfect performance either way. It was rarely that I’d find incentives to be active in the daily running of the school and ways to help with student performance. It is more about keeping order and generating money through tuition, food sales, medical fees (if it weren’t for Ferengis, Cherdenko would have been right), and more.

The “problem” I think I have with the schedule is the lack of management there. With four periods a day (leading to an iron deficiency) and of course five days to the school week, you have twenty periods to plan on for each week, with only three years (grades) of schooling to manage. Depending on the timescale you’ve picked, that week can be an entire year of schooling with Friday’s exam being how your performance is graded. To keep you from going mad, you only have four types of classes to pick from, and it isn’t too difficult to figure out how to game the system.

Eventually, you’ll go from “Literature 101” in the Humanities courses, all the way to “ESLApplications.” No, that’s correct, there are several examples of words or phrases conjoined when they should be separated. In several cases, I’ve seen Chinese in place of where English phrases should probably be, but it is fairly obvious after a short while with Let’s School what you are supposed to be seeing there. Though to return to the point, I don’t mind the inclusion of ESL studies. It further cements Let’s School’s Asian basis. However, the system could have been deeper and allowed me to choose the classes a little more.

It also doesn’t help that you’re expected to unlock some of those more advanced classes rather quickly so the school years can be as fast as they are. I wouldn’t have minded this so much if you weren’t fighting the schedule so you don’t have students attending classes you don’t have unlocked through the tech tree yet. Like a lot of things, there is a sense of hands-off, so even the research just feels like something that goes on in the background. Every piece of the gameplay loop feels like it does just enough to be part of a management game and doesn’t try to be much more than that.

For example, there is a total limit on what you can build and/or do overall as you need management points as the headmaster to keep order throughout the school. Sadly, once you’re in this hole of stressed teachers, classes filled with more students than can be managed, and so on, you’re locked out of building certain things. One of those things you’re unable to build for a lack of management points is another classroom. So how do you solve class overcrowding? A wish and a prayer, I think. Removing students from classes gets you moaned at by your assistant, and expelling them before they get three demerits isn’t an option.

Without the ability to correct your “generous” admissions board’s mistakes, you end up digging yourself big holes that aren’t easy to get out of. I’m not saying I want to pick favorites and kick out everyone else, I just want to kick out the ones that are bringing GameBoys and starting fights whenever I want. Now that I think about it, it is most of the horrible little rotters. Again, until you are playing the omnipotent god of school, you feel hands-off with the kids – not that anyone needs to be hands-on like a 70s BBC presenter, “allegedly.”

Let’s School is beautiful in its art direction and simple in its gameplay design for a management title, which is sad to say. There is something to like and enjoy as a fan of 90s management titles, but for some reason, the omnipotence feels like a disconnect that left me playing with a pen and listening to a podcast rather than doing much management. I can’t talk much about the experience before the semester update. Still, given what I know was added, these additions have seemingly expanded and made Let’s School a deeper experience from my understanding with nearly 20 hours on the clock.

Ultimately, I do enjoy and (to some degree) recommend Let’s School to fans of the management titles of the late 90s and early 2000s, but only if you’re looking for a cozy, warm experience. Fans of a greater challenge might be let down by the almost superficial level of management and lack of interaction between you and the school itself. I’m not one to advocate smacking anyone, but like the famous Prodigy song about Dungeon Keeper, I do want to smack the head teacher about when those management points are expended. A charming but shallow experience, Let’s School isn’t for everyone but it is enjoyable for a while.

A PC review copy of Let’s School was provided by Pathea Games for this review.

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Let's School

$19.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• A warm and inviting art style.
• A sandbox mode that can be more enjoyable.
• The "Semester" update is quite enjoyable and expands on the established gameplay.

Cons

• Several errors in the translation department.
• A level of omnipotence that can be off-putting.