Run your school the way you want to in School Tycoon! Construct over 50 different buildings, from classrooms to cafeterias, create entertainment options for your student body, including arcades, skate parks, and even a roller coaster, and so much more! Rule your school!

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You choices from the very beginning are what building to put and how many will you need. From there you have to create a school system that works and hire teachers, make sure you have everything looking good because the better the school looks I found the more students that will attend.

I also found too that if you forget to add a cafeteria you find the student revolting. The cool thing about this game is what you get to add to the school from a skateboard park to an arcade. While there user manual is a cute design, like a notebook, it lacks serious details about playing, but if you have played any "tycoon" games than you should be able to pick this up quickly.

The thing that reminded me most of my youth in school was the student body and how you can create the groupings like cheerleaders and preppies, to the athletes and those who like to get in trouble. If you really want some fun, you can even customize characters and add yourself to the school, virtually anything you can think of doing in or to a school is in this game.

While I do not get to play games all that often this one is captured my attention. Overall this one is great.

20 of 20 found the following review helpful:

Rule Your School!Feb 23, 2004
By aralissia "~aralissia"
School tycoon may be published by global star software, but it was created by cat daddy games, the makers of the skateboard park tycoons, ski resort tycoons, and golf resort tycoon games (among others). It is not surprising then that the game bears a bit of a resemblance to these other tycoons.

If you can't figure out what the premise of school tycoon is about, go sit in a corner with the dummy hat on. It's a simulation/tycoon where you get to run a school. I was thinking it would be in one building, but instead you are given a large plot of land (much like in theme park world) and each classroom etc is its own building (kind of like college). The variety of buildings is large, and falls into the following categories: classrooms, administrative, entertainment, food/drink, and restrooms. But they are not just decorative; these students are demanding! They not only want top-notch education, restrooms and clean pathways but burger joints, arcades, mini golf courses, huge fountain areas and more. Also to keep all this stuff up and running you will need to utilize janitors, maintanence workers, and landscapers.

There are 2 modes of play - sandbox and challenge mode. There are 3 levels of challenges containing a total of 24 challenges. They keep the player occupied for a while, but once they are done sand box mode doesn't seem nearly as fun. There just isn't enough depth compared to other management/tycoon games.
The score is kept by time (you can go back and try to beat your time on the challenges) as well as a little box that tells you what grades you have in each category (academics, athletics, obedience, moral etc).

The graphics are cute and colourful, a bit cartoonish, but detailed. You can zoom in and out, and when you click on a building you are usually able to expand the view inside that building and watch your students in action inside. You will also see them trolloping around every time the bell rings, and can direct them to goof off or go to a detention center. Yes, sometimes your students will get out of hand and have to be sent to a detention center to get some obedience back!
You can hire all sorts of staff, with the most important being teachers. Lot's of different looking characters, with the looks generally reflecting the attitudes and skill. The 3 important factors to take into consideration when hiring a teacher are strictness, fun, and skill. All of these are important, so a balance is the sought after goal. Although some types of students (they have very different personalities as well) will complain about the teachers being too boring, too stupid etc. You can even create your own student (giving them the attributes and looks you want) to influence the types of students frequenting your school.

The game isn't exactly going for realism (I mean common mini golf courses and pizza restaurants?) but its fun for as long as it lasts. Which might not be super long, given the fact that it lacks the detailed management of a lot of other tycoons. But it's still a fun game, especially for the young at heart. And if you like this game, try out some other cat daddy tycoon games as they follow in the same style most of the time (although dealing with very different subject matters).

52 of 63 found the following review helpful:

A Curiosity, at bestSep 04, 2004
By Jerome Y. Hebert
This is an extremely interesting concept for a game. I think the designers had a great idea, but didn't have the time or funding to pursue it much farther than it took to get it on the store shelf. We're definitely NOT talking "The Sims" here. Or even Zoo Tycoon-The Complete Collection.

Although I only played this game for a few hours, I found the early scenarios to be total no-brainers. I hate winning something in a minute and a half and not really knowing (and thus not really caring) how or why I did so.

The free-form option is extremely disappointing, in my opinion. In fact, it is so structured ("build style C of Building Z before you can even access style A of Building Y" and so on) that it's practically a pre-defined "scenario" in itself. When I have a free-form option, I actually expect to have some choices of what to do and when to do it. Like setting up a fully designed campus, for example, and trying to get it to work efficiently. Waiting the interminably long time that it takes to acquire cash (and the fact that one apparently has to maintain a low-grade English classroom -- for instance -- even while building a medium-grade one) makes progress and campus layout a real pain in the pants. An earthquake (in the game I was playing) didn't help when it resulted in damage that quickly ate up the $12,000 I had been patiently acquiring for other purposes. There is, apparently, no option for no disasters, just as there is apparently no option for setting the amount of starting funds or for designing a campus from scratch without reinventing the wheel each time, according to the designers set specifications. (If such options exist, I sure couldn't find them.)

The placement of certain objects is also a pain in the neck, especially trees and shrubs. And constantly moving or buying garbage cans isn't too realistic when it seems to become a necessity. Student and other "thoughts," while humorous at first, often don't convey anything too helpful. Why, for instance, would a student who apparently has a "frowning face" over his head have nothing but good to say about the school? Whatever.

All in all, perhaps more playing would allow me to increase my rating from two stars to three, but I don't think I'll be spending too much time working on the idea. There are other, far better simulations available. But I'm sorry that such a promising and creative concept falls short of the very enjoyable simulation adventure that School Tycoon might have been.

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:

Pretty Fun GameNov 06, 2005
By Guitar Girly "Jen"
Hi I'm Jenna and I am 14. This game is not the best game, but mainly pretty fun. The main problem most people have while playing this game is the low money. There is an easy way to fix that. On most game cheats web sites they have a cheat to make your money as high as you want it. Don't think me a bad person for cheating, because I guarantee you much better game play with more money. The only problem is that you have to start out buying all the portable classrooms, and they unlock the bigger ones. This becomes extremley annoying because if you buy the portable ones, and delete them after you have unlcoked the bigger ones, the big ones are no longer unlcocked. Therfore, you have to buy both, and once you have purchased the bigger ones, then delete the portable classrooms. All in all, this makes a complete mess of your campus and makes you want to stop playing.

Besides all that, this game is fun because you can create your own students and teachers, and it teaches responsibility for younger children. I believe this game is worth your buy, especially if you enjoyed Zoo Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon, or The Sims.

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