Skools Out Creator Interviewed, Game Released

An anonymous reader writes "The full download version of PC indie game Skools Out is now available from the official Mucky Baby site - there's also a bunch of new screenshots and a playable demo available." There's an interview with Mucky Baby's Simon Keating, himself an ex-Mucky Foot developer, over at DIY Games, describing the "PC action adventure title", influenced by classic Spectrum title Skool Daze. The article notes this as another example of "the world of independent game development... becoming populated with more and more developers that have left the business of big name game development and struck out on their own."

Is this what we teach kids?

[Deltawolf]

Is this what passes as a game today? While It seems to be an educational wonder, it may just turn your kids into potato chip zombies playing Halo and UT2004 blasting away with the new OC3 line he requisitioned from his parents. Or they will become hackers and hack into the school computer networks and change their grades as well as the ones of the person he fancys. What are we teaching kids these days? When I was a kid we had 80's music and spiked hair not games in which the kid must get the headmaster's password. The gaming industry in educational products has really taken a turn for the worse.

Re:Is this what we teach kids?

[Lord Graga]

You are frightening my geeky charisma!

Re:Is this what we teach kids?

[AltaMannen]

In the 80's we had School Daze, but I guess you didn't pay attention.

Re:Is this what we teach kids?

[Goldberg's Pants]

Skool Daze was a classic. (As was it's sequel.)

What I want to know is what fuckwit is coming up with these company names? Mucky Baby? What was that one that went tits up recently? Mucky Foot? Fucking stupid company names.

Whatever happened to cool names, like the sadly departed "Cavedog"?

Whatever... You're better off going and downloading a Sinclair Spectrum emulator from "World of Spectrum" and downloading the originals than paying for this apparent rehash.

Shrug

[superultra]

Played it for a while. There might be a decent game hidden beneath the cubersome controls and camera, but I was never given the motivation to keep looking for it. Ater finally figuring out how to zoom in and out I'd forgotten the tutorial's objectives and couldn't find them anywhere, so I spent 5 more minutes wandering around the house to no avail.

There are some areas that indie/budget companies just can't compete in. Graphics, as Skools Out demonstrates, is one area. Sound, and even bug-testing are others. I'm forgiving there. But play logistics has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with designers who don't look at their game more objectively. There's no excuse save laziness for the kind of silly controls and nauseating camera Skools Out exhibits.

Re:Shrug

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that this title is not really that great at it's greatest, however

"There are some areas that indie/budget companies just can't compete in."

Indie developers can most certainly compete in any areas of professional developers, it's just harder to compete is all areas at the same time. Time and money are the largest factors in game development, but the only differences you will see when you have such resources is the level of presentation a game shows at the end. This game suffers in core design and

Spelling. Ack

[aridhol]

OK, am I the only one that gets annoyed at "cute" misspellings in products aimed at children? "Skools Out", "Playskool", "Toys R Us", and probably many more. Especially in, as this case is, an educational product. Yup, we'll teach your kid everything, including the wrong way to spell stuff.

Skool Daze

[AliasTheRoot]

Has been remade before as Klass of 99 [sgn.net] - which is very close to the original.

Funnily enough, the only thing educational I remember about the original was it was set in an educational institution. It was inspired by those early to mid twentieth century British schoolboy tales of japes and pranks.

Re:Skool Daze

[malf-uk]

Can play the original ZX Spectrum version here - with a java capable browser.

Skool Daze [worldofspectrum.org]

and its sequel here

Back To Skool [worldofspectrum.org]