| Skool Daze | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | David Reidy |
| Publisher(s) | Microsphere (1985) |
| Designer(s) | David Reidy |
| Platform(s) | ZX Spectrum Commodore 64 |
| Release date(s) | 1985 |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Media/distribution | Cassette |
Skool Daze is a computer game created by David Reidy (whose wife Helen was a school teacher at the time[1]) for the ZX Spectrum and released by Microsphere in 1985. A Commodore 64 port was subsequently made. The game was hailed for breaking many of the gaming moulds by pursuing a creative route of a childhood experience at school.
Contents |
From the original instructions:
| “ | You are Eric, a troublesome schoolboy, and your task is to steal your report card out of the school safe in the staff room so that you don't get into trouble! To do this, you must collect the combination letters for the safe and write them on a blackboard - not such an easy task seeing as one letter of the four letter combination is held by each of the teachers in the school. In order to get them to tell you their letter, you must make all of the shield scattered around the school flash by hitting them or firing your catapult at them. Once all the shields are flashing, knocking the teachers over with your catapult will cause them to tell you their letter of the combination. All except old Mr Creak, that is, who is so old he cannot be trusted to remember his letter. It has been hypnotically implanted in his mind and he will only remember it when he sees the number of the year that he was born!
To make things even harder, the school is teeming with kids and teachers and you are expected to attend lessons! Einstein is a swot and will tell on you if you do anything naughty, Angelface is a bully and will try to get you into trouble, and Boy Wander is a tearaway who loves to write on blackboards and fire his catapult at the teachers and the other boys. Do anything wrong - or just get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time - and you will be given lines. Collect over 10000 lines and you will be expelled from school. Some shields are easy to reach, but others will require you to invent more ingenious methods of making them flash. Once you have your report, the chase isn't over as the flashing shields attract the attention of the teachers to your crime! This means that you must then turn them all off again in order to complete the year! And then there's next year... |
” |
This section describes the identities and behaviour of the characters in the game. The names given are the defaults, but the player has the option of editing the names before beginning the game, e.g. to customise the game to his/her own school.
There are eleven other boys who have no name and are identical in appearance. Occasionally one will communicate with the player to warn him of impending dangers during breaktime, such as a hidden peashooter, measles or the swot telling tales to the Headmaster. They serve no other real purpose. It is possible to hit them and to stand on them, which is useful for being able to jump higher to reach targets, but they are too short to be able to knock out with a catapult. Occasionally, during playtime following a dinner break, the boys run around the school as a mob, knocking down anyone in their path. This can lead to Eric being given lines for lying on the floor, or for knocking a master over, so care should be taken to stay out of the boys' way at such times.
Each master has his own idiosyncratic banter with the boys. Mr Rockitt and Mr Withit refer to their pupils as 'cherubs' and 'chaps' respectively. Messieurs Creak and Wacker hate boys, calling them "nasty little boys" and threatening to cane them, respectively.
It is possible to attack masters with a catapult but any attempt to punch them is futile, and usually results in receiving lines.
All masters use the same punishment if they witness any form of misbehaviour: the giving of lines (a seemingly random number in multiples of a hundred, between 100 and 800). If the miscreant commits the transgression behind the master's back he may well escape punishment. It is possible to strike a master using one's catapult and get another boy into trouble if he is closer at the time of the punishment, which is worth the same number of points as the number of lines given if the tattletale Einstein or the bully Angelface are the recipients, as well as being mildly entertaining in itself for the player.
The offences for which the player could be punished, together with the messages used by the masters when punishing, are as follows:
The speech bursts used by the masters when giving lines are color coded: Eric's are red, Boy Wander's purple, Einstein's and Angelface's green.
Additionally, during break times, sometimes the player will be told that either Boy Wander has hidden a pea shooter with Eric's name on it on the fire escape, or that Einstein is going to tell on Eric. In these cases, the player will have to stop Mr Wacker getting to the fire escape before Boy Wander, or stop Einstein from getting to his office. If the player fails to do so, Mr Wacker will run down Eric and deliver "Take 2000 lines you nasty boy" in a speech bubble. Sometimes the message is that Angelface has mumps. If Eric and Angelface cross paths during the break, Mr Rockitt will track down Eric and say: "You have mumps ERIC. Go home at once. This game is over". The bully's case of mumps never lasts beyond the end of playtime.
When the player reaches 10000 lines, Mr Wacker begins moving rapidly towards Eric; when he reaches Eric, he delivers the game over message in a speech bubble ("YOU HAVE OVER 10000 LINES TO WRITE ERIC. DON'T COME BACK TO SCHOOL TILL YOU HAVE DONE THEM ALL... PRESS A KEY TO PLAY AGAIN"). It's possible for the player to knock down Mr Wacker whenever he gets close and thus continue playing for a theoretically infinite amount of time after reaching 10000 lines, although it would be nearly impossible to achieve any game objectives in this condition. It's also possible for Mr Wacker to be knocked down by another character while delivering the Game Over message, in which case the message pauses until he recovers; this could potentially lead to a loop, but this is exceptionally rare.
No other characters apart from Eric are ever disciplined for being out of their seat or on the floor, or sent home because of illness. This enables the player to empathise with the principal character who is interminably picked upon by the staff.
The boys with no names are never punished, as if they are invisible to the masters.
At the beginning and end of each game, the game plays an atonal variation of Girls and Boys Come Out To Play.
Each master is associated with a particular room (Mr Withit teaches in the Map Room, Mr Creak in the Reading Room, Mr Wacker in the Exam Room and Mr Rockitt in the White Room), although occasionally masters teach in other masters' classrooms.
Other areas of the school include the Headmaster's study, the staff room, and the Revision Library. Frustratingly for the boys, there are no toilets - players would have to wait until the sequel Back to Skool for those.
There is a dinner area where boys are expected to congregate during dinner, although it is impossible to sit down and there is no sign of any food. The throng of characters occupying the same small area of the screen during dinner make this period particularly fruitful when it comes to collecting points for hitting other boys using one's fists and one's catapult.
Only Mr Withit or Mr Wacker will ever be found on duty during dinner; Mr Creak and Mr Rockitt always confine themselves to the staff room during this period.
There are plenty of seats in the Exam Room and the White Room but an insufficient number in the Reading Room and Map Room. This is a source of frustration to the player as Eric is constantly shoved out of his seat and punished with lines for sitting on the floor. In the sequel, Back To Skool, this behaviour was altered so that other kids were not able to push Eric out of his chair (though an examination of the code suggests that this feature is actually a bug).[2]
The character of Boy Wander would write on blackboards about Microsphere games like Wheelie and Sky Ranger. In Back to Skool, Boy Wander writes about Contact Sam Cruise.
Skool Daze appeared on the Spectrum compilation 4-Most Big Hits by Alternative Software, which also included Yeti by Destiny Software, Flunky by Piranha Games and Hysteria by Software Projects. It also appeared on the compilation 10 Computer Hits 1 by Beau-Jolly.
The game was followed by Back to Skool, which expanded the gameplay to include a neighbouring girls' school and a love interest (with the benefit of being able to reduce one's lines), along with stink bombs, mice, water pistols, frogs, sherry and a long-suffering caretaker. An unofficial remake is Klass of '99, a PC edition of Skool Daze with updated graphics and various changes to the gameplay.