a good game.
the 1st thing you will find weird is that you build single buildings instead of 1 big building with rooms but it works fine and is probobly easier.
there are many types of classrooms such as math, english, art, computer lab, and many others. there are also several types of athletic buildings such as gym, a baseball field, a basketball court, and others. there are a couple types of food buildings like snack machines, a cafe, a pizzeria, and a burger joint. you can also build buildings like a teachers lounge, a janitors office, landscaping, bathrooms, and others
you can build decoritive objects such as fountains, trees, flowers, signs, and statues.
1 problem with this game is that natural disasters, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, happen way too often. i've had 2 hurricanes hit me in 15 days. and to make it worse, you can trigger 1 whenever you want with a button.
you can create your own student but there isn't really much customization to it so you really can't "put you or your friends in the game" like it says on the back of the box.
there are only 20 challenges in the game which consist of getting a certain star rating in a certain amount of time, building a certain type of building, rasing a stat, getting a number of students, or getting a lot of money. there are rarely more than 2 missions to complete in 1 challenge or having to actually have a good school. 1 time i completed the entertainment thing by just selling all school buildings and using that money to buy the buildings i needed.
there are 5 stats in this game: academics, athletics, morale, facilities, and discipline. academics, athletics, facilities, and discipline aren't to hard to keep up but morale is really tough. i had an arcade, a pizzeria, a half pipe, a golf course, a soda machine, 2 fountains, a garden, several trees, and clean paths but i still had a 60-65% morale which, occording to this game, is a D.
there are 3 levels to all classrooms: small, medium, and deluxe. for most other buildings there are 2: small and large.
the prices for decorations are weird. all trees, whether huge or small, no matter what type, is always 30 dollars. all fountains, whether a huge principle fountain with a statue and a garden or a little wishing fountain, is 300 dollars. all statues, whether a big rotating model of the planets or a small statue of some guy, is 250 dollars.
the instant action mode is pretty fun but it sure does suck when you fill up the map or get a huge "school" hit by a hurricane.
the newspaper is retarded. if something like food poisoning or natural disasters haven't happened then the exact same things will show up. they are a new video game, a popstars new album, a new movie, a teachers birthday, and books being sold. you can get coupons such as teacher conferences that raise their stats which are skill, fun, and strictness.
when you hire a teacher you get a small selection of teachers which most of the time are too expensive, not skilled, or lack some other stat.
when you hire a worker that doesn't teach such as janitors there salaries vary between 280-400 dollars but you only get 1 choice so you will have to constantly exit it out of and then click on again in order to get a low salary worker which works exactly the same as a high salary worker.
overall this game is pretty good. i reccomend this to anyone who doesn't have the patience or learning curve for rct.