Wide and shallow gameplay, that's how I would describe this one. It's the same engine as Prison Architect and Rimworld, but without the depth. After a few iterations and schools, you start to reach the extent of what the game has to offer unlike PA and especially Rimworld.

At a certain point, I just found myself starting the school year then hitting 3x speed before doing something entirely different like my laundry while I let the game run in the background. I'm not really sure what's being managed here because once you have everything built and everyone hired there's not much else to do but sit and wait.

I'm surprised they were unable to make a game with more content. Sporting events? nothing. Band? Nothing. Theater production? Nothing. The game is just barren without any actual to-do's unless you count the grant lists, but those are all related to building your school and hiring which can be entirely done during the build phase. What I do find myself doing during the school year portion of the game is scheduling bake sales and repairing water fountains. That's it.

What about actual academic content? Curriculum planning, testing, teacher reviews, international students, homework, finals? None of those are in the game, which is bizarre for a game about managing a school. Sure, they might have different subject departments and you technically "review" your teacher after they level up, but neither of those are anything more than superficial words on a screen. The "review" button is just a "complete training" button and the school departments only relates to what subject your teachers will teach. After a teacher is hired to an assigned department, you never interact with them, their students, or their curriculum.

I wanted to like this game, but I just struggle to see where the game actually is. There's not much of a challenge, and you reach the end of the game's content fairly quickly. Also, the UI sucks. It's clunky and gets in the way of the FOV way too often. I'd return this before the 2 hour mark if I were you.

fun and ...