No Pineapple Left Behind is a strategy management game from Subaltern Games. In No Pineapple Left Behind you assume the role of Principal in nine different schools (though not at the same time). For each school you will be set a challenge that you have to complete in order to unlock the next school as well as unlock a new way to play that school. While the challenges vary in what they ask of you the general idea of the game is to manage your school in a way that maximises the grades achieved by your students. Since “Children have lots of wants, needs, and feelings” you’re going to need to transform your students into pineapples for the best results because, as everyone knows, pineapples are solely focused on working to their full potential and achieving the best grades.

Full Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the developer.

While No Pineapple Left Behind (NPLB) does look rather silly when taken at face value it does perfectly get across the issues with the current education system. The game is presumably based off of the US system (due to where the devs are based), a system I have little knowledge of but since I see the problems covered in the game that I see in the UK education system I feel I can still talk about it. Just keep in mind that I’m speaking from a UK perspective. Over the past few years there’s been a shift away from teaching kids towards getting higher in the education league tables. A shift away from doing your best to doing the best. While some individual teachers do still care about doing right by their students most of them are simply see their students as the grades they achieve, certainly not helped by the fact that, at least in my school, teachers are given pay bonuses based on the grades that their students achieve in their GCSEs and A-Levels.

To be successful in NPLP you have to find ways around the human nature of your students (or even stop treating them as humans, i.e. make them into pineapples), you have to figure out how you can minimise costs as well as maximise profits and most importantly you have to get the best grades possible. Sounds a lot like the real system, that’s because it is. Unfortunately NPLB’s fantastic representation of the issues with the education system isn’t quite enough to save it from its rather dull gameplay.

On to how the game actually plays, there’s just not much to the gameplay. Once you’ve figured out the strategy for a given level there’s absolutely nothing to do but execute that strategy for each day of objective, for all the schools I played whatever strategy worked on the first day worked for the rest of the objective’s duration. Some of the objectives are pretty straightforward, there’s one where you just need to earn $1000 in a certain number of days to win while another requires that you get rid of a certain trait in a child by the end of each day for a certain number of days. The basic strategies for getting through a week of school remain the same but you’ll need to tweak them to fit with what it is you need to do.
The main management/strategy in NPLB comes from the teachers in the game. You decide who to hire. You decide how much to pay them. You decide what spells and lasers they use. Spells and lasers? Yes, spells and lasers. Each school teaches a combination of a possible five subjects, how many subjects are taught has an effect on the structure of the school day but that’s not overly important, the longer the school day is just changes how complex your strategy will need to be. Every subject needs a teacher and you’re given a choice of two teachers to hire for that subject. The teachers will have different hiring costs based on their starting energy. Once you’ve picked a teacher you need to choose their spell and laser, effectively a passive and an active ability. Both of these consume the teacher’s energy, how much energy depends on the type of spell or laser and that means you’ll need to choose those two carefully so you don’t use too much energy. The lower your teacher’s energy is the less likely it is that their spell will be successful. The spells are one of the factors that decide the grades of your students and are triggered automatically at the start of a lesson block. Lasers are only used on one student (though you can use them on multiple students providing you have enough energy) and have effects such as decreasing humanity or removing a negative trait for the child.

Your teachers can have a maximum of 100 energy and chances are you’re going to use most of that in one day, especially if you’ve got three or more lesson blocks. Energy is restored by the salary you pay your teachers, the more you pay them per day the more energy is restored for the next day and energy restoration is doubled over the weekend (allowing you to reduce salaries significantly on a Friday). Paying your teachers minimum wage leads to them having less energy. Less energy means less chance of their spells being successful. If their spells don’t succeed then your students will get lower grades which means less of a money bonus or even penalties if the school’s average grade is particularly bad at the end of the day.

Pineapples may not be perfect but they do have better stats than kids. Once a child’s humanity is reduced from 100 to 0 they become a pineapple which means they’ll do better in class, in turn raising the average grade of the class. Humanity can be decreased by through the use of lasers and supplies as well as through achieving good grades while getting low grades or failing parent phone calls are among the ways of increasing humanity. Supplies are a resource in the game which can be attached to a teacher’s spell. You have one of each kind of supply and they increase in price as they get better. As I mentioned some of the supplies decrease humanity but there are quite a few different effects including increasing grades. Parent phone calls are introduced several schools in, they’re basically secondary-objectives for you to complete. A parent will call in and give you a certain objective for their child, such as make sure they achieve at least a C+ in History. Failing these phone calls usually just means you get fined $200 or $500 but every so often, failure means an increase of twenty humanity for all students, something you really want to avoid. Thankfully phone calls can be ignored by spending an influence point.

The two main reasons I’m not recommending the game are simple, the uninteresting gameplay and the presentation of the game. As I’ve said the gameplay is pretty simple because once you’ve worked out your strategy there is literally nothing to do, in my experience there aren’t any random events or anything like that to shake things up and so you’re left with about five minutes of real gameplay for each school you play. The other problem is its presentation, not as important as the gameplay but important nonetheless. There’s nothing particularly special about the actual graphics, they’re pretty bland in fact but the real problem with the presentation is with the UI. The UI is just so clunky, taking up far more screen space than it needs to. It’s also not as responsive as it should be, far too many times I found myself having to click on something two or three times for the game to register it, particularly when clicking on classrooms to access the teacher and when using the salary slider for the teachers. It’s not a big deal but something so basic should be fully functional in my eyes.


NLPB tries to tackle a serious issue with comedic and challenging gameplay. Sadly the game falls flat on both fronts, hence I’m not recommending it.

Lone Ranger Reviews.

El K.

No Pineapple Left Behind is a comical and satirical look at how schools function in the US through the lens of a strategy game. The mechanics are easy to understand for players who don't play a lot of strategy games, but substantial enough to stay interesting. The controls are simple, the visuals are pleasing, and the audio fits the mood well, too. I recommend giving it a shot if you enjoy dark humor, manipulating digital pineapples or children, and underpaying employees to improve your bottom line.

Mixed. It is an interesting idea and concept, just not executed as well as I would prefer. Most of the day is idle and at full speed, with a few select times where I pause every other second to efficiently use teacher energy. Some of the scenarios seem to be designed with the intent of failing, which is maybe the way the developer wanted to drive the point of the game home.

In the end it gets tedious. This is better to be viewed as political art more so than a game, at that point I can understand the allure it may have.

Although the game has an intriguing and comical concept, I found the gameplay unenjoyable and tedious. Not worth the buy, in my opinion.

This game is awesome. Fantastic game about the awesomeness that is public schools in Chicago. The worst part of Chicago. Where the kids can't read because the teachers are terrible. Initially, this game was tough, requiring you to blow through teachers in order to make any progress, however in the months since its release they have vastly improved the legacy teachers, and now it is much more viable and in most cases preferable to keep teachers on hand. If you do decide to keep teachers, the first week you will be losing a lot of cash flow, making some levels very difficult to keep teachers on hand. As far as simulation games go, this one is pretty good. I've enjoyed it and have put a decent number of hours into it. The graphics are sub par, but for a game made for a small number of gamers, from a small company, the graphics are actually quite good. the user interface is very user friendly and the tutorials help you get running almost without delay. All in all, I would recommend this game, to those who like challenging simulation games. There is no difficulty settings, and I have found some of the levels quite challenging.

If you've ever been a student and/or had a teacher, you should play this game -- especially if you've had an inspirational teacher.

This game will make you THINK about the academic system in a different way, since you get to BE the academic system, and appreciate all the hard work teachers put in in spite of the system.

Also, it's got a nice, catchy theme song.

I feel like this is one of those games where it's built around a single concept or critique, and once you get that, there's not much left.

There are plenty of games where your choices have a certain moral ambiguity - after all, if Napoleon hadnt wanted his cities nuked, he wouldnt have settled on your continent, would he? There are plenty of games that make you feel like a terrible person for playing them - celebrating the first time you cause the extinction of humanity in Plague, Inc. for instance.

But these games are theoretical. We're like housecats batting at a squeeky toy pretending we're lions on the hunt. This is where Pineapple is unique - its real. Pineapple is unimaginably worse than, say, Fallout 4 - even if you know Boston, you know it didnt actually disappear under a mushroom cloud. Its pretend, its a vidja game. But this? This hits too close to the mark. It is a depressing game if you've ever been inside one of America's public schools. Its terribly depressing if you've ever had your own child in one. Its brutally depressing if you or anyone you know has worked in our public school system. I put a checkmark next to all three - I may start crying.

Pineapple is a gamified version of everything that's broken in our schools today. This isnt about teaching students, its not a SimSchool, its about working the system designed by politicans who think a pedagog is some sort of sex offender. Every click of your mouse is designed to turn your students into numbers on a spreadsheet, your teachers into money-pits who are, at the end of the day, disposable. $400 a day? This is women's work! Try $80. The children have dreams, aspirations, fears, wants - but at the end of the day, who cares what the little brats think? How much money can I make off that kid? A D+? He's probably thinking for himself, need to change that. D+ dont bring in the federal dollars, kid.

I'm not sure I can play this past the tutorials. I am sure that if I have any say in the matter, George W. Bush will be forced to play this game in Hell. Forever.

Great strategy game that takes a problem in the school system and puts a comical spin on it. The game has created a whole new world, that already exists. It is very interesting to look at how school's function through this new lens, while also staying as a fun strategy game.

reviewing a free copy as I was one of the bug testers. Just as a note, I would have bought the game otherwise.
I have so far invested 8.1 hours. The only level left for me to do is the last one. After that it is achievements.

Now what do I think about it? I think it's a good puzzle/satyrical game. Do not go here, if you wanted a more sandbox experience like Prison Architect or Theme Hospital, as this is not that kind of game.
In this game you control teachers, that all have energy. Energy can be spent on using special abilities (like for example unfriending two kids from one another to make them more focused on the studies), or lessons (use more energy on a lesson that will give better grades to kids if it goes well, but also has a worse effect if it fails). Teachers get energy from you paying them at the end of the day, or buying special equipable buffs (for example if you equip something along the lines of coffee it can cost 50$ a lesson to do that, but your teacher will have more energy). The goal for the most part is to make money. You make money by either cutting spending or increasing grades. The game outright tells you that you can fire teachers to avoid paying them. However if you fire a teacher, they won't gain experience and in turn won't get better skills and lessons. There are obviously little things on the side, like hiring a headmaster that will allow you to make sure that no students skip classes, a policeman that reduces students humanity (and turns them into nice pineapple puppets), or a librarian.
The game's goal is to find the right solution to passing each level. It's a puzzle game. Now if we remember that it is a puzzle game and not a prison architect sandbox, it's quite a good puzzle game for 10 Euros. You get about 10 hours worth of gameplay for your money (which is more than I got out of some games).

extra potential that feels wasted - the game could have done with more optional people, therefore including more ways of solving problems and more ways of playing it, like for example making the food that children eat also influence stats and cost money. It would also have been nice if they included harder level modes, even though I do appreciate sandbox modes as I did take a bit of joy of just getting a school full of nothing but pineapples.

TLDR: if you like puzzle games and this game remotely interests you, go for it. I think that honestly for what it is, it is not known enough and quite undervalued. If you want something along the lines of Prison Architect or Theme Hospital, this is the wrong place to look.