The charm and simplicity of this game are reminiscent of one of my favorite childhood games, Sim Theme Park. This game is easy to grasp and challenging enough to make you strategize your next moves. My only complaint is that I wish there were more sound effects and voices for the characters interacting with their surroundings. The animations are very fun but it feels awkward watching something quirky happening and there's no sound effects to match the chaos.

Another "online" single player only game. Why do I have to be connected to the internet to play a SINGLE PLAYER GAME?! I live in the middle of nowhere and don't have city level internet. There's no good reason why single player games require internet to run.

I will say this first: I am only putting "no" because there's no middle ground here. I got the game on sale and I've gotten my money's worth in terms of play time, but this game has been out for some time now and remains frustratingly buggy!

Bugs: it's quite common for students to freeze. They get stuck in one place, getting completely miserable and you don't know until they threaten to dropout. There's nothing you can do on the level, you have to save and exit out (usually just to the map) to get them working again. I cannot believe this issue hasn't been resolved yet. Other bugs include janitors never cleaning up litter in rooms (I have to pick them up and do it manually) and often ignoring outside jobs as well (litter, weeds) and one where when you pick up a worker and they just drop back down instantly (fixed by returning to the map).

As to the game play itself, I really loved the concept, but I don't feel the game delivers. Yes, you could, in theory, follow and get to know your students, except you have no time to do so. Like with TPH, the developers seem to think the only way to challenge you is a constant stream of ever increasing disasters, so you can't even just watch an animation for a few minutes without something exploding elsewhere on the campus.

I love that the game gives you complete control to design your campus on a whole new level with the ability to construct the buildings and full landscaping control. I also like that you have more control over keeping your campus small than you did in TPH as you choose how many students to have on campus.

Some good DLC out so far (I have mixed feelings on the medical one however) with some unique features (I like the spirit combat in the School Spirit DLC).

Overall, I do mostly like the game, but the constant bug issues is extremely frustrating and should have been resolved by now.