Skool Daze

Skool Daze is an adventure game with simulation elements, today regarded as a classic of the school-simulation and open-world game genre, made by Microsphere and released for the Commodore 64 by David Reidy and Keith Robinson in the mid-1980s, shortly after the successful and influential ZX Spectrum version. The player takes on the role of a mischievous schoolboy who has to sneak through a sprawling British school full of teachers, prefects, and classmates, steal his report card from the locked headmaster's office, and change the bad grades in it before someone catches him red-handed and sends him back to class as punishment.

The game combines free movement through the sprawling school building with simple but thoughtfully designed tasks - the player has to keep track of the class schedule, avoid the watchful eyes of individual teachers each with their own personality and weaknesses, cooperate with classmates in exchange for small favors, and handle situations using a catapult or stink bombs placed under enemies' feet. This approach to an open, socially oriented game world was completely unusual in the mid-1980s and in many ways foreshadowed later simulation-adventures with open worlds, free play, and character interaction. Every character in the school has their own daily schedule and behavior, which gives the game a surprisingly lively feel of a functioning micro-world.

Skool Daze is still regarded today as one of the most imaginative British titles of its time, strongly marked by a distinctive sense of humor and gentle satire aimed at the British school system of the day, its authorities, and its typical schoolyard characters. Even decades later, it's often cited as a pioneering game that showed a simulation of everyday life and social relationships could be just as engaging as a classic action or adventure game, and it inspired a direct sequel, Back to Skool, with an even larger game world and new characters.

Why play it: For its distinctive British humor and imaginative simulation of school life, which still works as a fresh alternative to the C64's usual action fare.