Idle High School Tycoon Review

Headmaster Disaster

Ever wanted to run your own school? Idle High School Tycoon by Excited Owl Arts lets players do just that. As Headmaster, you’ll need to increase your students’ knowledge and exam scores in order to net more funding. However, much like an underfunded high school, the game leaves much to be desired.

First, players build a literature classroom. Upgrade a row of desks to increase the knowledge of students sitting in that row. Basically, all you do is tap to upgrade. Next, players unlock the cafeteria and, you guessed it, you’ll need to upgrade everything here too. Upgrading the cafeteria keeps your students from becoming hungry too quickly. Hungry students will perform worse on their exams. Next, players unlock the science classroom, which is almost exactly the same as the literature classroom. And then, well, nothing. You just keep upgrading these three rooms until you max out every upgrade.

To upgrade anything, you’ll need to spend cash. Cash is automatically acquired overtime. School funding increases as the school’s reputation rises. Upgrades start out pretty cheap but quickly become expensive. Of course, it is advertised as an idle game, so you expect to turn it off and come back later to find wads of cash waiting for you, right? Nope. Idle High School tycoon doesn’t run when not being played. You’ll get some bonus cash when returning, but it’s always a pitifully low amount.

This title takes the mantle of idle seriously. There isn’t much to do which leads to the biggest issue I had with Idle High School Tycoon: it’s simply not fun. You can upgrade your classrooms and improve exam scores, but there’s no joy to be had in the experience. Maybe if the title offered more classes to build, the game would be more engaging.

Problematic Prestige

At the end of each day, the school’s exam results are displayed. When exam results rise so does your level. Higher prestige leads to more school funding. To unlock the second school, you’ll need 250 prestige. Unfortunately, it’s currently impossible to obtain anywhere near that amount. After fully upgrading everything my prestige is stuck at 143. I would have assumed this was a rare glitch; however, after looking over the comments on the title’s Google Play page, I realized this is a common complaint. With only two classrooms and a cafeteria, the first school is more of a tutorial than an actual game.

One good thing I can say about Idle High School Tycoon is that the title doesn’t have any in-app purchases. However, with the prestige stat thoroughly broken, and no way to purchase more, players are stuck after upgrading their first school. Idle High School Tycoon does let players earn extra cash by watching ads. But who needs extra cash when there’s nothing left to spend it on?

Idle High School Tycoon offers an ultimately disappointing experience. Gameplay is slow and repetitive. What really sinks this title is the fact that it’s broken. Who wants to play a game in which they can’t progress? I understand if a game has a few glitches, but developers should not release games that contain such game-breaking issues. Idle High School Tycoon fails its players as abhorrently as our public school system fails its pupils.