You kids today with your fancy smartphones that let you play all the videogames you want anywhere you want, anytime you want. Back in my day, school meant sitting around waiting until you could get home and finally play some Nintendo.
Waiting around for school to get out is the premise of Study Hall, a new game just released for the classic Nintendo Entertainment System. Yes, new. The "homebrew" scene of garage developers creating new games for obsolete platforms has exploded in recent years, fueled by increasingly sophisticated development tools and a cottage industry supplying circuit boards, cartridge casings, even new NES-compatible consoles.
These new games often have more features than the NES games we played back in the day. Study Hall, for example, has onboard flash memory that saves high scores and achievements. (Oh – and it has achievements.)
The gameplay meets the old-school requirements of being pretty simple to grasp, but fairly difficult to master: You're a doodle on a piece of notebook paper, trying to climb ropes and platforms without falling or getting hit by an enemy. (This is totally relevant to the storyline, as to which anyone who has ever spent a boring period doodling "videogame levels" on looseleaf paper can attest.)
To complete the ambiance, author Kevin Hanley has turned a small selection of iconic 1980's music, like "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds and "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel, into chiptunes that play during the interstitial screens.
Gameplaywise, Study Hall doesn't quite measure up to the great classics of the era – I got a little bored after the first few attempts, since it keeps sending you back to the earliest, challenge-free but slow-paced levels every time you get a Game Over – but I do love the Cyanide and Happiness vibe of the visual style and the nostalgic soundtrack.
You can buy a Study Hall cartridge for $33. If you want to go the whole nine yards, a separate site sells the box and manual for an additional $25.
