Pico's School
This article is about the original 1999 game. For other uses, see Pico's School (disambiguation).
Goth kids have shot up your school, it's up to Pico to save the day! - Newgrounds Description
Pico's School (also referred to as Pico 1) is a point-and-click Flash game created by Tom Fulp and released on July 25, 1999. Developed in Macromedia Flash 3, it acts as the third entry in the Pico franchise, and is the first installment in the series to feature Pico, who has since become one of Newgrounds' mascots. The game was inspired by the controversial topic of school shootings, most notably the Columbine High School massacre, as it was released 3 months and 5 days after the infamous shooting took place.
Walkthrough
The game begins with a cutscene of Pico happily sitting in one of the school's classrooms, as his teacher educates the students about apples and bananas. This is interrupted by the goth-punk Cassandra, who proceeds to rant about the educational system before blasting the teacher's head off and then proceeding to kill nearly everyone in the class except for Pico. After the cutscene ends, leave the classroom then go right. Grab the fire extinguisher off the wall, because you will need it later. Then, keep going right until you see the janitor's closet. Go inside and grab the assault rifle off the table. Exit the closet and go right once more to meet Cyclops. Blast the gun out of his hands and then choose to spare his life or kill him. Either way, go back to the door you heard shooting coming from. Cassandra is inside, along with a psychic boy by the name of Alucard.
Alucard has a telekinetic shield that blocks Pico's bullets, so shooting him does nothing when it's up. His primary method of attack is to throw dead kids at you, which you will need to blast out of the air. His main pattern is to throw one kid high, one kid mid-height, and one low. Blast them out of the air in this order, and Alucard will become distracted and lower his shield. This is your cue to blast him. Once Alucard is down to half his energy, he will drop a chair down on you that you have to blast out of the air as well. Keep repeating the process until you get Alucard’s energy meter all the way down. When this happens, he will lose control of his powers and pull all the furniture in the room toward him like a human magnet. Once he is defeated, Alucard will give you his school key and tell you to leave him alone. You can either leave him behind after taking the key, or you can blast the furniture out of the way and finish him off.
Leave the room and go right until you reach a gate sitting in the middle of the hallway. Click on the key in your inventory to raise the gate. Then go into the girl's bathroom to start the next boss battle.
The lights go out and a kid with a very scary-looking sword and night vision goggles attacks you. This is Hanzo. Defeating him is relatively straightforward – his path is traced by the red glare of his goggles. Follow the glare and blast him as they move across the room. If you are fast on the trigger, you should be able to take him out before he can rob you of all your health. Once you kill Hanzo, his goggles will drop on the bathroom floor; pick them up and leave the bathroom.
Keep going right to meet Nene. She begs you to mercifully end her life. Whether you choose to kill her or not, keep going right and head into the teacher's lounge. There is a huge fire blocking the doorway. Use the fire extinguisher that you picked up earlier to put out the blazes. But wait! The door's locked! Hmm... go back to the classroom you started out in and put on Hanzo's night-vision goggles. Grab the now-visible key and go back to the locked door. Use the key, go through the locked door, and get ready for the Final Boss!
After a little smack-talk between Pico and Cassandra, the latter will kill her remaining cronies Spike and Pierre and proceed to transform into her true form, a Penilian. Cassandra has three primary methods of attack. The first attack is to throw an explosive barrel your way, which she does whenever she moves all the way to the left, where the barrels are. Shoot it out of the air, but don't let it get too close before doing so. The second attack is to fire twin swastika blasts from her eyes, which cannot be shot out of the air, but which you can see coming by her eyes charging up. Shoot her in the eyes to nip this attack in the bud. Finally, when Cassandra gets down to certain points of her life bar, she'll stomp on the ground like a sumo wrestler and send a chunk of the ceiling crashing down, which you will need to shoot out of the air. To defeat her, keep concentrating your fire on Cassandra's groin once shooting her in the eyes to disrupt her attack pattern, while keeping your eyes open for her other big attacks, repeating the process until you finally bring her down and save the day.
The ending takes place six months after Pico defeats Cassandra. Pico's now-dead teacher has been replaced by Mr. Flacit, who tells him they found new students to replace the dead ones, and that they're "bussing them in from the ghetto". Shortly afterward, the Ghettobots walk into the classroom and Pico, sensing another disaster, takes out his assault rifle. The game then concludes on a black screen with the text "THE END." written in white.
Bonus
- Click on the red locker that has a small yellow tint. Inside, there will be a Medicinal Herb (a.k.a. a weed pack). Use it when you have taken damage, as it completely restores your health.
- Go to the boy's bathroom and click on the bottom toilet stall. Someone inside will ask you to close it, but you should ignore this. In response, they will throw a lot of shit at you, and you'll receive the Scat Man achievement, where the game remarks "You sure do like shit!". However, you are able to kill them.
- Click on the handle of a urinal to flush. Doing this repeatedly will get you the Marc Summers achievement.
- Click on the sink handle to overflow the sink, and you'll receive the Tap That achievement. The same thing can be done in the girl's bathroom, but not with flushing the urinals.
- After you kill Cyclops, you can continue to shoot his corpse. The text "BRUTAL!" will also appear over him, and you will get the Brutal achievement.
- When Alucard is defeated and pulls all the furniture in the room towards him, you can blast away the furniture and finish him off. This nets you the Overkill achievement.
- At the part where you see Nene praying to end her life, you're able to kill her. The first time you shoot at her, her face will be blown off, and she will bleed out heavily. The second time you shoot her, she will be reduced to a pile of blood and viscera.
- During the final battle, open fire upon the tank to the upper right that says "Flammable" until it explodes. This will blow a hole open in the wall behind Cassandra to the outside world, where police have gathered in their squad cars. This awards you with the Bruckheimer achievement. The cops outside will join in the fight and be able to make the final battle a bit easier, thanks to their gunfire whittling away at Cassandra's health along with your own efforts (though you can kill them and blow up their police cars if you wish).
Medals
- Save the Day: Beat the game.
- Brutal: Continue blasting Cyclops after you kill him.
- Marc Summers: Flush a urinal at least three times until it's clean. A speech bubble will then appear, saying "GET A LIFE."
- Overkill: Kill Alucard after defeating him.
- Scat Man: Continue talking to the kid on the toilet until the text "YOU SURE LIKE SHIT!" appears.
- Tap That: Turn on the sinks in either bathroom and cause it to overflow.
- Bruckheimer: Blow up the gas tank behind Cassandra.
Characters
- Pico (debut)
- Nene
- Darnell (cameo)
- Cassandra (debut)
- Alucard (debut)
- Cyclops (debut)
- Hanzo (debut)
- Unnamed Teacher (debut)
- Classmates (debut)
- Students (debut)
- Pooping Student (debut)
- Spike (debut)
- Pierre (debut)
- Police Officers (debut)
- Mr. Flacit (debut)
- Leroy (debut)
- José (debut)
- Roc (debut)
Transcript
- Main article: Pico's School/Transcript
Reception & legacy
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It is difficult to determine the popularity of the original Pico's School, due to the fact that it was released before the modern Flash Portal was created. On Newgrounds, its April 2006 re-release alone currently has over 9.9 million views, as well as an average review of 4.72/5.00. Although it only won the Daily Second Place award, it is important to note that the game was submitted on the first Pico Day, and only lost to Pico vs. Convict by Luis Castanon. The Flash Gaming Network (FGN) dubbed the game a "Flash classic," and gave it an impressive score of 8.6/10.
Additionally, Pico's School is featured in the Pico collection. Since then, Pico had become the unofficial mascot of Newgrounds, acting as one of the site's many famous icons. His most recent appearance was in the rhythm game Friday Night Funkin', which acted as a semi-tribute to Newgrounds.
Cancelled sequel
- Main article: Pico 2/Development
After the success of Pico's School, Tom Fulp began development on a sequel. The tentatively titled Pico 2 would have two demos created, the latter being a collaboration with then-upcoming artist MindChamber, with Fulp acting as the programmer. It would have continued the cliffhanger he had left on previously, with Pico taking on the threat of the Ghettobots. However, development of the game was abruptly halted, and the game was quietly cancelled.
Gallery
Title card.
The opening sequence, before the shooting occurs.
Pico explores the janitor's closet.
Alucard's boss battle.
Pico and Hanzo stand off.
Pico smoking the "medicinal herb".
Pico finally faces Cassandra for the finale.
The ending.
An advertisement for the game featuring Pico shooting Cyclops in the face.
Video
Trivia
- On the original Angelfire Pico fan sub-site, German and Spanish versions of Pico's School are playable. While the German version is somewhat a straight translation, the Spanish one alters certain lines of dialogue.
- Judging by Cassandra's dialogue, the game seems to take place in either North America (English and Spanish) or Germany (German version).
- In the original 1999 release, a loop of the guitar from KMFDM's "Godlike" played as Cassandra denounces the American school system, right before she starts shooting. This was replaced in the 2016 re-release by Talkin' Smack.
- The "medicinal herb" could be a possible reference to the Green Herb and other healing herbs from the Resident Evil franchise.
- The Bruckheimer achievement is a more direct reference to Jerry Bruckheimer, a producer of various action movies that often featured huge explosions.
- The Scat Man achievement is a reference to late jazz musician Scatman John, and a pun of coprophilia, or scat.
- The Marc Summers achievement is a reference to Marc Summers, the game show host of Double Dare who has obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).
- During Pico's speech before the final boss battle, he indirectly references the Assassin series on Newgrounds by suggesting that Cassandra could have "[made] a crazy website that lets you kill pop-icons".
- According to Tom Fulp, the ending of Pico's School was intended to poke fun at the moral panic in the media surrounding desegregation busing at the time of the game's creation.[2]
- For April Fools 2021, Pico's School: Love Conquers All temporarily replaced Pico's School on Newgrounds. This version of the game replaced the story with a more light-hearted tone without any blood or violence, and also included a cameo appearance of Boyfriend from Friday Night Funkin'. The original game was restored the day after, and Love Conquers All was re-released as a separate game.
- Pico's School: Love Conquers All and Pico's School officially exist together as alternate timelines.
- Tom Fulp has stated that Pico's School was inspired by his senior year in high school.[3]
- A Kickstarter for the full version of Friday Night Funkin' announced that if it reached $5,000,000 in pledge goal funding, then Pico's School and the unfinished Pico 2 would be remade and implemented into the game. This was proven unlikely to happen, as the Kickstarter did not hit the proposed goal.
References
| Pico | |
|---|---|
| Main Series | Pico's School - Pico 2 - Nene Interactive Suicide - Darnell Plays With Fire - Pico vs. Bear - Pico vs. Überkids - Resident Pico - Pico's School: Love Conquers All |
| Spin-offs | Samurai Asshole - UFA |