You've probably cheated in school at least once. Maybe just a quick glance at your tablemate's test, or a cheat sheet under the table. I'll admit I've done it once or twice before. Of coufse though, when it comes to the stakes of cheating, it's usually not that extreme.
What happens however when the stakes involve fake friends, gun violence, drug exchanges, PTSD flashbacks, and suicide?
Well...you get a 2000s Newgrounds trilogy series...The Classroom. One of the most insane (flash) game trilogies of all time.
The Classroom triology was created by Luksy or Luka, your typical crude game developer. I don't know his age, but I presume it was around 15 - 17 when he made this first game. I remember playing it on the family computer years ago, maybe like late 2010s, so I have a lot of nostalgia for it. But is it as good as I remember? Let's dive into it!
THE CLASSROOM
WARNING: As you can tell from my quip above, this game does have plenty of crude topics discussed, so keep that in mind.
The Classroom is the first of these three games, and a relatively short yet difficult stealth game.
It's here we meet our protagonist, Alex, the blue guy. Alex is a guy who doesn't want to study, so he simply cheats off another character, known as The Geek...who happens to be yellow. Hm...I'm sure there's no accidental racial interpretation of that. The game claims they're friends, but some of the language implies otherwise.
Right, because great friends threaten each other. Also...interesting how he describes some of the students as "preety (sic) problematic). Foreshadowing?
Anyway, Alex attends a high school consisting of a majority of green students and a red teacher. I'm not sure why everyone in this school has mutated skin color, but hey, it's a game. It's the final 10 days of school, and they have to take the last 10..."knowledge" tests to graduate. So of course, Alex must keep up his cheating from the Geek, and it's your goal to help him!
The gameplay of the Classroom is pretty simple. You move using the arrow keys, and you have to get close to the Geek in order to cheat off him. You have to hold down the mouse button to do so, and doing so will fill your cheat bar. Once the bar is full, you have to sit down and you'll pass the test. But watch out! The teacher is surveying the class with their field of vision. If you run into the FOV once, you'll be caught and given an automatic game over.
As said, pretty simple enough. Each level has a name attached to it, which you can use as a password if you want to continue playing later or want to replay a level. Luka also provides some tips near the end for players, talking about taking advantage of times to cheat, and the fact that sometimes levels will be unwinnable if you wait for too long.
However...there's this one line...
"It gets interesting after level 3 :)."
Hm...that's kind of ominous...but let's jump into Alex's last 10 days of school!
Day 1: Practice
So things start off insanely easy, as the Geek happens to be sitting right next to us. How lucky! All you have to do to pass this level is hold down the mouse.
Funnily enough, you can fail the level, as you can get out of your seat and walk towards the teacher. Accidental glitch.
Day 2: Movein
The next day proves to be a bit tricker though, as the geek is now sitting a bit further from you, so you have to move in to cheat off him. Which wouldn't be too much of a problem...if Mr. Teacher over here didn't start moving around the class as well!
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| Ah shit... |
Day 3: Soldier
Once again, the teacher is moving around the class, and you got to find the pattern. As the title suggests, this level involves the teacher moving back and forth like a soldier examining the class. Alex once again manages to finess an A+!
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| Nothing can stop this little blue ball! |
So, 3 days in, and things are going great, but the pesky teacher keeps moving around. And I think he's catching on to his shenanigans... What's Alex going to do?
...well, remember when Lusky foreshadowed things would "get interesting after Day 3?" With a somewhat ominous :) especially? I'd say things definitely get interesting from here. Especially by the next day's title alone.
Day 4: Suicidal
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| Things aren't looking good for Alex... |
So things start off like every other day, with the teacher blocking our way to the geek. And it seems with each day, the geek gets further and further away from us. Woe is Alex...
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| Wait a second- |
That is, when a student nearby starts to have a meltdown and yells that he "CAN'T DO IT!" The teacher yells at him to sit down, but he gets up and-
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| *SMASH* |
Oh-...oh Christ, he's uh-...he's definitely dead. Like, there was a falling sound effect, yeah he's DEFINITELY dead...X(
But apparently the teacher doesn't care as he just witnesses a student JUMP OUT A WINDOW and comes back to order the class to keep working. And no one bats an eye either.
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| Can we uh...can we call an ambulance? |
But hey, at least with the teacher distracted by a student dying by SUICIDE, Alex has the perfect opportunity to cheat. It's a narrow one, but Alex knows what he's doing. Another A finessed!...and a student deceased.
Day 5: Poweroff
Yeah, if I was a student here and the teacher didn't give a shit about a student dying by suicide in the middle of the test, maybe I'd drop out as well.
[Brief tangent btw: You may notice this and Day 3 are miscapitalized. That's because this is an edited version of the game; in the original, they began with "God damn" and "Jesus christ, that". I wonder why the religious references were edited out...]
Today seems like it'll be another normal day...and then the power RANDOMLY goes off! The teacher is surprised and angry, as he walks away from Alex's seat and begins to light a candle.
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| Just another day at school. |
Alex takes advantage of this and sneaks in the dark to cheat off the Geek. Another A+ finessed due to this strange school.
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| Alex is dedicated, I'll say that. |
(This level is actually completable regardless if you begin cheating when it's dark or when the candle turns on, but if you can do it while in the dark, you get bonus points from me!)
Day 6: Cheater
(I like how the way Alex writes this implies the blackout was a senior prank.) Assuming this story began on Monday, it's next Monday and the final 5 days. And last week alone we dealt with student suicides and random blackouts. What could be next?
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| Yuh-oh! |
Not only are more students cheating, but the teacher has a keen eye on them. Something tells me this won't end well...
Day 7: Thefight
...and that is in fact proven one day later, as we witness MORE cheating as one student tries to copy off his table mate. The table mate is furious and PUNCHES him out of the chair, alerting the teacher.
.png) |
| "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" - probably some kid in the back |
They soon begin to beat each other up, as Alex makes his gate-way to cheat off the geek, all while the teacher tries to stop the fight. A random girl also pops up while Alex is cheating (probably class monitor or something), but the teacher tells her to sit down.
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| Freaking teacher pets' nearly ruining everything... |
The teacher breaks up the fight, and Alex makes his way back down, another flawless victory.
God damn, this test really got everyone stressed. We got cheating students, suicidal students, and fighting students. And there's only 3 days left. How bad could things get?
Day 8: Bastards
Well, turns out, Alex wasn't the only one cheating of the geek. He sees multiple students, like him, cheat off him. BASTARDS!
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| Look at those mfs >:(((( |
It's...actually kind of concerning how this one smart student is carrying the whole class. This entire school might not graduate if it wasn't for him. The price you pay for being both smart yet a pushover.
Day 9: Dabomb
Alex expresses frustration with the bastards, and ensures they'll "pay", and when the next day opens, we see NONE of them! Which, in my mind, either means:
A) Alex told on them all and got them expelled for cheating.
B) Alex killed them all.
...I'm going to go with the 2nd interpretation. However, maybe Alex getting in trouble (or sending them to an early grave) wasn't worth it, as we'll see on the penultimate day.
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| Attendance rates have declined...dramatically. |
By the way, look at how empty the class is now! We went from 30 students in all to 8 students left in 9 days. 22 STUDENTS ARE GONE! With about 73% of the class drop outs, expelled, or dead, it's getting kind of lonely in there. But hey, we still got the geek, and that's all we need. Alex probably thought to himself. And then...
The teacher is surprised. He goes to the window, and-
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| !!!!!! |
A grenade is thrown into the classroom.
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| Holy shit. |
Everyone makes a dash for it, but the bomb kills a majority of the class, including the Geek...except the FREAKING TEACHER! He managed to get out alive with minor injuries! Thankfully, Alex survived the massacre and was able to still cheat off the geek, still earning him an A...but at what cost?
By the way, once again, there seems to be a stunning concern of priorities in this school. When the bomb goes off, Alex- instead of escaping the school-...keeps on cheating. And the teacher still CARES if you get caught cheating. MISTER, the class just got BOMBED!
It is my headcanon that the student who threw the grenade into the classroom intended it as revenge for Alex getting the bastards expelled...or killed. It didn't work, but it still left it's mark, as Alex is left both traumatized, and has lost his geek, the only ticket to him graduating.
But hey...maybe school will be cancelled tomorrow since there was a FUCKING bombi-
Day 10: Shooter
Really? After the school faces suicides, fights, cheating, and BOMBS this last two weeks, we STILL have to take this STUPID test? What kind of school IS THIS?!
It's the final day, and-...well, Alex honestly summarized a lot. It seems there's no where to go anymore. Alex will fail this final test and might not graduate.
...or will he?
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| (What to do...what to do...) |
The student who happened to be bowling enters the room randomly, and the teacher, aggravated, tells him to get out for being late. And then...
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| ...the student pulls out a gun. |
Yep. Adding SHOOTINGS to the list of reasons not to attend this school.
The student kills the teacher and remaining student before shooting himself. But by all miracles, Alex survives.
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| I bet Alex, as he looked at this massacre, thought..."...this school FUCKING SUCKS!" |
(By the way, up until now, when you win a level, it says "You passed the test!" When winning this last level, you get..."You survived!" Nice attention to detail.)
Alex makes his way out of school, into the streets completely done with everything, as he yells he can't take it anymore, probably wishing he just studied in the first place.
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| (Can't blame 'ya bro.) |
And then-..
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| Alex... |
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| ...is hit by a fucking car. |
Cue credits.
So...can we summarize what happened during these last 10 days- no, last 7 days of high school?
- A student had a meltdown and died by suicide
- A blackout occurred
- Multiple students were caught cheating (and expelled)
- Students got into fights
- The school got fucking bombed
- The teacher gave no shit about all this
- Some guy randomly shot up the school and killed himself
- At the end of it all, Alex got run over
Well then...I guess that's why they say cheaters never prosper.
ENDING THOUGHTS
And that my friends, was The Classroom. The game of all time, a video game so beautiful it should be framed in museums.
Ok, jokes aside, The Classroom is a perfect game to represent edgy 2000s Newgrounds humor. It was simple in it's art and mechanics, but rather crude and unpredictable. The creator sure wasn't lying when he said things would get interesting by Level 3.
Gameplay wise, it's also decent, but it's clear this was the creators' first time coding a major game, given how easy it is to get caught in the teacher field of vision, even when you're not too close. And the ending was uh...something, for sure. (Can we just talk about the Bowling for Columbine reference by the way???? THAT WAS WILD)
However, this is only the first entry of the Classroom series. Sometime after this game, Luka decided to return to the series with the Classroom 2, which has much more characters, different rooms, and surprising plot beats. That game takes place with Alex in college, after he THANKFULLY survived the accident. But what's in store for our favorite blue bro there, I will have to save for a future post.
Hope you liked me taking you down memory lane! (It sure was a ride...)
- ninesevenpotatoes, 2026
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