Review: My Universe – School Teacher

Although the first game of the series to make its way to the Xbox One, My Universe – School Teacher is another addition to the current collection which allows you to have the wonderful opportunity to become your very own teacher in an elementary school which needs your help and expertise. Start off by creating your dream teacher, name and brand your school and then you’re ready to start teaching your very own set of students. As you progress through the game you will unlock more customised items for both your school and teacher, teach a new variety of lessons whilst increasing your pupils motivation and assisting them when necessary, increase your class size over time, partake in contests against other schools and explore the school whenever you want in between lessons with the option to talk with pupils and other staff members. Developed by Magic Pockets and published by Microids, My Universe – School Teacher is without question a beautiful game with multiple aspects for you to play around with as you fight to be the top school you can possibly be. Everyone will want to be a part of your classroom. Let me go into some details as to why this is such a wonderful game.

What we liked!

• Multiple lessons with their own mini games – I was definitely intrigued at the variety of classes the game has to offer, each combined with their own unique mini game at the beginning of each class. From biology to programming to pottery with many more – there’s something for everyone to enjoy. After you have completed the mini game set out for you to begin with, you then go into observation mode almost. This allows you to walk around and either answer your pupils questions, snap them out of daydreaming or wake them up should they decide to have a little snooze in your lesson. While they are learning, pupils will have a small star icon above their heads which is how you earn stars in your classes. The more they pay attention, the better they will do, the happier they will be and the more they will achieve.
• Ability to customise – With leveling up your school comes the many options to customise to your school. Each level you gain you will receive a gift which could be something for your teacher or your school. You can change the appearance of your teacher, classroom designs or school information at any given time. Pick a name, logo, colour and whether or not your pupils have to wear a uniform. Altogether you will have four classrooms to decorate – The classic classroom, experimental science lab, the crafting studio and the performance stage. Along the way as you unlock new cosmetic items, you may want to change how your teacher looks and you can change every available aspect including, but not limited to, hair colour and style, top and bottoms and accessories. You have three slots to make different teachers from the start of the game which allows different people to play should they want to.
• Graphics look gorgeous – One element which really grabbed my attention was how beautiful the game looks. It may not be everyone’s first choice of video game design because it’s not realistic but it doesn’t need to be and that’s the beauty of it. As an adult, it definitely appealed to me and I can definitely understand the allure to younger gamers adoring not only the gameplay but the graphical appearance of the game. It’s bright, colourful and most importantly – extremely adorable and I admire all of these factors.
• Chirpy and youthful soundtrack – I felt genuinely relaxed and content with the background music of the game. It makes you feel at ease which I found was a really nice touch to have with all the teaching you’re doing. When in the classroom, it changes into an upbeat tune to get you motivated to teach your pupils. The sounds are questionably childlike which I feel makes the game appeal to a younger audience which there is absolutely nothing wrong with considering the nature of the game. If I had to choose one word to describe the ambience of this game it would be cheerful.

Somewhere between

• Younger players may struggle at times – Firstly I should clarify that this is referring to the different mini games for each lesson you come across. I’m mentioning this because I feel the overall idea of the game is aimed towards younger gamers. As an adult, I will admit I struggled with some of the more thought out mini games myself and if I’m finding difficulty with them, I can’t begin to imagine how children would be able to complete them successfully. Some are relatively easy such as reading for example where you have to press a series of controller buttons in the correct order. On the other hand, biology can be a little tricky at times to get right as you need to have both analog sticks in the correct position to match up the shapes under the microscope.

What we disliked

• Bugs and crashing issues – To my disappointment, the game did come with a few bugs which I encountered. When students had interactable moments, such as asking a question, I was unable to interact with them meaning they were unable to earn stars or have any other interactions. I also noticed that the game did seem to crash fairly frequently if I was to go to my home screen or Xbox guide briefly which did not fix itself on reopening the game, meaning a fresh close and restart of the game was required from time to time.
• Multiple poor loading screens – For a game that is quite small in size, I expected better loading times. When starting the game up, you are greeted with what seems to be a relatively long loading screen which almost made me feel like my game wasn’t going to load in at all if I’m completely honest. Once past the first one and choosing the option to continue with your schooling, you’ll encounter another. Finally, when you choose your lesson and go through the last one, you’ll be able to play.
• Lots of repetition – The game does become repetitive not too long after starting the game unfortunately. Once you’ve done all the classes two or three times and you know what you need to do, there is no variation with the mini games or classes. It’s just the same rinse and repeat after that. I just find that with the price it comes with, there could be more to the mini games and you could perhaps do more during lesson time.