 "Pico's School" | |
| Author: | Tom Fulp |
|---|---|
| Audio used: | N/A |
| Origin: | 04/30/2006 |
| Size: | 487.4 KB |
| Score (As of 12 December, 2011): | 4.22/5.00 |
| Awards: |  Daily 2nd Place
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| Author's comments: | |
| Goth kids have shot up your school, and it's up to Pico to save the day! Originally featured on Newgrounds in 1999, I finally refactored the .FLA to accommodate faster computers. The problem with this game was that it was meant to run at 24fps, but boss battles slowed down and made things easier. As computers got faster, so did the boss battles.
Pico was made in Flash 3, before the availability of variables (or just about any code, for that matter). To simulate stored data, I weaved a complex web of movie clips that gave orders to the main game. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of frame labels, so all the commands referred to frame numbers. This meant making changes to the flow of a boss battle (ie inserting frames to slow down movement) caused MASSIVE problems to arise. I finally muscled through it, so now you can beat the bosses on a fast computer! | |
| Note | This information only refers to the official release on the Flash Portal. |
Pico's School is a point and click game created by Tom Fulp in 1999. It was made in Flash 3, and is often considered the pinnacle of Flash 3 programming. It was also the first game to feature Pico, who has since become one of Newgrounds's mascots. It was inspired by school shootings such as Columbine.
Plot
Pico is in class learning about apples and bananas when a goth student named Cassandra kills everyone in the classroom, leaving only Pico alive. Pico escapes the classroom, grabs an assault rifle from the janitor's closet, and then sets out to take back the school by killing Cassandra and her minions. Along the way, he battles a kid with psychic powers, a ninja with a pair of night-vision goggles, a pink mohawked punk with a gun, and finally Cassandra herself, who turns out to be an alien from another world.
Six months after the incident, the dead students were replaced by violent students from the ghetto.
Walkthrough- Plot Spoiler/Method Spoiler
Once Pico finds a gun, Cyclops ceases to be a threat.
The game begins with Pico in the classroom surrounded by the dead. Leave the classroom and go right. Grab the fire extinguisher off the wall, because you'll need it later. Then, keep going right until you see the janitor's office. Go inside and grab the assault rifle off the table. 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, and get your mouse ready. Cassandra is inside, along with a psychic boy by the name of Alucard. Boss battle time!
Alucard has a telekinetic shield that blocks your bullets, so do not waste ammo on him 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 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.
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. Boss battle!
The lights go out and a kid with a very scary-looking sword and night vision goggles attacks you. This is Hanzou. Defeating him is relatively straightforward -- his path is traced by the red glare of his goggles. Follow the glare and blast him as he moves 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 Hanzou, he will leave you his goggles.
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 the night-vision goggles. Grab the now-visible key and go back to the locked door. Use the key and get ready for a tough fight. After a little smack-talk between Pico and Cassandra, the latter transforms into a huge monster! Boss battle!
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 shuriken 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 lifebar, 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, concentrate your fire on the purple penis between her (his?) legs after shooting her in the eyes, while keeping your eyes open for her other big attacks, repeating the process until you bring her down and save the day. Then relax and enjoy the ending cutscene!
Bonus
- Click on the red locker that has a little yellow on it. There will be a weed pack. Use it when you have taken damage, it completely restores your life.
- Go to the boy's bathroom. Click the bottom toilet stall and a guy will ask if you can close it. If you do not, he will throw a lot of crap at you. You are able to kill him.
- 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 get the Tap That achievement. The same thing can be done in the girl's bathroom, but not the urinal flushing.
- After you kill Cyclops, you can overkill him. 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 toward 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 will be able to kill her. The first time you shoot at her, her face will be gone. The second time you shoot her, she will become flat.
- During the final battle, blast the tank to the upper right that says Flammable until it explodes. This will blow open the wall behind Cassandra to the outside, where the police have gathered in their squad cars and will join the fight. This gets you the Bruckheimer achievement. Letting the cops be will make the final battle a bit easier due to their gunfire whittling away at Cassandra's health along with your own efforts, although you can kill them and blow up the police cars if you wish.
Medals
"Pico's School" by Robert Bryce Milburn
- Save the Day: Beat the game
- Brutal: Continue blasting Cyclops after you kill him.
- Marc Summers: Flush a urinal at least three times.
- Overkill: Kill Alucard after defeating him.
- Secret Medal: ???
- Tap That: Turn on the sink in either bathroom and cause it to overflow.
- Bruckheimer: Blow up the tank behind Cassandra.
Reception
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. The April 2006 rerelease alone has over 6 million views as of December 2011, as well as an average review of 9.3/10. Although it only won the Daily Second Place award, it is important to note that it was submitted on the first Pico Day, and only lost to Luis's famous movie Pico vs. Convict. FGN called the game a "Flash classic," and gave the game an impressive score of 8.6/10. [1] Additionally, Pico's School is featured in the Pico and Adventure Games collections.
External Links
Play Pico's School