Agefield High: an early 2000s high school nicer than the real one, and a rare piece of Steam page honesty

Reliving your high school years is not a universal fantasy, far from it. For many it is a period best left where it is. Personally, my high school memories fit on one line: it was when World of Warcraft came out, and that is roughly all I retained.

What makes Agefield High rather likeable is that the school it offers looks considerably more pleasant than the one we actually attended. That is more or less the point of the genre, and it is owned here.

What it is

A coming-of-age comedy set in the small town of Agefield in the early 2000s, with graduation on the horizon. You play Sam, a new student who has to help his friends Kale and Axel pull off their plan, dubbed Rock the School, and leave his mark on the place.

The inspiration is perfectly identifiable: the raunchy teen comedies of the era, with the humour that comes with them. The studio Refugium Games does not hide it for a second and warns that some will find that humour dated, or even mildly offensive.

Mechanically there is a time and school system that requires you to be in class when you should be, with the option to attend or skip. You customise Sam through outfits, hairstyle and even tattoos. Prom arrives with an important choice to make. Combat is deliberately simple, with no fifty-button combo system.

The Steam page deserves a mention

This is the detail that struck me most, and it is too rare to leave unsaid. The store page opens with two explicit lists: the reasons you should play, and the reasons you should walk away.

The studio writes plainly that the game is not for you if you dislike raunchy humour, if you expect a big-production open world, if you want a proper RPG, if you want multiplayer, or if you are hoping for a sandbox with hundreds of activities. It states that the main story runs roughly ten hours and that everything shown was captured directly from gameplay.

In a sector where the store page usually exists to oversell, a team that takes the time to say who its game is not for deserves credit. It is also, incidentally, the best way to avoid negative reviews from people who came looking for something else.

Who it will speak to

Nostalgics for early 2000s culture, music, films, fashion and references included, and those who like small handcrafted worlds with character rather than the vast expanses of big productions.

Others, much less so, and the studio says as much itself. Humour is the first filter: if the crude register tires you, ten hours will feel very long.

The game is out today, with no user reviews yet, which explains the absence of a score. Good news, it is available in French.

One curiosity the store page does not settle: a game claiming the humour of another era still has to prove it has that era's spirit and not merely its jokes. That is the whole difference between a homage and a rerun.

No Steam reviews are available as we write, so the score above reflects our assessment of what the game offers rather than a player consensus. It credits an honest, well-framed proposition that is funny for its audience, while accounting for its deliberately modest scope and the filter its humour represents.