Pico's School

Did You Know?

• During a school lesson, Pico's classmate Cassandra interrupts the class to denounce the American education system as 'bullshit' before opening fire.
• Cassandra is revealed to be an alien, and Pico must defeat her.
• The game was released only three months after the Columbine High School massacre.

Development

After Columbine, Tom Fulp got angry emails blaming websites for offensive content, which pushed him to make this game. He built it in Macromedia Flash 3, before ActionScript existed. To fake saved data, he rigged up a tangled system of movie clips to act as variables—a clever trick that made intense parts like boss fights run slowly. The game hit Newgrounds in 1999, got an update in 2006, and on April Fools' 2021, it was swapped for a version where the shooting never happens.

Reception and legacy

An article in Spin called the game the work of a 'sick genius'. Andrew Lerner of Troma Entertainment said he laughed so hard he almost wet his pants when he first saw it, and Troma Entertainment reportedly entered talks with Tom Fulp about making a movie based on the game. A Japanese tech site, Internet Watch, recommended the game as a good way to test how stuck one's mind is in elementary school. In 2020, Wired described it as 'irreverent pulp'. Tom Fulp has referred to Pico's School as a 'real defining moment for Newgrounds'. The game was hailed by many as the pinnacle of Flash programming and offered a first model for the type of point-and-click interactivity that would become standard. The titular Pico became essential iconography for Newgrounds, appearing in numerous games and animations. A sequel with the working title Pico 2 was under development from August 1999 as a collaboration with Jose 'MindChamber' Ortiz, but was cancelled sometime in the 2010s. Two prototype versions were made available to Newgrounds supporters in 2016. The Kickstarter for Friday Night Funkin', which features Pico as a recurring character, promised to finish and release Pico 2 if it reached $5 million in funding, a goal not achieved.