This hotfix fixes mentions of Early Access. Ooops. Also added people on the credits that we forgot. Fixed some internal errors. Also added more checks when installing localization mods.

Hello Scholars,

We're excited to finally release Academia : School Simulator Version 1

Check out the Steam update here!

We have an amazing 30% off sale happening right now, so this is the best time to buy the game! Thanks for all the support for the past 4 years everyone, we couldn't have done it without you!

Hello Scholars,

It’s finally graduation day! After 4 years in development and 3 years in Early Access, Academia : School Simulator is finally in version 1. Thanks so much to everyone who supported us along the way, and to our community that gave us feedback, reported bugs, and made awesome mods for the game. So what’s in store for you in Version 1.


We like cozy games as much as anyone, but some of our players find the game TOO EASY. To satisfy those seeking a challenge, we’ve added a new difficulty mode.

BONUS: We also added these informative icons that change when you pick the settings, hopefully this makes things easier to read!

We’ve added events that will make you laugh, we’ve added one event that may make you cry. We’ve also added events where certain options are unlocked by a special principal or by other unique choices you have made at your school.


New Grants and Achievements will give you something to aim for in the late game.


Take care of dyslexic students or build a school in a disaster area with limited space? We have 3 more scenarios to challenge you.


While many of our scholars are already Seniors, we know that over the years Freshmen players have been struggling with some aspects of the game. We wanted to make sure that our Freshmen have all the help they need with version 1 so we made this tutorial a priority!

We won’t list them here as we normally do, but rest assured that many little improvements have been made in order create a better play experience. We will continue to fix these bugs even after the launch so keep sending those reports in.

As mentioned before we will be focusing on bugfixing. We may also add some more mod functionality as well as some cosmetic updates to the game (more hairstyles, etc). But our main focus will be on working on a console release for the game, as well as adding localization so even more people can enjoy the game in their native language. Beyond that, you’ll just have to wait and see.

We’ll also be announcing the winners of our Academia Challenge Coins soon!



Core Squeaky Wheel Team, from left : JM, Neil, Marica, Marnel, Ryan, Tristan.

I know everyone says this, but we’d really like to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our players for cheering us on and helping to make the game better. The picture above is of the Squeaky Wheel core team. It was taken in October 2019 to celebrate our 4 year anniversary party, which we celebrated with a bunch of other Filipino game developers. It’s amazing to think that it’s been almost a year since we last saw each other in real life, and that we finished the game in that time.

Thanks again for coming along for the ride folks, we couldn’t have done it without you!

Hello Scholars,

Aren’t these Academia Challenge coins cool? Well I certainly think so. But we’ll talk more about those later.

We’re currently busy fighting a horde of bugs and making last minute improvements to Academia : School Simulator for our version 1 launch. Academia will have its version 1 launch on January 28. This means we will have been at work on Academia for 4 years at this point. Especially given the crazy year that 2020 was, this feels like a lifetime. To see how the game has grown since over the years, check out these videos:

New Game Devlog Pre-Alpha 1 Feb 13, 2017

Academia : School Simulator Dev Blog 6 Sep 1, 2017

Academia : School Simulator Dev Blog 9 Mar 9, 2018

Academia : School Simulator Dev Blog 13 (Alpha 3 Release) Jun 14, 2019

Academia : School Simulator Dev Blog 14 (Alpha 4 Release) May 7, 2020

We hope you enjoyed that little trip down memory lane, but now it’s time to discuss what’s next.

As mentioned before, the Version 1 update will be coming with new Events, Scenarios, Achievements, and Grants to keep you all occupied and entertained.

We are also planning on adding localizations for many languages so that more people can enjoy playing the game.

However, the launch of Version 1 does mean the end of any major updates to the game. That means any suggestion made from this point on will likely not make it into Version 1. We will mostly be focused on more bugfixing and UI updates to improve the game experience. We may also add some visual updates. We also hope to add additional modding options so that folks can make more and better additions to the game.

This is a tough call, but we had to make a decision on when to stop developing the game, and ultimately the team decided this was a good stopping point.

We may add on to the game via DLC, but that will probably not come anytime soon. We’re also hoping to do a console port. We know that some of you will be disappointed with this news, but we hope that the 4 years of hard work our small team has put into the game will entertain you for many more hours to come.

Glad you asked. I had those limited edition Challenge coins made to commemorate the Early Access launch of Academia : School Simulator. Challenge coins are a cool way to commemorate things that can’t be touched like digital games, and these coins have made their way into the hands of our game developer friends as a way to thank them for their support and friendship.

And now we’d love to share them with some of our players. We won’t be able to see you at conventions anymore, but we can still mail these coins out to you! We’ll be mailing 20 of these coins to our players, free of charge, as a thank you for all the support for the past four years.

If you’re interested in getting a coin, simply fill up this google form. Contest lasts until the game launches, and we will be getting in touch with the 20 winners individually.

Hello scholars,
We're excited to introduce our latest called Teacher’s Pet, because it allows you to build more meaningful relationships with your students! We made this update after seeing one of our players trying to track one of her favorite students in the game. We thought we should make this a more integral part of the game, and so we present this update to you!


Previously you could only see which class students were assigned to in the end of year evaluation screen. Now we've added that to the main game so you can see who's assigned where!


While you're checking out the student roster maybe you find a student that speaks to you for some reason. You can now favorite that student and keep an eye on their progress!


Are you finding that your favorite student can use some discipline or encouragement? You can now act on that impulse! Be careful though, as it may backfire! Sometimes they'll hear words of wisdom, and sometimes it's in one ear, and out the other.


We also added the honor roll to your exam results so you can see who your best students were! I was an underachieving student myself so I never saw myself on these lists!

Special rooms will now cost money to maintain, so you need to balance how many of them you make. This is to balance the game and make sure that you can't just spam your school with one basketball court for each senior class!


A long awaited quality of life feature, Research Queuing is now here! Watch out though, if you don't have enough money when the next research in line is up, then your research will be cancelled.

So uh, it turns out some of the events we made were not enabled. And uh, we only noticed now. So...congrats, you guys get to enjoy some "new" events!


- Fixed issues with workers when object is both for repair and dismantling
- Fixed routed worker not fixing object when manually fixing the object without free workers
- Fixed cashflow entry error due to randomness of order in signal listeners
- Fixed Escape to Close in Schedule is Broken
- Fixed zone color turning on when zone is completed even if it's turned off in graphics settings
- Fixed names not changing
- Fixed students rushing to the school bus even when not parked in their bus stop zone
- Updated school bus waiting duration
- Updated pet icon for pet effects
- Updated delinquency group UI
- Implemented scaling prestige damage in events
- Implemented special rooms upkeep
- Removed learning from computer lab and library during free time
- Fixed angry balloon related errors
- Fixed issues with workers when object is both for repair and dismantling
- Fixed routed worker not fixing object when manually fixing the object without free workers
- Fixed input prioritizing durability instead of tasks
- Fixed cashflow entry error due to randomness of order in signal listeners
- Fixed zone color turning on when zone is completed even if it's turned off in graphics settings
- Fixed names not changing
- Fixed error when loading scenario
- Fixed activity hall characters
- Fixed janitors sleeping in the school
- Implemented Favorite Students and Encourage/Discourage favorite students
- Implemented Honor Roll in Exam Results
- Implemented research queue
- Implemented grant for scheduling different eating times
- Fixed student roster bugs
- Fixed wrong number of unassigned students after the school year
- Fixed wrong background colors for character displays
- Fixed Centralized Toilet Grant text exceeds panel
- Added prestige objects
- Added particle effects and open versions of file and medicine cabinet
- Enabled attaching GIFs in reports
- Set player funds to 10k after emergency loan
- Disable select activity if it is already selected
- Fixed students not eating during lunch time
- Updated food satisfaction damage at the end of the day
- Fixed confused principals (temporary fix)
- Fixed student panel not following student when build panel is open
- Fixed students' needs still decreasing after 5PM
- Fixed students eating during dismissal and not eating during lunch
- Implemented refund when an Activity is cancelled
- Adjusted Food Satisfaction damage at end of the day from 51 to 26
- Left-aligned principals name field in custom principal panel
- Fixed unlock all research bug
- Clear research queue on cancel

And as announced before, that's our last update before Version 1! Right now we're working on a tutorial for all of the new players, and lots of new events and grants and scenarios to keep you guys entertained. From the Squeaky Wheel team, we wish you a happy holidays, no matter where you are in the world. Thanks again, and see you in 2021!

Hello Scholars,

We hope your December has been going well! For the new players, we hope that you have been pleasantly surprised by our early Christmas sale!

We just wanted to let you know that another fun update is coming very soon for Academia, called Teacher's Pet! This update will allow you to check out your student roster, pick favorite students, encourage and discipline them, and then root for them get special awards at the end of the year!

We'll have more details very, very soon. Until then, stay in school!

Hello scholars,

We have some exciting news for all of you. After four years of development, we're finally ready to graduate out of Early Access! With your feedback and support, Academia : School Simulator has become the best school simulator game on Steam with an astonishing 98% positive (fingers crossed we keep this up) in recent reviews. The game has been enjoyed by more than 80000 people around the world, playing and sharing their schools and making mods for the game. We prepared an announcement trailer specifically for this occasion. If you like it please do us a favor and like the video and share it on social media.

So what's in store for you in version 1?

First off, we have another major update coming in December called "Teacher's Pet." This update was inspired by our players who grew attached to their students during their play sessions. The update will let you select favorite students to keep track of, and let you encourage or discipline them individually. It will add a student roster UI, and will the best students will also be added to the honor roll list at the end of the school year.

For version 1 we will be adding a proper tutorial! We'll also be adding more grants, achievements, events, and scenarios to round out the game. We will also be doing the usual UI fixes and polish that accompany our major releases. We're looking forward to adding more languages so that more people can play the game. Lastly, we'll also be adding an insane difficulty mode for the few folks who feel that the game is too easy!

After version 1 we'll be taking a break while still keeping an eye on the bug reports to make sure that any major issues are fixed as soon as possible.

We also want to take this opportunity to announce that we will be raising the price of the game at some point this month. This was the plan all along, and this is our way of thanking everyone that participated in the Early Access process with us since we launched in Early Access in 2017.

Thanks again for the support everyone, we couldn't have done it without you!

Hello scholars, it's Steam awards season once again and we're reaching out to you to vote for Academia. We know we don't have a chance in hell at winning, but a single vote from a player will bring a sense of satisfaction to the entire team.

We have been laboring on Academia : School Simulator for almost 4 years at this point, and to celebrate that, we've prepared some new branches of the game for you to be able to experience just how far we've come. Each branch points back to the "safest" version of the game after one of our major launches. Be forewarned that your current saves will not work with the older versions, and that there will probably be unforeseen bugs in these versions of the game.

Here's how to access the different branches:

1) Go to your game library and right click on Academia School Simulator
2) In the pop up window, find and click on Properties.
3) In the properties window, click on the Betas Tab
4) Enter the beta access code to unlock private betas type (see the list of branches below to know what code to enter)
5) Click on "check code"
6) Under "Select the beta you would like to opt into" click on the dropdown menu and click on the branch you unlocked
7) You should now have access to the branch

Here are the new branches you can access:

code : academiaalpha1

This was the game at its barebones, just enough there to be called a "game" but not enough content to keep our scholars satisfied (and they les us know it!)

code : academiaalpha2
Alpha 2 added subject departments, subject knowledge, trash management, customized school settings, and the art room.

code : academiaalpha3
Alpha 3 added reports, research and achievements, satisfaction, student relationships, loans, and a vastly improved UI.

code : academiaalpha4
Alpha 4 is our most recent major update. It added teacher traits, renaming zones, Events, special principals, buying land, goons, and much more!

Thanks so much for sticking with us all these years, and and extra special thanks to everyone that votes for us. Stay tuned for more announcements coming soon!

Hello scholars,
This update is called Teacher Training. If you ever had a teacher that you really wished you could level up in the mid or late game, this one's for you!


Have a favorite teacher that you don’t want to let go of? Good news, now you can train them up! The better your teachers in the department are, the better the training will be.


More customization for you! If you were not satisfied with our special principals and want to make your own, you can now do so! We also let you customize the look of your principal so you can have some really interesting looks going on! Do you want more customization options? Let us know!


The schedule and teacher departments are now integrated so that they better show how the teacher departments and schedules are connected.


We added a quality of life research that lets you specify what groups to assign your delinquents to.


We added a quality of life research that lets you automatically assign unassigned students to classrooms.


Some balancing was done to increase the challenge of the game during early school years:

Adjusted food related variables like food decrease rate,cooking and eating times for staff and students so more tables and food counters are needed in the cafeteria during early game.

Adjusted fun needs so that students can become unhappy due to low fun when there are no common areas or special rooms available.

Adjusted some learning related values to make it harder to achieve B or higher grades without the use of special rooms, or hiring higher level teachers. Sudents will get lower amount of learning points during class when using only classrooms.

Adjusted amount of interested students and achievements to make it easier to get trending, popular and famous school achievements.



Added calendar icon to school year HUD
Updated zone icons to make them prettier and stand out from the menu
Implemented localized names in game
Removed dollars from route, priority, and zonelink descriptions


- Made a grant for the Activity Hall
- Implemented Add/Remove all in Classroom Transfer UI
- Fixed kitchen option reverting to regular
- Fixed students not recovering when at home
- Fixed wrong sick students count
- Fixed sick students persist in build phase
- Fixed worker getting stuck
- Fixed coffee choices defaulting to instant instead of brewed
- Fixed toilet paper ply quality cashflow entry
- Fixed staff stopping in staff lounge even after loading
- Fixed students confessing to noone
- Fixed durability error
- Fixed students walking through walls after using the piano
- Fixed wrong data being shown in toilet zone details and reports panel
- Added Principal's Prerogative grant
- Added achievement button to settings panel
- Applied changes to default delinquency group (locking by new research)
- Increased width of event popup to accommodate Deutch translation
- Updated sell price of broken objects to 40% of original price from 50%
- Improved Activity Hall and Calendar UI
- Removed healing when given medicine while in the clinic
- Fixed default delinquency group from saved value
- Fixed unlocalized "Show All Info" in build description
- Implemented new daily spending localization
- Implemented teacher training
- Fixed tooltip in delinquency group
- Updated Hire Teacher with Schedule
- Implemented notification when there are unassigned delinquents
- Added more principal body types
- Updated cooking time and food satisfaction recovery
- Updated detention room grant
- Updated learning values and evaluation grading (rebalancing)
- Implemented add/remove all students in admissions panel and showed population cap
- Implemented auto assignment (distribution) of students in the transfer classroom panel
- Implemented changes in localizing character names
- Implemented teacher training warning panel

Hey everyone, Squeaky Wheel is celebrating its 5th Anniversary with a weeklong sale of our games! On top of that, we’re celebrating by giving away games with some of our friends! Follow our Steam publisher page to be alerted about the giveaways!

Awesome indie games including Project Highrise, Democracy 4, and more! Follow our publisher page to get the daily updates!

Game giveaways will be from October 19-26 at 4PM and 8PM (GMT+8), with a special giveaway on October 25 and 26 at 9AM! We will be making the announcements on this page, so follow our publisher page to get updates and prepare for the giveaways!

Follow our steam publisher page to get daily updates on what games will be given away. Then follow the squeaky wheel Twitter page for the giveaway Tweet and RT it for a chance to win a copy of the games!