School is stressful, especially for kids. Teachers breathe down your neck, adults who don't have your best interests at heart insisting they do, and your classmates are hopped up on emotions they’re not sure how to process.The last thing you need mixed in is a dystopic charter school with an immoral sorting system.

School Spirit is a hack of an unreleased game called Mechromancer, and puts the experience of studenthood at the forefront. How do kids change as the world around them puts different pressures on them? How do they deal with themselves changing while the world around them tries to force them into one particular flavor of human?

So, the bell is ringing. Class is in session. I hope you have a good year.

School Spirit uses a version of the Powered By The Apocalypse engine, with some key differences. You can roll with any stat for any of your basic moves, and what stat you use affects what happens in the result. If you roll with Mettle, maybe you’ll intimidate someone into standing down, if you roll the same move with Observance, maybe you’ll outsmart them and get them to back away anyway.

The other major difference is that the playbooks, here called Moods, change based on your characters emotions. You won’t keep the same playbook through the whole game, because when you’re a kid your emotions are constantly all over the place.

You just gotta do your best to grow, even when the world is against you.