Class of '09 (franchise)

Class of '09 (franchise)

Class of '09 is a visual novel video game series developed and primarily written by Max "SBN3" Field and published by Wrath Club for personal computers. Field, who also voices several of the male characters, markets the series as an "anti-visual novel" and "interactive sitcom." The story follows self-proclaimed sociopath and nihilistic high school student Nicole (voiced by Elsie Lovelock) and her best friend Jecka (voiced by Kayli Mills) across a fictionalized version of Springfield and the broader Washington metropolitan area from the fall of 2007 to the spring of 2009. The series is structured around branching narrative paths with multiple endings and unlockable cutscenes. It blends black comedy, shock humor, and psychological horror with depictions of sexual abuse, drug abuse, white nationalism, and institutional failure, all within the aesthetic framework of late-2000s American suburban life.

The first game, Class of '09, was released as freeware for itch.io on October 8, 2020, with a commercial release to Linux, macOS, and Windows on June 10, 2021. The second game, Class of '09: The Re-Up, was released on June 1, 2023, while the third and final game, Class of '09: The Flip Side, was released on September 23, 2024. The first two games received generally positive reviews, particularly for their voice acting and comedic writing, though the third game was met with a significantly more negative response from both critics and the series' fanbase.

Gameplay

Class of '09 (franchise)

Gameplay consists primarily of listening to fully voiced dialogue and making periodic narrative choices. Every line of dialogue in the trilogy is voice-acted, a rarity for visual novels, particularly those produced in English. Player agency varies considerably across the trilogy: the first game features 15 endings reached through frequent choice points, while the third game has only 5 endings and substantially longer non-interactive sequences between decisions, a structural change that drew criticism from players accustomed to the earlier games' pacing.

Premise

Class of '09 (franchise)

In the first two games, the player controls Nicole, who introduces herself as a sociopath in the opening monologue. Nicole is a transient teenager whose mother has been through multiple divorces, resulting in frequent moves across states and school districts. After her estranged father's suicide—whose note blames Nicole—she arrives at a new high school in the Washington metropolitan area, where the series takes place. In-universe, the school is referred to only as "LHS." Exterior shots are modeled after Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, and most in-game text messages carry the area code 703.

Class of '09

The first game follows Nicole's junior year beginning in September 2007. Through branching paths, the player navigates Nicole's encounters with sexually predatory faculty members, a white nationalist photography teacher attempting to recruit students, a school counselor who behaves inappropriately toward female students, substance abuse, and the social dynamics of the school. Nicole's responses to these situations range from strategic manipulation to self-destructive impulsivity depending on player choices. The game uses a T-Mobile Sidekick as a choice-selection device, presented as pop-up text messages during key scenes. Most routes end in outcomes that are bleak, violent, or darkly absurd. The game does not offer a conventionally "good" ending.

Class of '09: The Re-Up

The second installment, released June 1, 2023, opens with the declaration "IT'S NOT A SEQUEL JUST THE RE-UP" and is set in the fall of 2008 during Nicole's senior year. It introduces a second set of largely standalone stories that expand the supporting cast, giving fuller characterization to figures like Ari, Megan, Emily, Karen, and Kelly who had only minor or unnamed roles in the first game. The game features 13 opening scenarios that converge at a common decision point, with route restrictions built in to prevent certain plot inconsistencies. Routes are generally longer than those in the first game.

Class of '09: The Flip Side

The third game shifts perspective to Jecka as the protagonist, following her during the same 2007–2009 timeframe. It depicts Jecka's home life with her abusive, divorce-embittered father, her coerced sexual relationship with her history teacher Mr. Katz, and her involvement in foot-fetish sex work as a means of paying household bills. Nicole appears as a supporting character, though her portrayal here is notably more antagonistic toward Jecka than in prior entries, a characterization shift that divided the fanbase. The T-Mobile Sidekick is replaced with a Motorola Razr. The game has 5 endings, the fewest in the series, and features substantially longer cutscenes between choice points.

Characters

Recurring Characters

• Nicole (Elsie Lovelock) — The protagonist of the first two games. Nicole describes herself as a sociopath and a nihilist, though these self-identifications are complicated by her traumatic background, including parental abandonment and her father's suicide. She is manipulative, often strategically cruel, and adept at exploiting social dynamics—particularly the willingness of male characters to defer to attractive women. Her behavior is presented through a comedic lens, though several endings depict the consequences of her actions as genuinely destructive. • Jecka, short for Jessica (Kayli Mills) — Nicole's best friend and the protagonist of The Flip Side. Initially presented as a preppy, image-conscious sidekick who participates in Nicole's schemes, she is revealed across the trilogy to be navigating an abusive home environment, a coerced relationship with a teacher, and economic desperation that leads her into sex work. The third game's extended depiction of her exploitation drew both praise for its unflinching portrayal and criticism for its tonal handling. • Nicole's Mother (Marissa Lenti) — Emotionally distant and financially unstable, cycling through divorce settlements. She oscillates between neglect and protectiveness depending on the route, occasionally resorting to implied domestic violence against Nicole. • Gamer Brother (Max Field) — Nicole's older brother, depicted as an unemployed slob and online predator who grooms minors. He dispenses manipulative dating advice to Nicole drawn from his own predatory tactics. • Crispin (Max Field) — A stoner, conspiracy theorist, and self-styled musician who attempts to attract girls through affected vulnerability. He is eventually recruited into Mr. White's white nationalist movement. • Kylar (Max Field) — A loud, aggressive lacrosse player who approaches women through negging and misogynist insults. He is repeatedly implied by other characters to be a rapist, allegations he does not deny and occasionally confirms when confronted directly. • Jeffrey (Max Field) — A socially isolated student obsessed with anime and video games, universally bullied by both students and faculty. His deference toward women is frequently exploited by Nicole and Jecka. He is revealed to have a violent stepfather and an emotionally absent mother. His suffering is treated predominantly as comedy throughout the series. Field voices the character himself. • Coach Colby (Dreux Ferrano Jr.) — A pedophilic gym coach who is also casually violent and occasionally homicidal. The game plays his predation largely for shock comedy. • Principal Lynn, referred to as Miss Lynn (Sarah Ruth Thomas) — The school's permissive, conflict-averse principal. She is characterized as an enabler who avoids confronting institutional abuse, often dismissing or deflecting student reports of harassment. • Mr. White (Jordan Moore) — The school's white nationalist photography teacher who uses his class to recruit students into white supremacist ideology, including through photo shoots using Celtic cross and other White supremacist imagery. • The Counselor (Anthony Sardinha in the first two games, Tom Schalk in The Flip Side) — An unnamed school guidance counselor who exhibits sexually predatory behavior toward female students, commenting on their clothing and bodies under the guise of professional concern. He becomes a more central antagonist in the third game.

Characters Introduced or Expanded in The Re-Up

• Ari (Kira Buckland) — A depressed, closeted lesbian who, after coming out, enters into a relationship with Nicole that is later identified—by the school counselor, no less—as emotionally abusive. • Megan (Tiana Camacho) — A controlling overachiever and devout Catholic who serves as class president. She functions as Nicole's primary peer antagonist in several routes. • Hunter (Michael Potok) — Megan's boyfriend, a religious young man who is manipulated by Nicole into a sexting-based relationship while still dating Megan. • Emily (Valerie Rose Lohman) — A volatile drug dealer on multiple psychiatric medications who claims to date an adult gang member. She harbors a romantic interest in Nicole. • Kelly (Katy Johnson) — A popular, wealthy hypersexual student who hosts parties, attendance at which functions as social currency among her peers. However, she is also a frequent subject of slut-shaming gossip. • Karen (Corinne Sudberg) — A socially naïve, bookish student whose earnest interest in Young Adult fiction makes her an easy target for manipulation and ridicule by Nicole, Jecka, and Emily. • Kyle (Patrick Mealey; Joshua Waters in the first game) — A student whose desperation for female attention escalates to murder. • Trody (Joe Boisits) — A dropout who works at Hot Topic. • Braxton (JM Gotay) — A student connected to MS-13 who carries drugs; his gang connection is never meaningfully explored. • Mr. Katz (Christopher McCullough) — A civics teacher and drug addict who, in The Flip Side, is revealed to be in a coerced sexual relationship with Jecka, leveraging her grades to maintain control over her. He forces her to wear children's clothing and call him "daddy." • Mr. Burleday (Lyle Rath) — A strict but comically inept science and mathematics teacher. • Mr. Lorre (Jas Patrick) — An art teacher whose financial ruin and divorce are implied to stem from his use of online prostitution services. • Ms. Ames (Anne Yatco) — A teacher whose surface professionalism masks racist and antisemitic attitudes. She reappears in The Flip Side as a school therapist who, in a notable scene, terminates Jecka's therapy session upon learning that Jecka's sex work income exceeds her own salary. • Mall Cop (Joshua Tomar) — An unnamed, short-tempered shopping mall security guard who, in one route, shoots Nicole with lethal force over a shoplifting incident.

Characters Introduced in The Flip Side

• Jecka's Father (Don McDonald) — Jecka's verbally and physically abusive father, who threatens her with violence over financial matters and openly pursues sexual relationships with women his daughter's age, including her peers. • The Hatman (Max Field) — A shadow person whom Jecka hallucinates while under the influence of Robitussin.

Themes

Class of '09 (franchise)

The Class of '09 trilogy depicts a high school environment in which virtually every adult authority figure is predatory, corrupt, incompetent, or some combination thereof, and the institutional structures that are supposed to protect students—school administration, guidance counseling, law enforcement—actively enable harm. The series treats sexual abuse, drug abuse, depression, self-harm, suicide, bullying, white nationalism, school shootings, sex work, and misogyny as recurring subjects.

The series' tonal approach to this material has been a persistent point of discussion. The games use black comedy and shock humor to frame scenarios involving child sexual abuse, coerced relationships between students and faculty, and sexual exploitation, an approach that some reviewers have found effective as social satire and others have found tonally inconsistent or exploitative. The content advisory website DoesTheDogDie.com notes that the first game features "rampant mentions of sexual abuse" and that while "no abuser is forgiven, the satirical writing has the characters acting very lax towards it." This tension—between satirizing the normalization of abuse and potentially reproducing it through comedic framing—is a defining feature of the series.

Field has stated that the games' more serious themes are drawn from real experiences he heard about, including a social media post from a young woman who described a hospitalization after an overdose. He has also cited real-world observations of inappropriate teacher-student dynamics: "a lot of teachers will flirt with girl students. A lot of it is stuff you don't realize is weird when you're a kid, but as an adult you realize how messed up it is." The degree to which these sourced experiences are handled with the gravity they warrant, versus being repurposed as material for comedic shock value, varies across the trilogy and has been debated among players and critics.

The review site Natalie.TF characterizes the series as being principally about Nicole's trauma-driven self-destruction, while The Refined Geek describes the trilogy's world as one in which every character is dysfunctional. The YattaTachi review characterizes the experience as "a damn good, feel bad time."

The Flip Side in particular drew criticism for its extended depictions of Jecka's exploitation—including her coerced relationship with Mr. Katz and her foot-fetish sex work—which some players and reviewers felt crossed from satire into uncomfortable spectacle. Multiple routes culminate in foot-fetish scenarios, a recurring element that many players interpreted as reflecting the developer's personal fixation rather than serving a clear satirical or narrative purpose.

Reception

Class of '09 (franchise)

The original Class of '09 received generally positive reviews, with particular praise directed at its voice acting, comedic writing, and willingness to engage with taboo subject matter within the visual novel format. The 3rd-Strike review noted that the experience became progressively more depressing as routes were explored. The Refined Geek observed that the game's commitment to making every character repellent was both its defining quality and a potential limitation.

The Re-Up received a similarly positive reception, with reviewers noting its expanded cast and longer routes as improvements on the original's framework.

The Flip Side received a markedly more negative response. It holds a "Mixed" rating on Steam, the lowest in the franchise, compared to the "Overwhelmingly Positive" ratings of its predecessors. The Mary Sue called it "a weak ending to a beloved trilogy," criticizing the reduced player agency, the tonal shift in Nicole's characterization, and the extended depictions of Jecka's abuse. The Natalie.TF review found the game's longer, more linear structure placed greater narrative weight on each route, and that three of the five endings failed to deliver satisfying conclusions, with one killing off a fan-favorite character for no discernible purpose beyond shock value. Multiple user reviews on Steam and Metacritic objected to the prominence of foot-fetish content, with one Metacritic user review describing the game as "outright torture porn and a lot of sexed up fetishes" lacking the franchise's earlier comedic core.

In other media

Class of '09 (franchise)

An animated promotional short, Class of '09: Give Me a Fry, was released on October 23, 2023. A 12-minute animated pilot episode, Class of '09: The Anime, was released on December 14, 2024. A second animated short, Class of '09: Lunch Table Beats, was released on March 13, 2026. The animated adaptations largely abandon the games' psychological horror elements and graphic subject matter in favor of a slice of life animated sitcom tone, retaining character archetypes—such as Kylar's aggression and Emily's drug dealing—while stripping them of the darker contexts that define those characters in the games.

Apple's App Store declined to host the series due to its content, a decision Field has publicly criticized, noting the inconsistency of allowing games depicting graphic violence (such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) while refusing a visual novel depicting issues faced by teenage girls.