Trivia / Riddle School

• Creator Backlash:
  • As time progressed, JonBro came to dislike the series somewhat because it was so popular, and he was unable to do anything else for a long time.
  • On a more general level, Jon has gone on record saying the third game was probably his least favorite, due to the excessive amount of cutscenes.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Phil becoming more mature at the end of the game series is meant to reflect how the game's creator, Jonochrome himself, grew up, as he made the first game while 11 years old and made the final game exactly one decade later. Notably, as Jonochrome pointed out in his developer commentary, Phil casually insults Chubb for being fat in the first game, while in the last one, he apologizes for the insult. Jonochrome admitted that as time passed, he realized how hurtful fat-shaming could be, which is reflected in Phil's dialogue.
• Torch the Franchise and Run: It's all but stated that this was meant to be the case with Riddle School 4, as clicking on anything drops Phil into a lava pit, and the ending text implies that this game was supposed to end the series. Fortunately, JonBro retconned this game as a dream and gave the series three more games and a proper conclusion.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Riddle School 5 was supposed to be one of many intentionally rushed games in the series meant to make people disinterested in the games. Thankfully, JonBro only had time to make 5 before his set deadline, so he simply made it the series finale, until Riddle Transfer 1 and 2.
  • Riddle Transfer was originally going to be a five-part game series and would have featured another villain, Shaw DeLot (the original leader of Zone 5.1), but Jon lost interest after the first game. Thankfully he made Riddle Transfer 2 to end all the cliffhangers and DeLot was unused.
  • Riddle School 5's special features section reveals various scrapped game ideas (known as "Rejected Riddle Games") for the series. These games (along with reasons for scrapping) were:
    • Riddle Attorney: An Ace Attorney style game with Phil as, well, an attorney. In addition to finding the idea unoriginal and unfitting for Phil's character (considering Riddle School's main goal was to escape school), JonBro had trouble coming up with a proper story for this type of game.
    • Riddle Company: A game where Phil now had to escape work. Doubts about this even being fun caused it to be scrapped.
    • Riddle Eye: A game featuring Phil as a detective. JonBro had trouble getting the game's programming language (Actionscript) to process the game's "click-where-you-want-to-go" walking (plus like Riddle Attorney, Phil's school escapes wouldn't be fitting for the position).
    • Riddle Manor: Not much is known about the concept for this besides the plot being about Phil being tasked with trimming the bushes while his parents were out for a bit. What else is known is that the one idea out of a few that JonBro liked was a hamster jogging like a normal person on its wheel.
    • Riddle Mansion: Like Manor, not much is known about the concept. Regardless, JonBro found this game uninteresting past its creepy atmosphere since it would've just been, as he put it, mouse mazes and code memorization with no music.
    • Riddle Retold: To deal with requests for a Riddle School 4, JonBro thought about a game going through the 3 original Riddle School games but with different graphics and harder puzzles. The game layouts and excessive amount of rooms to redraw made him drop this idea.
    • Riddle School 3+1: Intended as a joke game following up on JonBro's statement about there never being a Riddle School 4. It would be a one-level platformer full of powerups where Phil stumbles upon a moonstone and tries to return it to the moon thinking it's its "child". JonBro found this too troubling to make just for a joke.
    • Riddle University: The original Riddle School 4. JonBro put its concept simply as "Riddle School 3 but longer and not as funny".
    • Had the original Riddle Transfer series not been scrapped, the third game would've included these games (sans Riddle Retold and University). Albeit made from scratch and consistent with the gameplay.

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