Video Game / Kindergarten 2

New school! New friends! New ways to get ruthlessly murdered!

Kindergarten 2 picks up where the previous game left off. It's finally Tuesday, and you've been moved to an all-new school, with a larger number of classmates to befriend and/or kill, and more ways to die if you're not careful. It was released in June 2019. Like the first game, it was developed by Con Man Games and SmashGames, with the latter also being the publisher.

Check out the official trailer here.

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Kindergarten 2 provides examples of the following tropes:

• Achievement Mockery: If you decide not to microwave a cat after being asked one more time if you want to microwave said cat, the player character will say you get an achievement for avoiding such a monstrous action. Your character will also mention that you won't get an achievement if you actually microwave a cat.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Outfits are a hidden collectible in the game similar to the Monstermon cards. Do certain tasks or complete certain missions to win outfits and hairstyles for the player character.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • There's a lot less guesswork and memorisation required involving what order things will happen in while in the same area, due to helpful labeling of the apples. If there's a character's face on it, it means that something major will happen with that character once that apple is consumed, ranging from the character leaving the area to being killed/killing someone else. There's also a variety of apple which has a skull and crossbones, such as when in a room with toxic gas. It doesn't take Dr. Danner to figure out what happens when that apple's used up.
  • Unlike in the last game, you can restart any part of the day up until the one you're on. This prevents you from having to restart the entire day if you fail to get or do something you need for a later part of the mission.
  • Most of the Monstermon cards that don't require some sort of sidequest to get no longer cost apples to obtain. Since most missions give you just enough apples to do what you need, this allows you to gather Monstermon cards concurrently with the main story, leaving you with less work later on.
  • The map of the different missions you can do tells you what items from what other missions are necessary to complete them, with the top row being doable without any special items. For example, "A Tale of Two Janitors" and "The Hitman's Potty Guard" both point towards "If You Can Dodge a Nugget", since both the toolbelt and the prestigious pin are necessary for the latter. This eliminates the guesswork regarding what to bring to class for certain missions.
  • Another bit of guesswork removed is the money; Instead of taking money from your piggy bank and taking more or less depending on what you need to have happen, you're given a flat $5 at the beginning of the day. You might have to obtain money elsewhere in certain quests, but that starting $5 will never not be enough if you do everything right.
• Anyone Can Die: Like the last game, just about anyone can die, except no one is safe from death.
  • You can die in many ways.
  • Stevie can be murdered by the old janitor or his arm can be zapped off by Monty for bothering him and so you take that one instead of his own.
  • Cindy dies from sticking a fork in the electrical outlet in "The Hitman's Potty Guard".
  • Ozzy is killed by an asthma attack in "The Hitman's Potty Guard".
  • Either Felix or Ted can be Buried Alive, depending on whether you tell Ted Felix's plan or not in "Cain's not Able".
  • Penny can (and will) die in three different ways, either by slipping on a car placed on the stairs in "A Tale of Two Janitors", by getting her head pulled off by a magnet in "Opposites Attract", or by forced self-destruct in "Creature Feature".
  • Billy and Lily are killed by the monster found in the sewers in "Breaking Sad". They can also be killed in various ways during the boss fight in "Creature Feature". Lily can also get shot by Penny in "Things That Go Boom" if you fail to escape into the Science room. She can also be shot in "Creature Feature" if you don't stab Ms. Applegate in time (she sends you to the principal's office, which is how Lily dies).
  • Jerome can be stabbed by Ms. Applegate with her pointer stick. He can also get shot by Penny in "Things that go Boom".
  • Monty can die if you mix the wrong chemicals in "Breaking Sad".
  • Nugget can die from being strangled by Ms. Applegate, or from banging his head on the wall too long in "If You Can Dodge a Nugget".
  • Carla can die if Penny leaves the science classroom to stop her and Buggs from getting into her locker by shooting them in "Opposites Attract".
  • Buggs is able to die by being strangled by Ms. Applegate in "Creature Feature" or getting shot by Penny in "Opposites Attract". Also, if you press the red button during "Creature Feature" when trying to get Buggs's knife back, Buggs also gets shot with you.
  • Bob can (and has to) be killed by the other janitor in "A Tale of Two Janitors".
  • The old janitor can be zapped to death by the laser cannon in Monty's wheelchair if you give Monty Penny's laser module during smart class.
  • Dr. Danner dies during "Creature Feature" via an explosion under the table in the teacher's lounge.
  • Ms. Applegate dies in "Creature Feature" by being stabbed with a knife, much like in the original game.
  • The Principal dies in "Creature Feature" after getting drilled in the eye after getting mutated.
  • The three missing children are killed during "Creature Feature", but are later revived.
  • Everyone dies in the talisman ending, except you, Nugget, and presumably Billy.
• Appeal to Force: The Janitor beats Stevie up for getting in the player's way while doing his errands. He sets the example for the other hall monitor to allow the player to come and go subsequently.
• Arc Words: Various forms of "I'm sending you to the principal's office".
• Artistic License – History: In-universe example. During morning time led by him, the science teacher is not above taking some factual liberties about Albert Einstein.
  Dr. Danner: Please use your time constructively. Einstein was building ray guns in Kindergarten. So should you.
• Attack Backfire: When certain Monstermon cards are played against another card, the damage goes back to the attacker.
• Bait-and-Switch: The mission "Opposites Attract". It has images of Penny (the principal's daughter and The Stool Pigeon) and Buggs (The Bully) on the icon, so you could be forgiven for thinking the mission was about setting them up in some way, with that title. Turns out the title is actually a magnets joke; at the end of the mission, you use a magnet to tear off Penny's head after she's revealed to be a cyborg.
• Card Battle Game: The Monstermon cards, simply collectibles in the previous game, have now been made into a full-fledged minigame where you battle the other kids (and Agnes) using the cards you collected against their own cards. It is quite small and simplistic compared to other examples, even those that are also minigames, with only 50 cards total and a handful of opponents.
• The Cavalry: In the climax of "Creature Feature", Nugget returns with the jackhammer the protagonist gave him earlier to save the protagonist, Lily, and Billy from the mutated principal by drilling her in the eye.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: During the final route: You give Nugget the jackhammer during lunchtime in order to break into the teachers' lounge, and he comes back at the end to save you from the mutated principal using it.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Ozzy urges Nugget to join in on a food fight, Nugget muses that he normally just poisons his enemies, referencing his Poison and Cure Gambit from the first game.
  • Much like in the last game, you stab Ms. Applegate at one point. The protagonist notes that it feels like he's done it before.
  • Cindy's line before getting killed in the secret ending is very close to what she says in that situation in the first game.
• Daycare Nightmare: The new kindergarten is still very dysfunctional, in spite of the principal's insistence that "Safety is our highest priority!"
• Deadly Euphemism: Don't get sent to the principal's office.
• Everybody Lives: Done properly, Flowers for Diana results in no one dying.
• Exact Words: Dr. Danner enjoys using this trope.
  • When he says no talking in study hall, that includes answering any questions he asks you.
  • He's mandated by the school to give out prizes for students that finish their morning assessments. He gives out cleaning supplies found in the janitor's closet, since the school never mandated they had to be good prizes.
• Eye Scream:
  • Almost all of the laser guns at this school seem to have the odd property of aiming for the eye...
  • At the end of "Creature Feature", Nugget kills the mutated principal by drilling her in the eye with a jackhammer.
• False Rape Accusation: Subverted during "Breaking Sad". Cindy tries to accuse the protagonist of trying to rape her like she did last game, but Ms. Applegate cuts her off.
• False Reassurance: When Ted tells Felix that he wants to help in the (supposed) plan to kill Ozzy so he can show how capable he is, Felix assures him that he has the most important part. That part is, of course, that of the murder victim.
• Fictional Counterpart: Felix and Ted's family owns the massive company Applesoft, a blend of technology companies Apple Inc. and Microsoft.
• Food Fight: Buggs starts a food fight in the missions "Opposites Attract" and "Things That Go Boom".
• Gag Haircut: "Breaking Sad" has a darker-than-most example: Monty needs a hair sample from Nugget in order to make more pills for Ms. Applegate. The withdrawal-crazed Ms. Applegate acquires it by giving Nugget such a violent haircut that his scalp is bleeding when she's done.
  Nugget: Do not look at Nugget! Nugget's beautiful hair has been stolen!
  Protagonist: There there.
• Gum In Hair: Cindy's favourite way of bullying other girls returns.
  • In "The Hitman's Potty Guard", she tasks Ted with sticking gum in one of the new girls' hair if he wants to be her boyfriend, much like she does to the player in the first game. He reluctantly does so to Carla, leading to some complications when he and the player need her help later in the mission.
  • In "Creature Feature", Cindy agrees to help with the player's plan to kill off the teaching faculty if he sticks gum in Penny's hair. Since Penny makes no fuss whatsoever about it due to being remote-controlled into not retaliating by the protagonist, Cindy calls it the most disappointing gumming ever, but still keeps her promise.
• Holiday Mode: The outfit you get from the calendar in the principal's office changes depending on the time of year. Summer has an Uncle Sam outfit for the Fourth of July, fall has a pumpkin outfit for Halloween, winter has a Santa outfit for Christmas, and spring has a leprechaun outfit for St. Patrick's Day.
• Ignoring by Singing: Cindy sings over Dr. Danner's warning in "Breaking Sad" after the player gives her a fake gem to get her out of the way.
  Dr. Danner: If you're referring to that mineral you're holding, I highly doubt it's worth what you—
  Cindy: La la la la la. I can't hear you! You're too poor!
• Inheritance Murder: A variation where the target is not the person the murderer is inheriting from, but the co-inheritor. Felix is planning to have Ted killed so he'll be the sole heir the family fortune and company.
• Insult Friendly Fire: Felix accidentally insults himself if you talk to him during the food fight in "Things That Go Boom". He says that Ted is defending him with "his fat head", only for the player to point out that since they're identical twins, that would mean Felix has a fat head too.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: In the secret route of "Cain's not Able", Buggs takes offense to being called fat, but not to being called a street rat. He clarifies that he's cool with people (or at least Ted) mocking his poverty, just not his weight.
• Jet Pack: Dr. Danner uses a jet pack to leave the school when Penny is decapitated by the magnet, knowing that he will be fired or whatever the consequences are should the principal find that he has failed her.
• Love Letter: Cindy tasks the player with delivering a love letter to Felix to ask him to be her boyfriend in "Flowers for Diana". Aside from some initial awkwardness between Felix and the player character, it goes a lot better than Nugget's attempt in the last game.
• Major Injury Underreaction: After Nugget chews off his arm, he treats it like it is no big deal as he bleeds everywhere. While you and Ms. Applegate will express concern at first, nobody pays mind to it either afterward.
• Mature Work, Child Protagonists: Sequel to Kindergarten with the same child protagonist along with more students, school staff, and ways to die.
• Merging the Branches: While the game mostly follows up on the Omega Ending from the last game, certain smaller elements not from that route also carry over, such as Monty's beating by the janitor and the player being Cindy's (ex-)boyfriend.
• Mistaken for Gay: As part of "Flowers for Diana", you have to deliver a love note from Cindy to Felix. When you do, he'll initially assume it's from the player and awkwardly try to turn him down before the player clarifies whom it's from.
• Multiple Endings: The mission "Cain's Not Able" has two different endings depending on who you side with. You'll get the same key item either way, but different Monstermon cards.
  • If you follow Felix's instructions, his plan to kill Ted goes off without a hitch.
  • If you show the contract Felix has you sign to Ted, he'll decide to finally stand up for himself, with lethal results for Felix.
• Mutagenic Goo: The principal has a vat full of bright green goo in her secret lab. She falls into it thanks to the protagonist, and emerges as a monster bent to kill him, Lily, and Billy.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Yellow Monstermon cards can block purple cards, and vice versa.
• Nobody Here but Us Birds: Parodied in "Creature Feature". Billy makes a bird call as a signal to Carla, only for her to point out how little sense it makes given that they're in the cafeteria at the time.
• Noodle Incident: The janitor apparently got into a fight with a dumpster hag at one point. He admits that it's not a mistake you make twice.
• Ontological Inertia: Played with as a somewhat minor detail. The time loop is stable, repeating the same Tuesday with all the events the same and your actions dictating the precise outcomes, but some things you bring with you will be mysteriously misplaced in a loop you enter with them in your inventory. Case in point: Ms. Applegate’s faculty remote for Penny, which you receive from helping her and Monty in "Breaking Sad", is missing when you commence "Creature Feature" with it.
• Open Secret: As Carla reveals in "Opposites Attract", all the kids in the new school know about Penny's cybernetics-induced "blackouts". They just don't talk about it because they don't want to die.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: After chewing off his arm, Nugget leaves trails of blood all over the school. Far more blood than a child would have.
• Prison Riot: Sort of, everyone's not trying to escape. In the last mission, you end up recruiting students to kill off both the teachers and rescue the three missing students. Dr. Danner gets blown up while you stab Ms. Applegate, who's about to murder Buggs. The principal hides in the secret lab waiting to kill off you, Billy, and Lily. Too bad she didn't expect Nugget to come through the ceiling of the lab.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • The old janitor can give this line to the hall monitor if doing the "A Tale of Two Janitors" mission.
    Janitor: I. SAID. I. COULD. BEAT. YOU. TIL. THEY. GIVE. YOU. AN. ELEVATOR. KEY!!!
  • Ted's My Name Is Not Paul moment in the alternate route of "Cain's not Able". It's not actually punctuated in the textbox, but the way the text scroll stops for a moment for each word gives this impression.
    Ted: My. Name. Is. Theodore.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: Much like in the last game, the sky turns red in the secret ending as a sign that things are about to go south for most of the cast. However, since the player can't actually see the sky in this game, it manifests as the screen taking on a red tint instead.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: There's a beehive hanging precariously from a branch in the school's playground. You have the option of shaking the tree, which will make the hive fall to the ground, causing you to get stung by bees and die. In "Flowers for Diana", you have to drop the hive on Penny instead.
• Shout-Out:
  • With a bit of a playful Take That!: The developers apparently saw MatPat's video on the subject of how many nuggets would be needed to survive the fall into the Nugget Cave, because now there are even fewer nuggets to cushion the fall, and there is a message that, while some theorize it should be bigger, apparently it's enough.
  • In the Monstermon card ending, half of the characters turn into dust and fade away after Nugget snaps his fingers, and Nugget, not being satisfied with half, snaps again and the other half is struck by the same lightning as in the first game's secret ending. It serves as a Continuity Nod to Cindy's line when she dies in this ending in the first game, which is extremely similar to Spider-Man's infamous line from the same movie:
    Cindy: Ms. Applegate, I don't feel so good...
  • The main character now has a poster in his bedroom that references Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • The Nugget-centered mission that involves a dodgeball game is titled "If You Can Dodge a Nugget".
  • The mission where you help Monty create drugs in chemistry class is called "Breaking Sad".
  • The name for the mission "The Hitman's Potty Guard" is a reference to the movie The Hitman's Bodyguard.
  • A girl named Penny turns out to have been a robot all along, only to get torn to pieces in the end. Where have we seen that before?
  • The Monstermon cards have multiple references to pop-culture.
    • Dune Worm is a reference to the Sandworms from Dune.
    • Dank Magician, Mystical Tomato, and Pot of Grease are parodies of the Yu-Gi-Oh! cards Dark Magician, Mystic Tomato, and Pot of Greed respectively.
    • Legendary Sword is clearly the Master Sword from the The Legend of Zelda series. The way you get it is a reference to the Lost Woods puzzle that has appeared in multiple games from the franchise.
    • Monstrous Flytrap is based on Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.
    • Lonely Dragon looks strikingly like a Charizard from Pokémon.
• Sibling Murder: In the appropriately named mission "Cain's not Able", Felix calls upon the player's help to realise his plan of murdering his twin brother Ted. Unless, of course, you would rather reverse the roles by informing Ted about the plan.
• Sickly Green Glow: There's a vat of something glowing green in the janitor closet, and at some point it begins to emit thick fumes. When that happens, taking more than one apple-consuming action while inside the room will kill you.
• Smooch of Victory: At the end of "Creature Feature", Lily gives Nugget a kiss on the cheek as thanks for him saving her, Billy, and the player character from the mutated principal. Nugget is pleased, to say the least.
• Stealth Insult: Part of the mission "Flowers for Diana" involves getting Felix to go out with Cindy. When Cindy gushes over her new walking gold mine of a boyfriend afterwards, the player character just responds that they "deserve each other".
• The Swear Jar: The alternate route to "Cain's not Able" reveals that Ted has a jar and that Felix told him he'd get a nickel to put in it every time he did something good. The jar is empty.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Not counting cards that reduce damage by just 1, red cards may intercept green cards, green cards may intercept blue cards, and blue cards may intercept red cards.
• Tranquil Fury: Ted's My Name Is Not Paul moment in the alternate route of "Cain's not Able", at least if the lack of All Caps and exclamation points combined with the Punctuated! For! Emphasis! text scroll is any indication.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: As with the previous game, the kids here are very murderous. In fact, one of the quests involves you and Ted planning (and carrying out) an assassination of your classmate, which also requires you to kill another child to succeed. Felix, to his credit, is horrified when he finds out... right before revealing that's because he wanted Ted dead, not Ozzy.
• Two-Teacher School: The only teachers in the school are Ms. Applegate and Dr. Danner. Danner teaches the science class, and Ms. Applegate teaches everything else.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Adding to all the kiddie murder you could've done in the last game, now you can microwave a live cat.
• Virtual Paper Doll: The player can use the wardrobe to give the main character the hair and outfits of different characters, and mix and match the two as they please. As a rule of thumb, you unlock a character's outfit by killing them.
• Waterfront Boss Battle: After the principal is mutated, she's fought floating at the surface of the vat brimming with Mutagenic Goo she fell into.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Creature Feature", the principal tells Margaret to make off with her research for its preservation. The latter isn't seen at any point after, and it's unknown if she ever reached the Underground Base and succeeded with her sister's demands.
• What the Hell, Player?: If you get a cat from Agnes, then you actually get the option to microwave it in the teacher's lounge. If you choose to do that, your player character will call you out on how sick such a thing is while pointing out that there is no reward for doing it. If you go through with it anyway, he then decides to just end the day early.
• Wondrous Ladies Room: Downplayed. The boys' and girls' bathrooms are overall built the same, but the boys' room has a web full of spiders on the wall and one of the urinals has a puddle of urine in and around it, while the girls' room looks cleaner and has a couch in it. If you have the protagonist examine said couch, he'll remark, "The legends are true! There IS a couch in the girls' bathroom."

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