Rocwood Academy

I love magic school games, but this one is barely a game. You click through pieces of uninspired, bland dialogue on small index cards, choosing options that don't seem to change much if anything at all. You collect spells and items for a minigame that, as you are explicitly told, changes nothing in the story - and that has an awful tutorial that for examples explains what various cards do only after it forces you to choose the cards you are going to play with. There's no lore to be explored, no interesting storylines and engaging characters, nothing. The music is nice albeit generic, but the little bits of voice acting only serve to irritate. The art is pretty nice, but that's it.

Surprisingly enjoyable narrative game with some simple battle gameplay elements. People might find the ending abrupt but it works well in my opinion and I welcome the rather 360° change in tone. I just hope they're still going through with the sequels.

A very cute (and slightly twisted) magic-school-themed game. It has a fun card-collecting aspect tied to the choices made and the cards are either items or spells you've chanced upon.
I really liked the theme and character illustrations ~ overall the game scratched that yer-a-wizard itch.

Fun! I had pretty low expectations for this, and was pleasantly surprised. It's a bit of a mix between a classic visual novel and the Reigns formula of tile-based decisions.

Very simple on the face of it. But the story is neat enough and intriguing. It does what any wizard school story should: take the familiar tropes from more popular media, digest it, and give you something in the same vein but with unique twists here and there.

You can definitely tell this was made on a budget. But despite that limitation, it worked out well. There's even limited voice-acting, and although it's a bit flat, it was still a welcome surprise. The art is nice, the character designs are great, and most importantly, the story is fun and engaging.

There are a few branching paths as well, with little bits of story-segments locked behind them (I did not personally explore them). The game additionally features a battling mini-game. Throughout the game, depending on what classes you attend and the interactions you have, you can earn spells and items, which you use in these battles. The battles don't affect the main plot in any way, and it's just a cute little card game; a bit inconsequential but a simple, nice diversion from all the reading.

The climax of the story is brooding and sets up a future game, which is probably the only downside to this game. Although the narrative of this particular game does feel complete - ending after your first year of school - and the climax does feel complete and like a full package, if you wanted a bigger story that sees you going on to graduation or expanding on the lore, you're not going to get it here unless the developers decide to make a sequel. Which, unfortunately, seems unlikely at the time of writing.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a shot! This was a good 2 hours of neat worldbuilding and fun reading. Given that there are so few magic-school stories, especially in games, if you really like that genre, this is definitely up your alley. If you're looking for something a bit more dense though, perhaps it's not for you.

It's like a fever dream. Nothing makes sense. You just get bits and pieces here and there, feels like you're missing tons of information. Your choices mean nothing.

For something that's so reliant on narrative, that's unforgivable.

This is purely a VN, ignore the other tags. There's technically a rudimentary optional card game (you can fight a couple of creatures as "challenges"), but this is just tacked-on and uninspired, and has nothing to do with the core game itself.

Took me a bit over two hours getting through it; you're probably better off just watching a Harry Potter movie.

If you're still interested despite all this, do note that this is only Year 1, and the game just... ends. On a massive cliffhanger.

I wouldn't hold my breath for a sequel.

If you want to be blue-balled by a Harry Potter-like game, go play Academagia instead. At least that has some meat and depth.

Yet another game about a boy who survived the magic school. Nice art, sometimes funny dialogues. Unfortunately, the combat system in the game is just a small mini-game, and there is practically no meaningful choice here - the game is almost linear. The game is not a masterpiece at all, but it can not be called bad either. If you like the atmosphere of a child with a scar the school of magic, then the game will give you a couple of pleasant hours.

Rocwood Academy is a boring visual novel plagiarising Harry Potter universe. If you are like me and thinking there may be a cool card battle system - skip this game. Card battles are shoddy and actually optional - their outcome effects nothing and they're not even a part of the story.

lol the very beginning of this game starts with you choosing to sit next to a black or white student in class. if you choose the black student, the first thing she says is 'hi, i'm estrella, and yes I'm from Africa." lmao the tone deafness and how horribly bad that is is just laughable. she goes on to say that she's in a wild tribe and asks you if you have a problem with it. devs, it's 2021. there is no excuse to be this ignorant and self-unaware. do better. uninstalled in 6 minutes.

A decent little game for ~3 hours of play time.

Nice design, art and sound.
Works well on Linux, no bugs encountered.

The story is simple, does not force you to think too much and consists of a bunch of cliches neatly wired together.

Overall the game is worth it's price.

This game has lots of appeal for the right player, and the price is excellent. The game is primarily a nicely-illustrated Choose Your Own Adventure, with optional card battles. The card battles use both Spell cards and Item cards, which are drawn randomly during battle. The art is cute, there are mysteries to solve, and you can refight any battles you couldn't win because of bad luck with cards. The game is suitable for both adults and kids, but that's both a strength and a weakness. See relevant details, pros, and cons below.

Good to know:
- the setting is based on Harry Potter to an extent that may detract from the more original points of the story
- despite the clear Harry Potter inspiration, the story and characters show originality
- there are only a limited number of item and spell cards available (12 and 10 respectively)
- there are only a limited number of special creatures to battle (7)
- this is a Choose Your Own Adventure style game

Pros:
- nice art, appropriate music
- several branching routes and character interactions (more than I expected for price)
- simple enough for children who enjoy reading; enough mystery for adults looking for a very casual game with choices
- some limited voice acting (just phrases when a character sprite appears)
- price (it's about $3 US, less on sale)
- Steam achievements

Cons:
- lack of saves means no going back to a mid-point to try different a different ending [I understand this is intentional, but overall I think at least a few basic save slots should be available]
- card battle needs a clearer tutorial [good if simple system once understood]
- lack of story resolution, as game is intended to be first part of several [may not be a con if a sequel *is* produced]

Overall: As long as you know what it is going in, this is a fun game and good value for the price (even without a sale). Recommended for casual and/or family play.

If you ever wanted to go to a fantasy magic school, try and make friends/enemies, use spells and encounter creatures... Here you can! This is a card/text based game... so if you read Visual Novels, this is for those who don't have enough attention span for VN's. You read by cards and "flick" them to make a choice. Then you get to discover all sorts of goodness!

I had no problems with this game at all, and the music/SFX sounds like a whimsical magical tune to listen to in the background. The game also has a very surprising "ending". I only put "ending" in quotes because you only play one year... which makes me want to play all the other years and get to know more of the characters and about that mystery!!! Vasco FTW. My character wants to be in the club with him! :D

Thank you for the amusing reading adventure game and I really much look forward to playing more of it with added content!!! :D :> =)

Game would not run on my laptop that runs most other games just fine had to switch to a different machine. Staff did not respond to my post asking for help getting to run

The game is ridiculously on rails and most of your choices do not matter. It does a decent job setting up the atmosphere but the characters are generally flat and do not develop, most of the game is aimless faffing around. There's one genuinely interesting plot twist but it comes up so later that it feels more like sequal bait than anything else.

Slow but relaxing. The story is engaging and keeping you away from this cruel reality.

Short and fun! Beautiful graphics and soundtrack, simple commands, and a neat twist ending that left my curious for what comes next. I've done two playthroughs so far and will be doing another two for achievement purposes, but have enjoyed it thus far! There's a few moments where you're obviously being forced to go in one particular avenue/where a character ignores the question you've asked, and because I enjoy the interactions I do wish there was more content for the classes themselves, but those are all things to look forward to as future years become available. I'll be looking forward to them.

Very fun and Interactive choice-matter game that takes
place in a Magic School as you go through the adventure
of becoming a master magician in Combat, Potions, exc. Many
Storylines that add much more game time, fun and easy Achievements.
Definently recommend playing, very much worth its price. Im going to
provide a list of some of the things I like about this game!

Features/things I like:
-Love the Cartoney/Anime art style
-Music Soundtracks fits in perfectly with the game
-Organized in-game menu
-Multiple interactive storylines
-Character voices fit into the characters themselves
-Easily and fun to get Achievements
-You can check completion rate of Achievements in-game
-Main Menu looks Amazing!!!

Overall I believe this game to be a very good value considering the amount of content. It is a very similar to Harry Potter sort of flavor, but it does have a unique story with various mysteries to be uncovered. At the time of this review I have unlocked around 23/30 achievements and have replayed the story around 4-5 times in attempt to unlock additional items/monsters and story related content.

You basically flip cards left and right to make decisions and has option of pressing keys instead if you prefer. The artwork is cute and tasteful and music selection is fitting to scenes. I played the game in English and it was fairly edited with very little errors. Version I played was 2.0 so it was recently updated as I noticed people did have issues in past with text during game.

The storyline is somewhat generic but it does makeup for it with a unique card style battle system. I actually enjoyed it and found some of the fights both fair and challenging. I wont give spoilers but there is some monsters you may have to play through multiple times to beat or at least I found it very challenging without certain skill cards.

I didn't expect twists in the story considering the price point. I do recommend checking out this game if you want an easy to follow story with some achievements that are not impossible to obtain however I did find myself replaying the game since I love to hunt for the achievements, it was less of a story related goal and more of a OCD reaction.

There is also a bug I noticed when if you are click through after encountering a monster you have already fought in a previous playthrough, it will glitch and keep them locked into the frame. It only happened to me once but it corrected itself after a few frames.

It's a visual novel adventure game about school for mages. It's got some beautiful artwork and character design is nice. The story is quite simple, but enjoyable, you usually have a choice what to do, but I'm not sure if/how much that matters, as I'm on my first playthrough. It also has a battle system with cards. You may get some Harry Potter vibe from this game. It's fun, I'd recommend it if you want to play something quite relaxing.

It's a fun visual novel that I got for super cheap during a sale.The love the art style it's beautiful and unique its what made me check out the game when I saw it on the store. Great game for kids and adults

POSITIVES
1)The story
it's nothing complicated but enjoyable with a little mystery the story itself is original but setting is basically a harry potter clone but I don't mind cause I never read the books and watched like half of the 1st movie so it's all pretty fresh for me. The length of the story may not be long but on my first playthough I was captivated by every second of it. As soon as I finished the story I immediately looked searched for when the sequel was coming
2) The card system
From the battles to choosing dialogue you use cards,pretty unique.
3)The battles
Honestly I think the combat was criminally underused for how fun it was various cards have different effects
4) The Artstyle
One look at it from the steam store and I was further investigating this game.

NEGATIVES

1)An outrageous amount of grammar/spelling mistakes
like I usually never notices these things I played the game casually,not paying much attention I still noticed them all the time like I wonder how many of these I could find if i was actually looking for them.
off on a tangent the game seems to think i'm female when I definitely chose male now I don't know if that's a bug or just part of the mistakes mentioned above but thankfully as far as I can tell there are no male or female exclusive scenarios.
2)Lots of your choices don't really matter
There are a lot of instances where no matter what option you choose the npcs respond with the same exact line of dialogue heck I think the devs even know this and that's why the cards suddenly change colour from brown to black when a choice that really matters comes up,the house you end up in also does not affect the story in anyway,you don't get to choose which teacher to get close to and you don't get to choose who your best friend is but there are many times where your choices do matter, this ain't a Telltale Games where NONE of your choices matter. (looking at you Telltale game of thrones)
3)Winning or losing battles doesn't effect the story,it's just a fun break from the reading and getting an achievement overall a huge missed opportunity.
Inaddition the boogie man fight is stupid, the whole thing is just hoping and praying to the RNG gods that he doesn't stun lock you to death all while healing himself.

CONCLUSION
Look it may seem like the cons outweigh the pros but I truly believe the opposite it's a great casual indie game with a fun battle system. there are instances where your choice matters for the story. I genuinely think you should buy it because every single hour spent in the game was fun for me.

Also Rocwood Academy 2 when?

This is essentially a Harry Potter visual novel with a little combat mini-game. The game has its own charm and the art is quite pretty - it's hard to say it's not worth the low price. However if you're still unsure, I'd probably not recommend it.

• The story is literally a Harry Potter clone. Your school invitation is delivered by owl, you get sorted into houses etc. They could have done a magic-school story without it being a straight rip-off.
  
• "Choice matters" is a bit of an exaggeration. You get to pick which activity you do next but there's always time to do everything by the end. There's one main choice in each scene and you just pick between two options - one gives you a new spell/item for the combat mini-game and the other gives you nothing.
  
• The spelling/grammar isn't great. You can definitely tell what's going on but it's hard to immerse in the game when there are so many noticeable writing issues. The logo for the game literally says "Rocmood Aacademy".
  
• The combat mini-game is boring. Everyone heals so much I literally had to exit out of the second fight after like 20 turns because it would have gone on for eternity. Battles also have nothing to do with the story which seems like a waste. You challenge random monsters in battle mode but this doesn't affect the story at all. I was excited when you finally got to duel someone in the story but this is just done via text and doesn't use the battle game (why?!)
  
• There's no save system. I accidentally hit 'new game' when loading up the game and it deleted my game progress with no prompt.
  
[*] This game is fairly short because it's only the first year. The devs said on the forum that they want to completely change the game style for the second year but aren't sure about funding it because Rocwood Academy hasn't sold well. So it sounds to me like there won't BE a second year.

Story

Battle

Overall

"Harry Potter story with some very nice backgrounds and various character designs"