Spellcaster University

finally, child labor.

After a rough start, it grew on me. Many things are explained poorly, and most not at all so it was a very steep learning curve. I was determined to give it a proper chance and finish the first level, though. Turns out that once you've got the hang of things, it's pretty great! And there's enough variables to give it replay value, too.

One of the best deckbuilder like i have ever played.

I'll be honest with you guys:
Spellcaster University is not a good but a fun game.

The main problem and the elephant in the room is the fact that the game is not only card based but also relies HEAVY on RNG. Every, really every single aspect of the game is hidden behind a wall of RNG.
Be it dungeonsevents, faction events, the cards you get, the students and even the futures your students achieve or the skillset of the teachers.
Especially the teachers are a big problem as their pedagogy skill is set once you build their classroom and can only be changed by some items which are - you guess it already - are hidden behind RNG.

The handling of the cards is also incredibly clunky. Very often the hoovermovement "blocks" the mouseclock fording you to play veeery slowly. And ever so often pictures or placeable items are not recognised which can only by solved by building some rooms and then try it again. Cards are bought with mana of different magic schools and is always very scarce. As you run against the clock by evil forces marching in it so is possible to have a very important card of inventory or item on your hand but cannot be placed as you have to wait for more mana to draw (and get because of the overwhemling RNG) a room card.

So the most annoying problem is that you cannot plan ahead or use any strategy due to RNG. How cool would it be to design my students schedules in order to really priorize for the futures or anything.

That said - why is it a fun game and why the thumbs up?
Well, once you completely surrendered to the RNG and forfeit the idea of becoming a great planning and wise headmaster the magic of the game suddenly works like a charm.

Once you dive in into the pure RNG and absolute chaos you’ll have a blast with that game. The music is okay but the animations are great and beautiful. The ideas of the five schools of magic and the more than 160 achievable futures with small to big boni to your actual game are awesome. I had so much fun trying to find every possible future even though it is a shame that all achieved boni only count for the actual campaign.

As someone who also works in the branch of modernizing schools and therefore spend a lot of time witch teachers, parents and sometimes students I absolutely love it that they’re making fun of everyone in the cosmos of a school: The annoying overprotective parents, the glutenfree Eco-teacher, the old-fashioned teacher, the Inquisition, the ever demanding teachers of your school, the Hermine Granger Style of students and so on – I really had fun as the devs had a keen eye for their problems, sorrows and behaviour. And they even gave some of the mentioned some kind of “redemption arc” in the last level.

The dungeons are a great addition but a little bit underwhelming as the events are extremely repetitive and also suffering from the huge impact of RNG. But using the different schools of magic and traits of your students to crawl the dungeon is always fun.

The race against the time makes every single academy level very exciting and leaves you a little sad once you are forced to leave it behind.

So what are my wishes for the game?
First and foremost: An option which would let me choose between the impact of RNG. Pure Chaos or more finer nuances – for examples that every draw of card contains a room, an item and maybe a guaranteed drop of new students after x cards.

Secondly: An option to start a new campaign with all already achieved benefits from former campaigns.

Last wish: A possibility to control the futures a little bit more. It can be tedious to achieve certain futures as it feels frustrating to have 20 possible futures with a chance of 5% each.
But overall – I was having a blast playing the game and want to thank the Devs for their great work and awesome game!

Nothing inherently wrong with the game, just didn't really get into it. Completed the first round of the story/campaign but do not feel motivated to go further.

I do not usually play games like this, but was thinking it would be more like the Fallout Shelter game, which it was not. The game had great reviews and the trailer looked semi-interesting, but maybe these types of games are not just for me.

Will keep this in my back pocket for a rainy day or if I randomly feel like playing something like this again.

This game is so odd to me in that it drives me absolutely nuts but still I love it. It is a basic management RTS. You build a castle with specific school-rooms with playing-cards and collect various types of magic from the classes. It is annoying because a lot of it comes down to luck; you need X type of classroom, and can only build it if you get X card. But it's still great. If you like this type of game, I would strongly recommend.

While far from a perfect game, it's a wonderful distraction. I had a blast just turning off my brain and letting the hours melt away in my cute little wizard school.

A charming little min-maxer. Tends to lag after 100 or more students but a lot of fun.

This is a fun little management game. Rogue-lite, harry potter-ish, and just fun.

The way rooms interlock, especially with some of the fractured stages, make it feel a bit more of a puzzle game than a sim game. Regardless, it has a deceptive depth like pokemon once you get into optimizing for student and teacher traits.

It's also easy to pick up where you left off. Most of the signalling is pretty clear. Campaigns don't run too long.

It's not an overly challenging game though, and sometimes it can be frustrating to place augments in the rooms as the game doesn't seem to detect the overlap/collision well at certain zooms and angles. But both those things are easily forgivable.

very fun, relaxing game to play with cute visuals

Could be better but already pretty nice thing to play, just have to turn music off after an hour or so

Nunca se siente que las decisiones que uno toma sobre el futuro del alumnado tengan impacto. Siento que si el juego hubiese sabido caminar esa fina línea entre buscar "eficiencia" en la distribución de recursos y encontrar una personalidad a cada casa/escuela sería más divertido.
El juego podría ser sobre manejar escuela mágica, de cocina, de arte o un parripollo y no tendría diferencia alguna.

I really enjoyed this. I hope for more updates with new content.

This a pretty fun, if flawed, game. Some systems (like the dungeons and enemy attacks) are undercooked but just making your university grow and grow and generate more and more mana is quite fun, and the structure means you are naturally pushed to make a bunch of different Unis. Also the writing is funny and has a lot of cool references.

I can't stop coming back to this game. I'd love a big update, sequel, or even just a similar game. I want mooooooorrreee

This is a cute little game that is fairly relaxing. Recommend for sure!

It's nice to have a magic focused game without it being connected to harry potter and hogwarts for once. Game is very chill and the campaign in easy to pick up and put down. Overall a good game.

Ur a wizard harry!!!

Its a shame, but I just couldn't like this.

Its probably that it isnt my type of game, didnt get the appeal, the game seems shallow, build variety feels non existant, raids are fun but the mainn game just isnt any good for me.

The animations and room concepts are charming, but overall I dont like how the school looks, nor the managment, nor how little there is to do the majority of time aside from "wait, pick a card", the events arent that interesting either.

Told my students to sleep in a coffin.
They woke up as vampires.
Then the inquisition got upset that I was teaching vampires.

9/10

One major complaint:
You cannot delete any rooms or move any already placed rooms.
You have to be very careful when building.
This seems like a major oversight for a game like this.

Otherwise the game is fine.

Way better then mind over magic

Game has a steep learning curve, not much of a tutorial, super random, important choices cannot be changed. Lots of ways to get screwed over by RNG or a past mistake while trying to figure out the basics.

Get it on sale if you must.

Relaxing and super fun, I've logged over 500 hours in this game and it still holds my attention without fail

This game delivers on the promise a cozy game where you draw cards to create a Spellcaster University. The characters are just developed enough that I care, and not so developed that it interrupts gameplay. I enjoyed the mixture of skill and luck for this sort of game.

Fun & relaxing

Very fun management game with great graphics and enough variety to keep you playing.

There's fun to be had here but it's weighed down by a build system that is almost entirely RNG-based.

You collect gold, plus mana in each of several categories (obtained by your students studying that subject). When you get enough of a category you can draw a card for an item or new room of that category - you're presented with three options and pick one. These options are entirely RNG-based.

What that means is that you may go into a map thinking you want to try an Arcane and Nature school and then just never draw the requisite cards to get it going. Or, you may know you need more dormitories for your students but the game just never gives you the card. You can't really plan the school out because you really have no idea what the game is going to let you build with the bizarre luck-of-the-draw system.

On the plus side, there's a lot of charm in the graphics and the game does a great job with the "feel" of magic. The classrooms are cool and your kids can get items like devil's horns, staves, regalia, etc. It really does feel like a magic school.

It's just such an odd choice from the developers to make the build system completely based on dice rolls.

I love this game, the main campaign is perfect, there is some replay ability, if you like experimenting, I do. Definitely recommend, my only gripe is that I selfishly want more.

At a certain point i started playing endless, but I wish there was more story, unless I'm missing something, I wish there was a secret to uncover or the dungeons just available or for quests to keep coming. In endless mode it hits a lull, I'd like for there to be more action, maybe the factions go to war or something, see what happens if you and the certain groups are friends. See students join different factions and maybe that gives you influence during encounters because your student runs a specific department for that faction. I think fleshing out a little more story based details would make endless actually go on for a lot longer before hitting a lull.

Great theme and art style. Rules become very clear after playing one level and it really fun gameplay loop.

I thought this game might be for children or casuals, so my expectations weren't especially high, but it's actually right up my alley. It's got card draw, resource management, and building. I like it.

Fun, quirky and original.
...Gets a little "ehhh" as it adds handicaps, but hey= git gud homie

Charming game that you'll play for a campaign or two.

I like being surprised by games that dare to do something different. Spellcaster University does exactly that. Gameplay isn't like anything you have played before - draw cards to build a magic university with bricks, buffs only to see it destroyed a few times before you can destroy evil - and that makes this a very refreshing game to play. While gameplay is -wide- it is not very -deep-. What I mean with this is that most of the gameplay mechanics are somewhat shallow, but there are enough different ones to have some fun for 20-40 hours.

Nicely done devs, keep them coming. Oh! And the game is screaming for modding options.

A lot of fun strategy, conserving resources, laughing at what students become, and exploring the unique areas. The game was really easy to get into and learn, and once I got the hang of it I was totally hooked. I was pleasantly surprised to find out there was an end to the campaign mode, my only real complaint is that I wish there was more of a post story/sandbox mode that just let you explore and play with what works and what doesn't for the type of school you're building. Overall a solid 4.5/5 stars, I would really recommend it as a chill game with a lot of fun content to play around with. Hoping to see a sequel or a DLC in the future for more!

Fun game. The game world feels very alive and immersive, and the game loop is very satisfying. Replayable as well. If you want to unlock every possible profession it will take a few playthroughs.

I made it through one full campaign with no crashes, but I have had a couple since the. Nothing game breaking though, as the game autosave seems pretty solid and you can just start back up with minimal lost time.

I'm looking forward to this team's next project.

Great game.
Play it in french if you can.

Love the game. Kinda idle-y as it can take a while to build up enough mana to do anything but the fun part really is planning out the school and trying to build for specific outcomes for your students.

Remember to make friends with the King!

meep

This game can be relaxing, and has a lot of replay value. With the different classes and random students it makes you think of different strategies for future levels.

♥

dynamic!

I absolutely love this little magical school game that is a mix between a doll house and dungeon keeper. i just wish i could see things in first person view as a student or a teacher my beloved university! ;) Best time waster around. I also wish the music was more diverse and upbeat. Great game overall, never had a crash. Very good.

Clunky. Often feels like busy work. Needs automated way to sort students (like auto-graduating them) and better system for selling surplus potion ingredients. Also struggles to run on my machine which handles other games just fine. But there is no reason for this to be the case as far as I can tell. There is no complex mechanism to take up memory or insane graphics (or at least any I want for a simple simulator).

Sadly not really rewarding. It can be really repetitive.
I really like the aesthetic of it and the dungeon element it sadly cant grab me elsewhere. I surely will try for some hours more but for now this is my review.

I can't recommend this game enough. It's a lot of fun and there is always something new to try differently in each campaign.
It would be really great to see even more content, I would even take a paid for DLC.
Best of luck in your Magic University!

An excellent idea for a game, one with a fair bit of visual appeal that is held back by the fact that it explains absolutely nothing to you while somehow simultaneously having a tutorial that consists of two dozen text boxes that dump information onto the player without any context or interactivity.

This game spends several minutes pointing out its own features without teaching the player how to interact with them, how they interact with each other, and how they affect your play-through as a whole. I know factions and reputation exist, and that I can visit these factions, but I don't know how they affect my school. I know that my students and teachers have different traits, but no idea what those traits exactly do. I know there are different schools and sub-schools of magic and skills, but I don't know what training my students in them will do or even how to focus on training them, etc etc.

This is made worse by the deck system. In a management sim like this, a system that takes away control over what rooms are built and relegating it to needing to spend resources to draw cards at random and hope you get the room you wanted to build is really frustrating and further aggravates the problem of player confusion when you are drawing rooms whose functions are a mystery. While I'm in the middle of trying to get a couple dormitories and classrooms set up, I'm drawing prison cells, undead crypts and observatories, all while getting bombarded by random events from the left side of the screen and before I know what's happening orcs are attacking my students even though 5 minutes ago I chose an action in an event that said it was supposed to improve my relationship with them.

This concept has so much potential, but rarely have I had a less smooth on boarding experience as a player. The tutorial needs to be slowed down and lengthened into something that not only goes into detail on each system it explains, but also allows the player to interact with that system while learning about it so that information is retained. Blocks of text flashed up on screen pointing at UI elements don't help a player retain information. Furthermore, introduce ideas and systems one at a time. Introduce the building system first, then take some time to explain how approving student applications and student traits works, then move on to explaining the magic schools and skills, etc. I can tell there's a lot of complexity and nuance on display here, but its all far too inscrutable to recommend right now.

I love making stupid and arbitrary houses to sort students into (rich vs poor, evil vs good (misc for the neutrals), or my favourite which was ugly vs god's favourites (if I liked you best)).

So much fun.

I finished the campaign in 8.6 hours. While I enjoyed my time, it's not exactly deep nor rewarding and I'll probably never touch it again. I'd rather have spent my money elsewhere.

The UI looks and feels like an old flash game, and the only 'good' graphics are for the buildings/students in the background, which you have no control over nor time to really look at given the strict timeline you're on.

If the price was more reasonable, I'd recommend, but it's not worth it, in my opinion. Not without a lot more polish.

Specifics on what to improve:
1. The new student screen constantly popped up and took over my screen while I was in the middle of an action.
2. There isn't enough time before the forced of evil come to do everything I'd like.
3. Provide the specialization quest before I start building my school. If I've already build 3-4 classes, and my only option is to specialize into room I don't already have, then I need to have 6 different classes, and there is almost no way to draw my students into the 2 that matter. Not without a lot of luck. I settled for 2 stars at the end of most maps.
4. The adventure UI is a mess and I basically only did well if I was lucky.
5. Allow me to reorder cards in my hand.

Fun and funny

I'm 26 hours into Spellcaster University and absolutely love it! I'm playing on a Mac Studio M1 and have had no bugs or crashes yet. Game is running smooth. The tutorial is basic, and you do have to figure out a lot of mechanics on your own, but I like that. Long tutorials are a bit of a pet-peeve for me. I'd rather dive in and learn as I go, and pretty quickly I felt like I had a good handle on the game. I love the sense of humor, and the delightful animations. The game ropes you in with fun and easy building mechanics, but the longer you play the more you start to find the deeper layers of strategy. Mixing magic disciplines to meet challenges, and put together the best adventuring team, laying out all your rooms to make them the most efficient, figuring out what teacher and student qualities work best, and much more has kept me deeply entertained. All of that, and there's still plenty of room just to build what's fun and cool! Hope you enjoy this game as much as I have.