Spellcaster University

This was a close one!

So the core mechanic here is that you draw and play cards, most of which create rooms, and students and teachers use the rooms. The most important rooms are classrooms, which generate Mana and XP when used. Mana turns into more cards, and XP improves the student. Students eventually graduate and generate a "Future" based on their levels.

You have goals, and a limited timer before the university is destroyed. Completing goals improves the next university, adding a mild roguelite element. So your goals might be "Generate 8000 Light Mana" and "Graduate 24 Paladins" and a Paladin is a student who graduates with at least 2 Sacred, 4 Heroism, and 2 Retribution. So then you hopefully build a bunch of Light Magic classrooms where they'll learn those skills and also generate light mana. Or the deck refuses to give you light magic classrooms and you repeatedly draw janitors closet-shadow magic-nature magic as your three options.

I think where my frustration arrives is that there are simply too many random elements. I build my university out of random rooms to fulfill random goals which I do by educating random students with random teachers. Some of the subsystems are hugely impactful, others don't seem to be. Also, it does that roguelite thing where sometimes you get a quest ("Collect four dragons" in my game) that seems to be completely reliant on low-probability RNG and it just sits on your screen, mocking you without any way to work towards it.

Random events require resources for all the best options, which means you're encouraged to keep approx 200 of every flavor of mana on hand. This isn't especially hard, but it is another thing to constantly keep in mind. There's nothing more frustrating than having to tell someone "Go away, I can't help you! -15 Rep!" because you have 140 Light Mana and the "Of course I'll help! +15 rep!" option costs 150 Mana that you would've had in ten seconds.

In this game you can easily manage your own Hogwarts-like spellcaster university. In no way related to the Harry Potter universe, you are able to createyour own legion of spellcasters to try and stop or speed up the end of the world.

It's a nice, idle game that has its own set of trivia moments and funny easy-to-miss details. Very replayable, which is always a plus in my book.

Graphics is not up to the latest standards in gaming, so don't expect the AAA level of attention to details, but for this nice little addition to the world of gaming, it really doesn't matter. Having more in-your-face details would really ruin the game for me. I like the fact that imperfections leave some room for my imagination to kick in.

I would recommend this game to others. The tutorial is not that great, but it is easy enough to figure out the main things to do.

Lots of fun!!

fun game limted replayability

Juste genial. C'est mon seul jeu sur Steam( je suis console normalement) pour dire a quel point il est bien.

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.