Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts

In summary, It introduces you, then timeskips you to a point where your MC just knows everyone, and you don't. It forces politics you can't begin to understand from the amount of time you've actually been in this fictional world, and gives you no way to be neutral about them. Relationship system is based off of timeskip stats and not actually on meaningful scenes or decisions. You cannot choose to study a magic of your choice, You do not learn spells, Your MC magically knows spells though. (Was that a pun?) There are no consequences to decisions that would be seen as irresponsible, such as giving up a memory as a sacrifice to a higher power. Or jumping into a vampire ambush after being a student for like, what two months? Constantly having to call for help from teachers, and crashing your flying ship more then once. You'd think MC would at least break a bone in one of these scenarios. I'd say the intent was good, and the concept was great, But the execution failed miserably.

None of this felt magical. There was a lot of talk about pronouns, the mythology of ireland and Jungian psychology and I spent more time in this game arguing over "non-human" rights than I did casting spells. I got bored of reading pretty quickly and before I knew it I was just picking randomly so I could get to the ending. If you're looking for a game to scratch the Harry Potter itch don't bother.

The gamebook was an interesting anthropological experiment, but not in what a magical hogwarts style school would be, but in current American culture and issues... All the forced he/she/they, specieism, flak for thanksgiving and what not was overbearing and took away from what should have been a fun diversion. At the same time, despite all this talk of diversity, the game books allways assume the characters to be Americans, thinking like todays Americans, and there is no diversity at all in character creation regarding actual class, cultural, political, filosofical or religious options. There are some 7 gender options, but otherwise you're just assumed to be totally integrated in the current identity driven civil war going on in the US society. I wish the time and energy spent on all that had been used in developing the game world, the supposedly magical academy and the characters beyond some very basic token personalities. I've had fun with quite a lot of Choice of Games books, but lately I feel the quality has really dropped and I'll think twice before buying another title.

Ugh. Where do I begin... It's very fast paced, but slow at the same time. The writing is - quite frankly - boring, and I wasn't able to connect to any of the characters. I'm aware that games like this is very hit/miss depending on what the individual is looking for, but to me it read more like a bad fan fiction on Wattpad than an actual Choice of Games-approved novel. This is why you should always release a demo, CoG.

Wholly enjoyable. The plot is roughly thus, without spoilers: One plays as a young student at a magical academy, as one might expect, and deals with all the adventures and mishaps within. It is quite like if J. K. Rowling had researched non-English traditions of belief, and was far better acquainted with the idea of internal consistency. (Indeed, it tackles Ireland far better than the Harry Potter series.) Despite generally despising sports, Sky Sailing was far more interesting than expected, and the cast of characters was interesting and diverse. In a list of very strong showings by the author (A. J. Abbot), including such classics as Choice of the Pirate, it is the strongest yet. In all, it deserves both praise, and a sequel.

Out of all the choice of game games I've played this would be one of the least favourite ones. I was disappointed at how flat it sometimes felt, the rush in certain parts and lack of characters. I was hoping when I chose the opposite gender to play I'd get to have a different roommate instead of Jule's just gender swapping. I don't know, I perfered them as the girl. I get they can't make the roommate different, that'd just be a heck of a lot more work on them but still. We had an array of other character's that we didn't really get to see more of. I also felt like the romance was kind of lacking in the game, being a gamer girl, I really like to have my character's have some form of romance in games :P Good writing, just lack of anything.

Blackstone Academy I would say had a OK story, and was the right length to tell it, but it has a ton of little problems which I find add up, so much so that I would not recommend this game. Lets get this out of the way first. The they, them, there, and other things of this nature were laid on pretty thick, to the point where it felt very unnatural and made it awkward to read at points. Speaking with a person who went by they was fine one on one, but when in a group I often would be in the situation where I wasn't sure who was talking. Now, this is the first book I have read where a large portion of the cast is like this, so it my just be me. However, I feel it shows a authors skill, or lake there of, on how easy it is for someone to read a story like this without any trouble on there first time. Some authors do it better, some do it worse I'm sure. I feel like there should be a feature like in Mech Ace where you can choice what all the characters are from the start, or at least a option turn off the they, them and there if you want. Story - Like I said it was ok, there was 3 major plot lines I found in my play through. The school life, politics and the otherworldy mystery going on. They blended together pretty well with my favourite being the mystery, which I solved with my own group of friends like you would in a kid's detective novel. A rather cool thing I would find out about was at the climax, I was given hints that there were some very different ways of solving the mystery and potentially be directly involved in it. Choices - This was the other weak point, I played a middle of the road character. Working within the realms of the Liminals, while helping out those in need and giving a hand to the Guardians when I could. A man of moderate change who worked from inside the system, and you know, a genuinely half-decent human being. This was somewhat harder to do then you'd think, there are not a lot of neutral choice. Most of the time the choices boiled done to one of 4: - "I'm a extreme prejudice, and open about it!" - "I'm a extreme prejudice, but quiet about it." - "I'm a hardcore progressive and open about it!" - "I'm a hardcore progressive, but I'm quiet about it." Your either at one extreme or the other, there aren't a lot of moderate positions, I don't care positions, or leave me out of it positions, which would go with the verity of middle of the road characters you might want to play. Character - This was my favourite part! The characters are very believable, can change realistically throughout the story, and interact/do things weather you are there or not. They feel like they are people living and have lives outside of you. It's very fun trying to figure out which characters are apart of what faction, or if there apart of no faction at all, the story rarely out right tells you who they affiliate with from the start. Some of my favourites were: - Your Philosophy teacher who I loved from the start - Perry who I at first didn't like, thinking they were just some backround character, but had a very engaging story that I stumbled into - My main group of friends who grew on me throughout the story Ending - The ending I got made scene, somewhat of a cliff hanger where I'd lost some of my memories. So I'm am interested to see if there will be a sequel, hopeful the author makes some needed changes for that story. I'd say there is a lot of replay ability if you do get this, as with my play through I actually had no interaction with one of the main factions, beyond there description in the glossary and the small amount of info you get about them in class. Which actually made a lot of scene for the character I played.

The writing has a annoying pretentious quality of some one who believes they are an expert, unfortunately they only think that and often have a fundamental misunderstanding about the subject matter they are writing. The story is exposition heavy and wordy, it focuses more on telling you everything instead of showing (something that can happen even in a book). And overall it tries to cram to many subject matters into one story without any real direction.

A very enjoyable read. One that i look forward to repeating a few more times at least. The writing is well done, the story is interesting and even though I had a feeling about who was the bad guy, I was really pleasantly surprised not by whom but by what they were up to. Also kudos for allowing me to get out of the "competition" portion of the story line. I really groaned out loud when I was told my character had to participate, and went on a self rant (you know when your talking out loud as if to the author arguing your points,) about how not every hero has to be the team captain or even interested in trying to be in the limelight of school spirit and popularity. So i was very grateful when the story line allowed me to show my less than stellar interest and allow someone else to go do all that ; ) TY! So if you liked Creme de la Creme or The Fog Knows Your Name, you will enjoy this story. If you happened to like both this is almost like their love child!

A really fun choose your own adventure game with a lot of choice for anyone wanting to play a morally interesting character. I loved the relationships you could build. The only thing I didn't like was the statblock as it was a bit confusing. I recomend this game to anyone wanting a magical based lgbt friendly school game, it's hella good.