Mind Over Magic

Unfortunately this is not about building magic school, but micro-managing personell. I expected something more like Spellcaster University, but this is not it. Also, all gathering has to be manual for some reason, you need to click-click-click to collect stuff. Which is sad, room system surely looks interesting, but not automated staff ruins it for me.

Loved it at first but it gets extremely annoying and tedious. The entire conviction system is awful for me, as well as things like rain being able to break through walls and you spend the whole day cleaning and repairing then having to train all new staff and students constantly.

I'm a game dev myself, and that's the only review you need [h1]Idea 10/10[/h1] [hr][/hr] * It's like `Oxygen not included` but better! You don't have too complex mechanics (for instance, nothing like automation based on logical elements). This is a colony sim about building your own magic school. It even sounds fantastic! * Turn-based combats. Such separation from main gameplay is very smart. You must think not only about your school but about your firepower as well. * Building. Every room has certain requirements and randomized keywords. For instance, some keywords are "One wall should be 4 tiles taller than another" or "Elevated - must not have a foundation below" These keywords are randomized and influence how you would build your base. I love it so much. It makes your base look funnier and somehow (idk how) makes you think more about how to make it good-looking instead of min/maxing everything. * Heroes quirks + relics. In addition to stats, each hero has a race and the ability to hold 3-4 relics, which makes every character very customizable without complex mechanics. * Visuals - If you meet the requirements for the room, it changes visually. Most of the rooms look absolutely fantastic. For instance, in observatories, walls become blue with golden planets and other ornaments. Moreover, they are moving! We're in magic school afterward, so we need moving interior elements. And I like how the game looks in general. * Exploring underground - in addition to building school/researching, you can explore underground to get resources and unlock new features * Overworld - wouldn't go into too many details, but the fog is getting closer every day, and you must perform a ritual to keep it away. If you want a late-game resources, you must move the fog quite far away. Great way to add pressure on the player + additional way of progression * Relics - For instance, every student after graduation drops a relic; the higher his level and the more quests you complete (every student has a set of quests), the higher the level of the relic. High-level relics may be insanely strong, and since you can fit up to 4 for each teacher, they are another way to progress! * Teaching students. I like that you have "temporary" characters, so to say. [h1]Gameplay 9/10[/h1] [hr][/hr] It's a colony sim, so your general game loop should be pretty well known to you build/hire -> gather resources -> defend from enemies -> build/hire again and so on I love a lot about this game. From simply setting to lots of cool ideas, and their implementation. At first, it doesn't seem that challenging, even on a maximum difficulty. Game helps you at the start but can be very punishing if you don't use your lead wisely Mind over magic gives you a lot of freedom; you can do fine without certain elements, or you don't necessarily need a lot of staff members. You can even not defend your school and be a pacifist. Or do you want to make a school where everybody would be fire mages? Why not? It may not be the optimal way, but as long as you plan your school well and adjust how you build your school to your playstyle, you should be fine. It doesn't have much pressure by itself, which is very refreshing. Since you don't have to bother much about survival, you may think about fun stuff. For instance, how to make your dining area a humongous hall. Way bigger than optimal size would be And even if you don't like being too creative, it's not a big deal. You have plenty of options to min/max and optimize. I like that you can teach students, but this mechanic is very narrow. Generally speaking, you wouldn't teach students all the time. Usually you would be focused on building a base / teaching students to hire them as staff. Additionally, for teaching, you get special currency, which is important, but you can farm it relatively easily, and it does not have that many use cases. Mostly you use it to hire more staff members There is no reason nor automation utilities that make it possible to teach students on a regular basis. I think it would be cool to at least have a game mode that gives you group of students periodically and you must smooth and automate educational process. Now it's not really a simulator of a magical school, but instead a simulator of magical community or something [h1]Replayability 7/10[/h1] [hr][/hr] As I said, you have lots of options to progress. Generally speaking: [spoiler] 1) Build all the rooms 2) Get perfect staff members 3) Get relics for every staff member 4) Get relics for the school (global effects) 5) Get all researches 6) Explore underground And so on. It goes further than simple base building. It feels like a blend of turn-based RPG where you think a lot about team composition and base building. [/spoiler] I guess most people would play only 1-2 playthroughs. As soon as you make a good school, there is almost no reason to play again Since you would most likely be unhappy about the first school you make, that's why you would play twice. 1 playthrough to learn, 2 to actually play :D But building a somewhat complete school will take you around 50 hours. That's what I would generally expect from this game If you want to min/max, you can play up to 100 hours. To be honest, taking every achievement into account and what is true min/max in this game, you can play way more than that, but you most likely wouldn't since it would get a bit repetitive. [h1]Controls/UI/bugs 4/5[/h1] [hr][/hr] * I had some problems with UI. For instance, `Mage score` can be quite important, but it's hidden * `Emergency hunting priority` wouldn't work on staff if you disallow hunting on them. For hunting, it would be nice to have priority `emergency only`. * Also, the `emergency hunting` level could be added to minor threats. And other insignificant QOL features Overall, everything is good [h1]Design overview[/h1] [hr][/hr] Worth mentioning (positive) - Just look at screenshots. Holy moly, handpaint + magic + lots of shaders/VFX. How can this be bad? [h1]Overall rating 30/35 (9/10) [/h1] [hr][/hr] It was one of the best colony sims I've ever played. It's more relaxed than most similar games, yet it's challenging enough Has many great ideas, feels very light and refreshing. Game design decisions in here are marvelous You wouldn't play thousands of hours in Mind Over Magic; it simply doesn't have so much replayability value, and it doesn't have to. You should expect an amazing ~50-hour experience, and I highly recommend it! P.S., though "make your magic school" is a bit of misdirection. As I stated, you don't teach but just have a workforce in the face of persistent characters (staff) and temporary characters (students). [h1]Extra[/h1][hr][/hr] Follow my curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45084582-Dev-inspiration/] Dev inspiration[/url] for more reviews from a developer's perspective

After 41 hours I'm ready to write a review. This game can be good but I want you to know what you are buying first. A) This game is VERY slow paced. If you want a game to zone out and "watch play itself" this can be good. But if you don't want that, let me stress this is VERY slow paced and will not fit you. B) This game doesn't explain itself that well. Overall it's not super-complicated like dwarf fortress. It does have some tutorials. But it's not the best at explaining its mechanics. You will figure it out eventually or can just ask here or on reddit, but it's not ideal. C) The way this game is written you basically have to cycle through characters. So don't get too attached to anyone because you WILL have to retire a lot of them. Ok with all that out of the way, I think this is a fun "colony" sim game set in a wizard school. The main feature that sets this game apart from others is, you have to "puzzle out" how to fit the weird rooms together. The main fun in this game is just watching everyone do stuff in your ever-growing school. They'll teach students, cook, do chores, research new stuff in a pretty nice tech tree, and do some crafting. There is also combat and it's ok, not terrible but didn't strike me as that interesting either. But it is mandatory since sometimes enemies will randomly attack your school and then you have to drop everything and deal with that. Overall it was sometimes a bit boring, but I also enjoyed it a lot, and I think it gets a thumbs up. If you like Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, and want more colony sim maybe give this a try. It's not as good as those though, but it still can be good.

Your stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "rooms" requirements are insane and super annoying. An auditorium has to be suspended over nothing to get the "elevated" requirement fulfilled but no where do you explain that beyond a few obtuse words that don't lead to that understanding. I've spent the last half hour googling and searching and trying to understand exactly what stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing I failed to do just to retire a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pawn. This is insulting. At this point I feel like you should pay me to play this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. In what ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ world does "elevated" mean that there is nothing below it? I absolutely hate a game that makes you have to follow the dumbest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ heuristics with no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ eloquence to speak of. If your game requires a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ google search in order to understand then there is nothing intuitive about it. Technology is judged by how intuitive it is to use. In other words, in trying to design a pencil you designed a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ abacus, you idiots. Do better. ETA: oh yeah... and ♥♥♥♥ your stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mushrooms that interrupt the gameplay every five ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minutes.

Refunded. It's a bunch of stress with no enjoyment. Too punishing. It's like Oxygen Not Included but more cryptic and less fun. Seems like it could be great from the trailer but it's a slog too much of the time.

Tuve que dejar de jugarlo porque cada vez que sonaba un Break yo sentía que me estaban partiendo el corazón… y no de manera poética, sino como si el juego me dijera: ‘ah, ¿le tienes cariño a este personaje? Pues toma, Dragged away’. Intenté configurar las prioridades como un jefe de proyecto alemán con Excel abierto… pero nada, los muñecos hacían lo que querían. Si quería disciplina me habría comprado un Tamagotchi, al menos ese hacía caso cuando lo alimentabas. En Darkest Dungeon si muere alguien dices: ‘vale, las estadísticas me han apuñalado por la espalda, lo acepto’. Aquí no, aquí los personajes tienen voluntad propia: básicamente se comportan como compañeros de piso que ignoran las tareas del hogar. Tú pones las normas, y ellos dicen: ‘sí, claro, en un rato lo hago’, y al minuto ya están todos muertos. Y lo peor no es eso: lo peor es el efecto dominó. Pierdes a uno y luego caen todos en fila como si fuera un sketch de los Hermanos Marx, y te quedas mirando a la pantalla pensando: ‘¿pero quién rescata ahora a mis niños pixelados?’. Spoiler: nadie. Porque a nadie le importa tu dolor.

总体来讲，还是很耐玩的，算是我玩的最长的游戏之一。 经营建造 + 战斗 + 带一点点的刷宝 玩起来还是很上头的。 有一说一，游戏底子是挺好的，但总觉得还差那么点深度。比如刷遗物能出的词条也太少了，固定变量感觉好像也就那样，如果是词条浮动为力量+30~60，这样每次刷其次都更有动力；饰品作为游戏里面唯一的装备，其实是可以分白蓝紫橙暗金这种品级的，这样玩起来也更有意思。游戏设计了三个BOSS，其实都可以有自己的独特的遗物，比如像暗黑破坏神里那大秘境似的有一些独特的遗物，随机性再强点、花样再多点，你们省开发，可以给怪物加各种随机buff，也算是增加可以玩性了。 还有怪物种类也不够多，等级上限也比较低，推开迷雾后出现的愤怒水晶，希望可以有等级浮动，有罕见的概率刷新出等级更高的愤怒水晶，或者带有特殊词条：比如血量、速度、力量翻倍的词条，打败可以拿到有额外一个词条的遗物。但是这一点其实可以慢慢来，要是能做得再复杂点，不然到了后期，尤其是科技树全点完之后，真的特容易腻 ，就算打到学院最里面，也还是老一套重复操作，没啥新鲜劲。 科技树点完了，也可以增加那种可以重复研究，带来随机惊喜的设计，要不然科技树点完，真的会有那种游戏已经结束了一大半的感觉。我是希望可以有控制天气的科技，这样一方面可以增加新鲜感，一方面我希望天气带来的影响，也可以影响怪物的等级或者怪物的buff，最后影响怪物的掉落变量。 其次是对于我这种建筑党，装饰品还是太少了，很难搭出那种丰富有特点的室内装饰。 建议墙壁火把可以取消降低豪华度的设定，因为很多室内的装潢是需要一些墙上的灯光的，有了这个限制，很多地方都搭配不好。然后就是物品的配色系统也可以加入，也能加入一些新鲜感。 不同的室内词条其实可以增加一些额外的效果的，比如：安宁豪华度高了，降低火元素的暴躁值。惊悚豪华度高了，降低娱乐下降的速度，这样也算是给玩家一些其他的追求。 关于教师的部分，角色达到8的技能等级，能做的事情还是太少了，我希望可以有那种可以培养很久很久树，这样生技能就有发挥的余地，或者有个黑暗之门，可以让暗技能8的人去召唤强力的怪物，用来挑战。水系的可以去炼金出+人物等级上限或者技能上限的终极药水。风系8级可以自己飞行，去特别特别高的地方，去完成独特的仪式。因为这个游戏有太多上限和边界了，摸清了就腻了。 剧情的部分，我希望可以有故事模式和独特的老师，比如幽灵校长的学生，好的学生过来进入带来帮助；不好的学生过来进攻，这个对于你们开发来说应该也不难。有这种法师VS法师的肯定会更好玩。我觉得游戏是艺术的载体，如果希望往别人讲好你的故事，最好有一个特别的故事和剧情。现在做游戏解读的博主还是挺多的，你没有故事，人家也无从下口去介绍你。 最后为什么我会玩将近400个小时，很大程度是因为，这个游戏玩了一段时间，然后就很长时间不玩，这样自己就又有新鲜感了，就又可以玩了，所以游戏本身的质量是没有问题的，最好玩的反而是，最开始三个老师和几个学生的时候，但是游戏很缺乏惊喜和随机事件。玩过几把每个人都能总结一套运营的思路，就和流水线没有什么区别了。 这款游戏陪伴了我很久很久，希望游戏可以继续更新，越来越好。

This game is not fun. Could be fun, the potential is there... but its not. You're constantly just... waiting for resources. And if you're not waiting for resources, you wait for your extremly limited staff to do their tasks. I started playing another game while playing this one... it should tell plenty.