Spellcaster University

Game left unfinished by developer

Spellcaster University - 6/10 Spellcaster University is a decent attempt at creating something novel: a Hogwarts simulator. The idea of a game where you can create your own wizarding school is intriguing and while I got a brief moment of joy and wonder out of the game; in the end, it did not hold up enough for the game to keep me interested past eight hours of gameplay. This was largely due to a variety of factors. For one, the possible creativity you could unleash in this game is greatly inhibited by a lack of open options for wizard house design and castle design. It is nice to have attributes connected to each house, but each time you create a new house, you can only choose from a limited selection of attributes which is randomized each time. Why not allow full access to attributes to allow more custom-made houses? You can choose which magic they use and disallow, but there is a lack in openness when it comes to the house designer overall. I’m sure the devs are working on this and it will no doubt be updated. Castle design is fun in this game; it’s simple and cutesy. However, you will quickly come to find that the game mechanic used to gain new rooms, decorations, furniture, pets, and architecture limits your creativity. By building up your reserves of coin and a variety of magic/mana, you can buy cards which have the items you need to build your wizarding school. The cards come in randomized packs of three, where you pick one from the deck of cards that best suits your needs. If the game had a more open castle designer with the option to purchase rooms and items at any time like a traditional simulator; it would be a far superior title. BUT the randomization of assets does add some difficulty to the campaign. The campaign is basic but challenging: get three stars on each map. Stars are rewarded for beating challenges; some challenges are easier than others. The story is bread and butter fantasy; something we’ve all seen before but it’s fine because the purpose of this game is to live out the fantasy of running your own wizarding school. The story is background noise; it’s a McGuffin to give reason for a timer on each map. Meanwhile, there is a free play mode which has no timer thus no threat of restarting eventually. This is nice as a way to build up a school and do your own thing for a while but without the storyline being involved, it quickly becomes a repetitive bore. This title has potential. It has the mechanics already there; it just needs to be given some detail and customization features. Open up the castle builder, fix some errors and bugs which is largely due to poorly optimized pathing for the NPCs, and let us better fully customize the houses. I recommend waiting for this game to go on sale before buying.

This game might not be too bad if it felt like there was meaningful progression but there isn't. On the plus side that means you don't care that your success is based on how well or how poorly your luck at card draws and randomly assigned events goes, down side the whole game feels pointless.

The tutorial is painfully lacking. No idea how to make gold, and I apparently need tons of it. Lots of hard locking choices that I genuinely don't feel like I have the tools to solve. IE, forced to pick my specialization, each has two magic schools. 4/6 of them I don't even have access to in any way and, as far as I know, can't get access to. Wat? I'm utterly baffled by what I'm supposed to be doing and how I'm supposed to do it, honestly. Big pass.

It's a an alright game. It's fun if you just want to turn your brain off and just look at stuff moving around the screen. While playing I didn't really feel like I was changing much or noticing any tangible impact in what I do. Can't delete rooms so you either save your cards to put them in the way you want or just place them as you go and hope for the best which usually works. The cards themselves don't really have much description to them, there are cards where for whatever reason you can't place them and the game does not tell you how/why you can't. Apparently it has to be on the ground floor so if you want to place a specific room you have to save some space, tough luck if you didn't know this beforehand Alright experience, price is a bit steep for what you get but on sale it's decent enough enjoyment. Just don't expect too much going in.

I honestly expected more... The graphics are cool and the idea behind the game was super intriguing to me but the game itself + mechanics are only fun for like 40min unfortunately

i love the game but there are so many frustrating and bad designs in the game that makes me wonder if the developers even plays it. there are no way to delet/demolish placed rooms, and there are no ways to delet an established house that might be identical or even worse than one already excisting, and there are no way to recolour their emblem. events when looked at early can not be closed so if you are 1 or 2 points behind on haveing a favourable out come on the event you are just ♥♥♥♥ out of luck and can go get ♥♥♥♥♥♥, forcing you to make a choice when the timer runs out is a good design chose but to look at it early and be unable to close it makes it bad. the IMP graduation (Figuratively) don't do anything, it gives you a 1 point discount on all future shadow spell cards, this won't really do anything unless you draw 15 cards and then it starts paying of but the cost at that point is so high that it might as well do literally nothing. (i have not seen an equivelent to other schools). as it is now with out some more quality of life features and allow the demolishing of rooms and create houses i am obligated to say that this is a bad game no matter how much i love it