Spellcaster University

Harry Potter meets SIm Tower in all the best ways. I cant recommend this game enough, its original, the art is inspired and its just so much fun its hard to describe. I've played it through many times and it never gets old.

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.