Spellcaster University

[JetFred]

Search didn't find a thread for this game. I spent a couple of hours with it to get through one school before you are forced to start over, trying to decide if it was good or just a good idea. I need some opinions from others who have tried it.

I felt like I was just placing cards that I drew the most balanced way I knew how, with no real consequences or rewards. I played one dungeon crawl minigame and went until I got them all killed. I ended up with a bunch of rooms all busily doing things but no clear sense that anything was happening other than my prestige score steadily increasing. Is this just a toy, or is there a good management game there? There certainly isn't a good building game since you can't move anything or plan your rooms off of card draws.

[JetFred]

Unless the people reading this post are all bots, I take this to mean no one has tried the game.

[TheMix]

I have not. And am also completely unaware of it. Sorry.

Edit: Well... I guess not "completely". As I read your post and the subject line, so I now know it exists...

[Freyland]

I asked a bot I know if he knew of this game, and it just shrugged. I think you are on your own.

[coopasonic]

Unless the people reading this post are all bots, I take this to mean no one has tried the game.

Got it in the Humble Monthly and quickly filed it under "Not Interested". I might check it out at some point, but it doesn't look particularly compelling.

[Daehawk]

Never heard of it....I dont like card games though...or rogue likes.

[JetFred]

It's weird because it's like a colony sim or lair builder, but the card mechanic determines what you can build and then you can't move anything around. The only roguelike part is the dungeon crawl minigame when there is somewhere to send a few students to fight, and it looks like after choosing the students, their attacks, and their position, everything else is like choose-your-own-adventure with auto-combat. You can choose to retreat or let them fight another room.

I started to wonder what game mechanic they thought was so compelling that I'd be fine with such randomly-driven limits on building layout plus limits on combat strategy. It's weird because there are so many things you CAN tweak that seem to have only cumulative consequences rather than apparent ones. Rooms have slots where you can add enhancements for what goes on in them. Rooms can be upgraded and the visuals reflect it. Magic schools can be created to prioritize or prohibit different types of magic, which changes how often you'll be able to add features from those types.

Imagine if you played Planet Coaster but determined what you could place next by drawing from a card stack and nothing could be built from scratch or moved. You could still set things like prices and upgrades to buildings but the only net effect was on your park rating. Actually that's maybe a poor example because as great as Planet Coaster is, it's not actually the world's best tycoon game. But then again, the example works because you can imagine how annoying it would be if you couldn't design anything yourself, everything was stamped in place for good, and all you could do was watch people walk around with little hats and stuff while you just stamp another ride as fast as you can afford to randomly draw one.

Perhaps the real question is whether anyone has done this idea better. Seriously, how is there not a Hogwarts sim out there? This is so almost that.

[Max Peck]

This, maybe?