The premise for this academy management sim sets the tone perfectly. Every 254 years a demonic force rises and attempts to conquer a magical realm. After someone accidentally marked the wrong year on a calendar to highlight The Lord of Evil’s return, the fate of mankind is at stake. With only a few years left to prepare for an undead invasion, it’s your job to establish a chain of universities to nurture the next generation of spellcasters. Fail to provide students with the resources they need to graduate, and they’ll become humble turnip farmers. There’s a place and time for turnips, and that’s in a hearty stew – not during a battle for mankind’s survival.
Viewed from a side-on perspective, Spellcaster University stands out from most other construction/management sims. Foremostly, it’s a card-based affair, involving pulling randomised cards from different decks that align to magical vocations – everything from nature-based magic, to frowned upon shadow magic. Three cards are provided per pull, only one of which can be selected, varying from themed classrooms – with a choice of two teachers – to decorations that’ll boost learning speeds or reduce student boredom. Also amongst the cards are dragons and similar fantasy creatures, bestowing a stat boost to every student who passes them in the hallways.
Gold is gained from students or from offering services, being the basic currency for establishing fundamentals such as staff rooms, dormitories, and refectories. Once a basic school is established, gold flows quite freely. Mana, however, is slower to accumulate, needed to pull magic cards. You’ll also need large pools of mana to activate events or select certain dialogue options, with various factions – such as Orcs and Peasants – making occasional demands. Alternatively, it’s possible to send out guinea pig messengers to establish contact with factions early, either to pester for gold/mana or to boost your standing. Over time, your standing with factions becomes increasingly important – especially during the final chapter, where you’re forced to make choices that’ll impact the imminent war.
Before jumping into all of this, you’re given choices for difficulty and the campaign’s length. My first playthrough took 7 hours, which was on one of the shorter settings and involved replaying the final chapter a couple of times – which, handily, loops if you’re unsuccessful at stopping The Lord of Evil. A campaign entails creating several schools from scratch, in such locations as a swamp, a volcano, and on the back of a giant turtle – each with their own challenges. Each school has a three star rating to unlock, one of which is always attributed to choosing a magical vocation and sticking to it. You’ll also get to choose ‘Houses’ and sort students, recalling the world of Harry Potter. Other references to the wizarding world are surprisingly few.
Dungeon crawling plays a part too, and you’re free to choose how much time to invest here. Simply, each site has a discoverable side-quest that entails heading into a dungeon in search of unique cards, mana and other riches. After choosing which students to send into the murky depths, questing is driven solely by choosing options, with battles automated. And yes, students can potentially die. As a diversion, this element more than suffices, although it does rely heavily on using your imagination as it’s mostly dialogue driven.
On that subject, it’s worth noting that Spellcaster University isn’t exactly pushing graphical boundaries. It isn’t an ugly game, but it is rather basic and crude, with simple textures and low poly character models. I’m guessing there was a need to keep things simple to ensure it runs well on low spec PCs, seemingly aimed at a young age group. It helps to understand that there’s quite a bit happening behind the scenes, with every student and teacher having an automated routine. Playing on Xbox Series, it runs smoothly, and the radial menus are easy to navigate with a controller. I did however encounter a glitch – after setting up the final university, students were unable to enter the building, gathering in a large cluster outside while running on the spot. As there’s no ‘chapter restart’ option, I had to play on the fastest speed to wait out the timer, which took around 20 minutes. Everyone graduated as a turnip farmer that term.
Spellcaster University is a bit of an oddity, but not necessarily in a bad way. The term ‘quirky’ perhaps describes it best. It’s much easier to get into than similar management games, with nothing in the way of micro management, and only a small learning curve to overcome while planning your first university. After that, it’s pretty smooth sailing, although this is largely because there isn’t all that much ground for failure, with no noticeable consequences for poor planning. Success largely hangs on that all-important final chapter, going through the motions each time until that point, albeit with different quests and goals for each new location. Seeing how many of your students become almighty wizards is also oddly compelling, and there’s a bit of flexibility to how you play, dabbling in shadow magic and siding with the Orcs.
If you’re looking for a management sim that’s easy going yet still has hidden depths, Spellcaster University is worth bearing in mind. It isn’t too technical, and it certainly isn’t a looker, but its light-hearted nature makes it a pleasant time-waster. I was cynical about its existence initially, assuming it was riding the coattails of Hogwarts Legacy’s success, but it’s such a unique experience that it could only come from a team with a passion for what they’re creating, along with the motivation needed to make it in the first place.
Sneaky Yak Studio’s Spellcaster University is out 2nd May on consoles. Published by Red Art Games. A PC version launched in 2021.