Spellcaster University Review (tbelladona)
What this game IS NOT: a base building colony management simulation of a magic school. Yes, I know, that's what it says the game is but if you're buying it for that you're going to be massively disappointed like all the other reviewers.
What this game IS: One of the more unique roguelike deck building games out there. If you're itching for a new roguelike deckbuilder this one has some neat mechanics.
You draw some basic cards to start each school, and then you get so many points to draw from the standard deck. Each time you draw from a deck, you get to choose from 3 cards that are in the theme of the deck (one for general stuff that costs money and one for each school of magic). These cards serve as your school Houses, Students, Rooms, and items available in the game. You use these cards to hit combos for different bonuses.
For instance: You get a quest to graduate 3 Stargate Engineers. This requires training in Portal Magic from the school of Arcane and Runcecrafting from the school of Alchemy. I use a school House card to create a house and am provided with the option to apply the traits beautiful (limiting insanity from the portal room) and worker (increases learning level) to any students in the house, and I limit what they can learn to alchemy and arcane magic and name the house "Engineers" with little brown robes. I am lucky enough to draw an Inter dimensional Portal from the arcane deck, so I place it and add the common room card on top of it and set that room to be the common room for my Engineers. Next I get enough points from the alchemy deck from some little map quest. When I draw the Rune Scriptorium from the alchemy deck, I made a point to keep space next to my portal room and I place it there, and right nearby I make sure to add a refractory for eating and a dorm room. Now when I look at my school, almost all my little brown robed engineers should mostly stick to this area of the school with most of their needs met without having to travel too far. I then draw a portal window from the arcane deck, which allows any active students in that room to learn portal magic, so I place that in my rune Scriptorium to double down on any students who learn one learn both so when they graduate they can be chosen as Stargate Engineers.
As students graduate, they apply bonuses or immediate benefits based on what they're trained in. There's also little auto battler dungeons occasionally, and then you get to see the training and items in action. They are shockingly fun when you get a good little party going and you can bring back lots of loot.
Like any game of this nature, you roll with the draw of the deck. So you can see why people who went in wanting to design a magic school were sorely disappointed. It's just not that game. It's about points and combos and "deck" management.
And someone please fix how they labeled this game so the right crowd gets to it. I hate seeing a game get pounded in the ratings not because it's not fun, but because the advertising is bringing in the whiskey crowd when all they serve here is fruity cocktails.