Mind Over Magic is a colony simulation game made by Sparkypants, this seems to be their very first title and is being published by Klei Entertainment. It has a beautiful artstyle superb graphics along with compelling gameplay. It came out of its early access period on February 12th and has already achieved a ‘Very Positive’ review on Steam.
An Interesting Take On Colony Building
The main point of the game is to efficiently build a school of magic by keeping powerful mages alive and inspired. We start building from quite literally nothing by designing each floor ourselves, we get to decide what each room will contain which rooms it should lead to.
We will also have to make sure our mages have books to study and improve their craft which in turn helps us to grow exotic plants, make potions and of course like any game about magic, we get to raise the dead to give us a hand in building the school.
One of the most fun aspects about building the school is to discover hidden efficiency bonuses that appear based on how we organize our rooms. The incentive to discover new kinds of rooms to create is the fact that these rooms elevate the quality of the school’s students and the teachers thus making them more durable in battle.
Good ol’ Turn-based Combat
As we play we’ll be able to unlock the ‘Under School’ which is a mysterious network caves filled with secrets, deadly monsters and rare treasures which in turn give us rare recipes and research materials to discover. Students themselves are of all shapes and sizes with each race having their own set of advantages and disadvantages both in and out of combat.
Combat takes place in the form of turn-based combat, our party consists of 4 members and it doesn’t matter who we take into battle, even a level one student who just got admitted to the school can be taken in of course the trade off being the battles will be much harder and will take longer.
There are ways of getting an upper hand in battle for example, we can research the type of monsters that we’ll likely encounter as we explore and can take spells that they are weak against to gain an advantage.
As this is a school we have to manage we ultimately have to also look after its students, nursing them back to health from difficult battles will take time and resources away from maintaining the school thus it is important to decide who to take into quests that explore the ‘Under School’.
Conclusion
The game is not without its faults, the starting of the game can be a bit slow and frustrating as it is done through reading a Codex. The lack of a visual tutorial to at least give a general idea can put off a lot of potential players.
Another issue to point out is the fact that when we receive rare quests that elevate our mid level personnel to legendary wizards, we aren’t given that much control in how the end battles should play out, this leads to frustration as the battles can be lost due to incorrect use of spells.
What is a plus is the fact that we can customize the difficulty to suit our wants and challenges, this encourages replayability as those who reached the endgame will get curious to see how they fare on higher difficulty and test themselves on how well they have learned to manage their resources.
Mind Over Magic is a brilliant title with in-depth colony building and intricate mechanics that work together to present an addictive gameplay. The game essentially has too much to offer with hours and hours of content that anyone will be able to sink their teeth into. It deserves a spot in everyone’s library for its unique gameplay and take on the Colony Sim and Management genre.
