This is a really solid game and it really fills the light management niche quite nicely.

It's fun to play around in if you like designing and the requirements for all the different types of rooms and spaces in the school vary enough to keep things interesting. It manages to offer a little challenge for those who like adapting on the fly while still being engaging enough for those that like to tear everything down and rebuild in a more organized, modular fashion.

As opposed to Oxygen Not Included, the game doesn't require you to delve into the management of pipes and material transport systems (which was my least favorite part of ONI). There's basic farming and production limits and storage but that's about the extent of it. You can quickly craft little zombie bots to do a lot of your hauling for you which frees up your teachers and students to teach and learn and dance in a circle around an enchantophone.

Staff and student scheduling is simple, though the grouping system is still a bit wonky. I also get the feeling that the devs intend that the 'best' way to play is to churn through your students and staff. Graduating and Retiring your staff is incentivised through the reward of relics which are used to upgrade subsequent students/staff, so if you are one of those players that gets attached to your characters you're going to be making the game more difficult for yourself.

Overall I think this is an easy recommend. The developers have done a great job on the skeleton of the game, so depending on your options chosen it can play as a challenging, resource-scarce, base survival game, a light magic-themed school/base designer game, or anywhere in between.

Build your own school for young mages! This is a 2D simulation with many twists over other simulations.

It has exploration, lots of building (with arbitrary rooms and sizes), mage sims who work on the schedules you enter, smart groups for scheduling or tasks where you can create criteria and even new students will be automatically selected, RPG stats and skills, and turn-based old-school tactical magic combat. Although it's 2D, it has much of the creativity of a 3D building game. It will feel familiar to anyone who plays the genre of sims, but has some very unique gameplay elements.

You start at the site of an ancient school of magic destroyed by a curse, and your three starting professors (with the help of the founder's ghost) must recruit and train young mages to eventually become professors, to help lift the curse. The more students you train and graduate, the bigger your school can be, and the more potent the school becomes.

There are tons of secrets to find, unusual plants and materials to harvest, powerful relics to find and create, wands to upgrade, and deadly traps and events to handle.

I found this game quite entertaining, and am a fan of other Klei games such as Oxygen Not Included. This is not as complex as ONI, but has much of the charm and excitement of discovery through exploration. Unlike most RPGs like this, you are expected to graduate students and let them depart forever. Losing a mage may take a little time to replace, but everyone is replaceable.

I was playing this from the earliest versions, enjoying the game and hoping for it to become more with each regular update. The game went through a lot of changes until 1.0 (current version at the time of review), the devs listened to feedback and it turned out good, actually really fun. Its similar to ONI but less polished and with lesser freedom to how to solve problems, which are centerpiece of the game - you need x and for that you need y, z and c, but c requires a and d, or you could do just f and g, up to you. An ultimate indie magic base building fantasy is what I would call this game, a fair warning, a huge part of the game is base building (which is hugely predetermined at the start of the game by the seed), lesser part is focused on actual school management, and fights still need polish not to be repetitive. Also, on higher difficulties you will need excel tables to do well. I would recommend trying it if youre into this kind of games and/or watch a good deal of gameplay.