Mind Over Magic

I've tried to pick this game up multiple times, and each time I stop playing as soon as it actually starts going. It's a fantastic game, and honestly the only thing holding me back is that there is no planning mode. I actually LIKE the room keyword system, I think it's cool and forces you to make interesting builds rather than just boxed rooms. However, the lack of an ability to plan out ahead of time with ghost blueprints makes it basically impossible to actually fit anything together in any sort of cohesive way, without just straight up demolishing your whole school and starting again, and then doing that again when you need a new room that doesn't fit, and etc etc etc. Once a mod or update comes out with the ability to plan ahead of time, I'm sure this will be an incredible game!

The game is decent, but before you buy you should consider that the last update was almost a year ago and the game is left in a state where a lot of the people's concerns are left unaddressed. The game honestly could have used some more time and care from the developers, right now it feels like it is about 80% done at best with so much potential wasted since as far as I know and dug around this is it for the game with no more updates planned\announced. Disappointing. Would not recommend buying it not because it is a bad game but because it could have been so much better.

精简得当的佳作。 经营类游戏的其中一个爽点在于不断优化的空间，因此无材料损耗的建筑更改、考评标准复杂且增益高的房间系统、以及各具特色且惊艳的房间装饰效果，很好地缓解了刷材料刷副本的无趣。 材料索引也做得很好，省了很多上网查攻略的时间。 需要注意的是，巫师的情绪要求一定要关注，短期内多个巫师崩溃或去世的话，小人就会陷入葬礼→崩溃→抢救时间太短赶不上→去世→葬礼的循环，导致整个学院的人被降头一样逐个死去，对我之前的档就是这么没的。 同时小人日程安排如果有较高优先级的工作时，在濒临崩溃时也没有办法自主去满足自己的生理和心理需求，是促成这个恶性循环的原因之一。葬礼这个行为只能成为处理尸体的方式，只能更进一步提供情绪负增益，不能成为遏制这个恶性循环的手刹。 所以为了避免你的小人全部死掉，一开始就不要太贪心，慢点发展，把休息娱乐区整好、餐饮丰富一点、房间高级一点，再去挑战更难的任务。 唉，希望现实世界的人也能发现这一点。

I am torn on this game, but it tips into negative because I wish it was more - but it isn't. If you are a huge fan of rimworld-esq games and hope to get sucked into this, you might be disappointed like I was. If you are good with having possibly a 30hr experience from this genre, you might not. TL:DR; Imo, it needed longer in the oven, but it's not getting that - updates are done. It takes just enough from rimworld added with it's own things like the building requirements and turn-based combat to be something different and interesting. It is cool. But it struggles greatly with progression, aka giving you a reason to play. I played this game awhile ago post 1.0 and really enjoyed it. I really liked the room system. I liked the art. I was curious. Then hit a massive wall around 30hrs in. Progression became too tedious with too little reward/motivation. I let them cook and came back this year, sadly felt it worse. For a game so unique, there is something about progression here, something VERY important for colony sims, that gives me absolutely no motivation. You can stagnate easily. There is very little and very slow retaliation. The push to upgrade/improve can be entirely absent. I came back and played for another 10ish hours, and there was nothing stopping from me keeping no students, from not improving any of my employees, not upgrading my rooms. And then to do those anyways would have been slow. At multiple points I was just sitting with fast forward on. My initial 30 hrs seemed to come from my own curiosity about the game and not the game giving me things to be curious about. The game is considered finished, updates stopped in 2025. Where it's at isn't changing. And where it's at is just not enough for me. This feels like a project which funding was highly limited or cut. It has all the bones of something good, but struggles to be a good sim, which requires extensive time and money. Like the 10 give or take years behind rimworld, kenshi, factorio, project zomboid, etc etc. I would love to see a "fully loaded" version of this game one day.

咋说呢，如果有中评我会给中评，简单版魔法师缺氧，比缺氧好上手也没什么压力，但我感觉科雷生存游戏最大的问题就在明明可以把一个很好玩的游戏加加加到厌倦做得不好玩……真的神奇……这游戏对普遍玩家来说最麻烦的居然是想怎么凑房间词条盖合适条件的房子，我花了很多时间在理解搭房子上，以至于到后期变成了一种折磨，我的耐心大概只能忍到十个小时吧

制作组好像已经放弃更新了，后期很消耗时间，各种建筑只是根据不同的属性换一个皮，但是需要大量不同的材料，游戏丰富度不行，靠这种方法偷懒

The negative reviews on this game make me both sad and slightly mad. I picked this up ageees ago during early access and enjoyed the journey through to full release. it is, a management game, you work to build up your resources, you need this that and the next thing, but then you also need to train some students. It grows and grows and grows and I really enjoy the build. I'm frustrated by how some people have said its a slow grind, well naturally you need to gather resources? I have my current school at late game. I don't need to worry at all about resources, I have every single room made and upgraded to be the best it could be. This is what you work towards! and I loved getting to this point. It took A LOT of work to get this far, but thats kinda the fun of it no? Building up to get everything you need? to the point where you don't even need to think about it anymore cause you got that ♥♥♥♥ sorted? The fighting is a lot of fun. you work towards building up your mages, there are many different kinds of mages you can build. Example! a fire/water build allows a huge crit chance with their specific attacks. an electric/dark mage allows you to apply a debuff to your enemy each time you apply a non combative attack. I mean come on! they put together a great array of mages abilities within this game. Its been a great pleasure to be part of their journey from early access to full release. Its great fun managing a magic school, fighting evils, graduating students, building up my school and keeping the fog at bay. Give it a go, you know you want to!

If you are kind of gamer that wants some challenge but not in a painful way ( adding some management, bit of complexity etc. ) but don't want to be restricted by time, this is kind of a game for you. It could seem complex at start, but its not that much. You will always have something to do, and you can do it in your own pace. And its not boring and tedious, at least it wasn't for me.

Very similar (on paper at least) to Oxygen not included, with every interesting aspect from ONI removed and replaced with slow-as-molasses progression blocks and a very underwhelming magic system that's just a re-skinned skill system that brings absolutely nothing new to the table. (When I say "very similar" I mean some menus and mechanics are exactly copy-pasted from ONI, like the schedule menu or the priority system). The game railroads you into playing it a particular way and makes you wait for unreasonable amounts of time for any new tech or resource to make any impact on your school. If, for some ungodly reason, you are looking for an Oxygen Not Included alternative where the basic gameplay mechanics are similar but you hate being able to come with out-of-the-box solutions for the challenges you are faced with, this is the game for you. Otherwise, I'd say it's sadly a pass. May change with a lot of rework and patches, but it doesn't seem like the developers are heading that way.