I really wanted to love this game, the aesthetics and premise are perfect. Who doesn't want to be the mighty wizard heading up essentially a research university in a high advanced magi-tech technocracy while you lord over your apprentices?

But, there are issues with the game-play and with the developer that give me pause.

The game is single player, and you have control over the movement of workstations and decor, and limited control over the movement of apprentices. There is a tutorial that front loads most, but not all, and not enough of the gameplay mechanics. It is essentially a wall of text broken up into boxes with little interactivity or highlighting of each mechanic and then you are immediately thrust into the brunt of gameplay.

The game is very text heavy, and there seems to be flavor and lore to every piece of text. However, you are unable to active pause the game, and the choice of font for the text is difficult to read as someone with an astigmatism.

I would love to sit and read every text entry, I read fairly quickly, but several text pop up events on screen, expecting me to know the name of every apprentice under my control and trying to keep an eye on skills, traits, and blasting thieves while trying to do so makes that impossible.

Aside from there not being an active pause, there is also no panel for an apprentice overview, and since you can't pause, you have to chase down each apprentice on the map and levitate them to look at their stats in real time while other apprentices are quitting or blowing themselves up. For a game about managing resources, not having a comprehensive over-view of those resources doesn't really make sense, and I can only imagine that it was a feature cut from early access.

There is also no save button, and the game doesn't tell you what saves and what doesn't. For me, nothing has saved between 3 tries at the game (fully patched up to date). Neither the three currency resources at the top, not the apprentices, not the workstations purchased or the items unlocked.

Now, for my frustration with the devs. I hope you don't have feedback on this game, because they are not good at receiving it. Their vision of the game seems inflexible and closed to change. Many threads in the discussion section are full of players pointing out issues with gameplay or accessibility and flatly being told they are wrong and the game is being experienced as intended. If this is the case, I hope they understand that many will choose simply not to experience it.

Sadly I had to refund this game. The game looks great and has a very interesting premise and style but it felt unpolished and even frustrating. Your game doesn't get saved (except research), it's very text heavy and there is no active pause.

It feels very hard to manage your apprentices because you don't really get the time to do anything with them. Their motivation drains too fast and before you can try to optimise everything they have already left. It feels like the game wants you to manage everything but doesn't provide the tools to do so.

If this game wasn't a full release I wouldn't have written a negative review but the game doesn't feel ready yet.

The game feels unfinished. There are multiple game-breaking bugs and there is not much of a tutorial. There is no way to save your progress.