"Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts" -- Cast spells, pass exams, and save the world!

I don’t really see it either. Having more options at creation doesn’t strike me as forced anything, it is just more options. And I really didn’t see it in game if it is there.

I’ve liked it so far. My only gripe is that some of the options are all options for the same thing. The one that pops to mind right away ask you if you will leave. And all the options have you stay.

I understand some times the story has to go somewhere. But perhaps word it differently. Like, You can’t let this happen! What do you do?

Now I feel like I’m making a choice on how to handle the situation. Instead of feeling forced into something because when I was asked if I was leaving. Yes I wanted to. But I can’t.

Maybe I’m am just being nit picky. There is a reason the gf hates it when I talk during shows. Anyway I’m enjoying it. Glad I got it.

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This is a gentle reminder to please keep conversations directed at the topic at hand and not at the individuals themselves. Focusing replies on the individuals themselves instead of the topic at hand can lead to friction between members and often causes the thread to derail…

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So I have finally finished my first playthrough, and I’ll be honest this game exceeded my expectations. The characters were generally well thought out, with different personalities, and the world building was excellent. What I will say in terms of criticism though, is that the story was poorly paced, and some things didn’t feel like they connected to others. I also wish that some of the factions (specifically the inheritors) played a bigger role in things, as I found they were barely present. Those are minor things though, and overall I’d give this an 8/10. Definitely something I will be replaying soon.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to Qualify for the sky sailing championship? The description says we can, but I think I made all the choices that aligned with my stats and I still couldn’t. Also, is there any way for us to save the island and not sacrifice out sending while still defeating Maeve?

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Playing the game and the game is good for me. The only downside is too much philosophical talk and for me not enough magic class. So maybe in the sequel we can have that. My score is 4/5

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Yes u can qualify by helping another blackstone team, if I am not wrong, as it is point based competition. For having an easier time defeating Maeve, I guess you need to have good stats with your prof and friends.

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Same thing happened to me. Have you reported it by email already? If you haven’t, then I will report it if that’s okay.

So far, I’m really enjoying the game. I like the writing and the characters.

Kinda missed a trick by making a “magic school” game but making lots and lots of choices which boil down to:

  1. do you want to use magic
  2. do you want to use your brain
  3. do you want to use your ability to sail a flying boat
  4. sing a song/recite poetry

In tone it felt a bit like playing “love at elevation” in a magical school - make of that what you will.

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I really don’t see how someone introducing themselves with their pronouns is “forced diversity” or unrealistic in anyway. I’ve seen it happen a couple of times at my university at the start of the semester in small classes/tutorials during introductions and literally no one bats an eye at it. I don’t think it would be that unusual for it to also happen in a fictional school environment, especially one that’s as open and inclusive as this one.

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I honestly had more of a problem with how un-magical everything felt rather than the diversity, lots of conversation about irish mythology and Jungian psychology but when it came time to cast spells it felt a bit secondary in spite of it being a game about magic. It was also a bit annoying that no matter how many times I chose to advocate non-human restriction that the game told me I was getting nowhere because I didn’t like the other advocates. Considering the other advocates didn’t have a relationship bar this seemed to be the game telling me that I shouldn’t advocate non-human restriction, which made me question why the choice was present in the first place.
Come to think of it I wasn’t too enamored with the characters either and closer to the end of the game I just randomly selected choices in order to advance.

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I just completed my first playthrough…so far I have seen the magic classes and all being way less than it should be…Magic is used or studied or anything along that line is way less… Would have preferred that more…Also the romance option or the hangout options…I wanted to hangout with the students from other school and stuff…so far it’s not bad and it’s not good…kind of in the middle

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Yikes this game is getting a lot of bad review on google play

i know right… i can never forget about harry potter …i always had the fantasy of learning magic and being a magician

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I love how they have diversity in the game and the magic is amazing, I couldn’t stop playing it and finished it in one day. There’s going to be another book, right? I would really love it if they made another one. :heart::heart::revolving_hearts::heart_eyes:

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I hadn’t reported it, so feel free. :slight_smile:

@augustus27 Regarding your second spoilered question, assuming I understand it correctly, it is possible. I defeated Maeve by understanding the Aquatarian ritual they were using, and had enough magical power to prevent the lighthouse from falling by myself. The second thing likely requires a high Arcana skill, while the first might be based on your faction relationship. My Aquatarian relationship was over a 45 in both of my games (though I’m honestly not sure why), so maybe that’s why that option worked for me.

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So far the only thing I don’t like about the game is how obvious the choice layout is. Do you want sport answer, artistic answer, magic answer, or big brain answer. I think if you wanted to make it obvious which answer did what you could add and option to turn on stat changes displayed along side choices. That way you could get really creative with all choices and not have to worry about the player going through trial and error otherwise it pretty good so far :+1:

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I was really looking forward to this one. I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would, which is a shame.

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I think it was because you decided to investigate what was happening with magic in the area with every or most opportunities given. I dont think faction relationship matters on the note… Or i could be just wrong :no_mouth::no_mouth:

The Aquarian ritual requires the faction power of Aquarians to be greater than 46. From what I can tell from the code, each faction has a separate stat for Relationship, Ideology and Faction Power, the latter two you can see under the “Factions” choice in the stat menu. Even if your relationship with the faction is high, if their Power/Influence is too low, the ritual will fail.

First of all, congratulations to the author for publishing their game! I was excited about this one coming out because fantasy and magic always works for me.

Unfortunately, after playing the demo I decided against buying it and I have some feedback which I hope is helpful :slight_smile:

  1. The game leaned a bit too much on the “tell” rather than “show” side when it came to character interaction. This stuck out to me in two moments: first, I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the new characters we were meeting. I liked that the author picked a few defining features about the characters so we could associate something with them, but I think it would have been better if we could have had some interaction with them, even if only for a short time, that would attach an emotional feeling to them as well (small things like someone picking something up you dropped, or bumping into you and not apologizing make such a big difference). The second time I noticed this is when the MC is in line for food and has the opportunity to flirt with Perry. It is just described that you talk with your classmates rather than outlined what it actually is what they’re saying, that includes both the small talk and the teasing. (“How are you?” or “My day sucked” give a character life)

  2. I didn’t quite agree with the stats - you really can’t make them perfect and every author chooses for themself how they want to handle it, so keep in mind this is just my personal opinion. The moment I stopped playing during the demo was after the werewolf ran into the woods and we had the opportunity to speak up about him. I was trying to play a charismatic, compassionate mage, but a look at the code told me that I couldn’t succeed this stat check - because I didn’t put any points in arts and my academics weren’t quite high enough. To me, the stats just feel too broad. From what I understand arts includes everything from writing, poetry, acting, painting… and apparently also covers persuasive skills. Academics seem to cover logical skills, particularly in combination with schoolwork. Neither of this was my focus because I wanted a talented mage. There are two solutions I can think of spontaneously: first, reduce the amount of skills one stat encompasses and possibly introducing more stats to cover all the skills that are included now (e.g.: art covers writing and painting, charisma covers persuasion and acting etc.). Secondly, to overhaul the system entirely. People have been complaining about a lack of magic focus. So instead of having art at all, you could instead introduce various magic schools (elemental, spiritual etc.).

What I did like were all the inclusive options. All the options for sexual orientation were a pleasant surprise. Also, the author clearly put in effort to have various character backgrounds which is nice. I also liked little touches in the story like the music your roommate falls asleep to every night and the MC gets used to quickly.

I hope this was helpful. If anything I said is incorrect, do please correct me.

Best of luck and have a nice day.

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Is there a way we can grab more than one file from the office?

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