Mind Over Magic

Mind Over Magic is a colony sim and base-building game that combines magical school management with dungeon crawling and strategic combat. Players manage staff, apprentices, and students while building uniquely shaped rooms with specific requirements, crafting spells, and defending against a spreading fog and hostile creatures. The game features a rich elemental magic system tied to both combat and daily tasks, offering deep customization and progression through research and student graduation.

However, players often encounter a steep learning curve, a grind-heavy progression, and complex mechanics such as the "conviction" system that can lead to frustrating character breaks and setbacks. Building is praised for its creativity but criticized for restrictive and unintuitive room-shape mechanics. Combat is generally considered shallow and repetitive, with elemental matchups dominating encounters. Despite these flaws, the game is lauded for its charming art style, engaging management depth, and addictive gameplay loop, especially for fans of colony sims like Oxygen Not Included and Rimworld.

Highlights

Players praise Mind Over Magic's creative and satisfying building mechanics, especially the unique room shape requirements and aesthetic design. The elemental magic system is well-integrated into both combat and resource management, adding strategic depth. The game's art style and animations receive consistent acclaim for their charm and witchy atmosphere. Management of staff, apprentices, and students with rotating roles and quests adds complexity and engagement. The dynamic difficulty and resource balancing keep players invested, while the magic school theme offers a fresh twist on the colony sim genre.

Criticisms

Common criticisms include a steep and confusing learning curve with insufficient tutorials, making early progression difficult. The game suffers from grindy resource gathering and slow pacing, with many players frustrated by waiting times and repetitive tasks. The conviction mechanic is seen as overly punitive and sometimes arbitrary, causing disruptive character breaks. Building is hindered by restrictive and unintuitive room construction rules, limiting creative freedom. Combat is often described as shallow and repetitive, with limited enemy variety and simplistic elemental counters. Additionally, some players find the late-game progression and requirements overly strict and tedious.