Academagia: The Making of Mages

Academagia: The Making of Mages is a highly niche, text-heavy life simulation RPG set in a magical boarding school. Players create detailed characters and navigate their first year at the academy, balancing studies, social life, and magical adventures. The game offers immense depth with hundreds of skills, spells, and random events, promoting high replayability and varied playthroughs. However, the experience is hampered by a steep learning curve, clunky UI, and minimal tutorials, which can frustrate new players. The game currently only covers the first year of a planned five-year series, with no sequel released after many years, leaving the story incomplete. Despite some bugs, save corruption issues, and UI challenges, fans appreciate the rich writing, worldbuilding, and freedom of choice. It appeals strongly to players who enjoy text-based RPGs, character development, and imaginative roleplaying, but may alienate those seeking visual polish or more guidance. The game’s dedication and content depth are praised, though its unfinished state and usability issues limit broader appeal.

Highlights

Players praise Academagia's deep and varied gameplay mechanics, including extensive character customization, a complex magic system, and numerous skills and adventures. The storyline and worldbuilding are lauded for their richness and creativity, drawing comparisons to magical school settings like Harry Potter but with unique lore. The game’s high replayability is a frequent highlight, as each playthrough offers fresh experiences and choices. Fans appreciate the engaging text-based narrative and the freedom to roleplay diverse character archetypes. The music and writing quality also receive positive mentions, enhancing the immersive magical atmosphere.

Criticisms

Common criticisms focus on the clunky and unintuitive user interface, which complicates gameplay and makes managing the vast number of skills and actions difficult. The lack of comprehensive tutorials and explanations leaves new players confused about mechanics and goals, contributing to a steep learning curve. Many note the game is buggy, with save corruption issues that can cause loss of progress. The game’s unfinished status—only the first year is playable with no sequel in sight after many years—is a major disappointment, as it lacks a satisfying ending. The small, hard-to-read text and overwhelming information also detract from accessibility. Some feel the story is too wordy or shallow for the complexity of mechanics, and that the sheer number of skills is unnecessarily bloated.