Deal | Magic over math: Wizard school sim drops below $7.50 for the first time on Steam

In Spellcaster University, players build their own school for aspiring mages. Simply teaching classes isn't enough, however: classrooms need to be built, teachers hired and students looked after, all while the armies of the so-called Dark Lord draw ever closer. Eventually, there is no choice but to flee – after which the process starts all over again at a new location.

To keep things from getting repetitive too quickly, Spellcaster University uses a rather unusual building system. Instead of simply choosing buildings from a traditional construction menu, players draw cards. These unlock new rooms, upgrades, artifacts or other effects. As a result, the university cannot be planned entirely in advance, and every run develops a little differently. The action is presented from an unusual side-on perspective, allowing players to watch individual rooms and everyday school life as though looking into a cutaway building.

This makes it possible to closely follow students as they move around the school, attend classes and go about their daily routines. Aspiring mages can be assigned to different houses and specialize in various schools of magic – ranging from nature and light magic to shadow, arcane magic and alchemy. Their basic needs also have to be taken care of, as hunger, fatigue and boredom can quickly disrupt everyday school life.

Gaming website GameGrin awarded the game 7 out of 10 points, praising its charming setting, lively university and well-designed faction system in particular. According to the publication, relationships with the king, the orcs and even the Dark Lord add further choices and strategic variety. The rather cluttered interface, weak tutorial and lack of certain quality-of-life features were received less positively. The review also criticized the card system's heavy reliance on randomness, which can make long-term planning considerably more difficult.

On Metacritic, Spellcaster University has a Metascore of 73, while its User Score stands at 7.9. The verdict from the Steam community is even more positive, however: 82% of more than 4,200 user reviews are positive. On the Steam Deck, the management game is rated as “Playable.”

Spellcaster University normally costs just under $24.99 on Steam. A 70% discount, however, brings the price down to $7.49 until October 10. According to SteamDB, the previous biggest discount was 65%, meaning the current deal marks a new all-time low.

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