today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games where you have a one-on-one with the leader of an arcane organization (who is a separate person from your disapproving dad)
Miss Duckworthy’s School for Magic-Infested Young People by Felicity_Banks
Playtime: 38 minutes
The one with: well, a school for magic-infested young people
I really enjoyed this one. It’s just . . . highly enjoyable, like a book you don’t want to put down.
I’m a big fan of the way it gives the PC moments of competency where they can come up with and perform plans on their own, something that’s perhaps easier to do in choice-based pieces. It was a fun escapist fantasy to be able to (especially in the opening sequence) give the PC some direction and trust that they will figure it out.
I loved the whole opening sequence (Canadian car thief). It started things out with a bang and established a unique character voice that I wanted to spend more time with. (1) Their affection for cars was well written; (2) “Dad, I’m infected with magic.” . . . “I told you not to dye your hair!” - haha; (3) my mom is such a BAMF!
a bit more on character creation
I was a fan of offering a choice among a limited selection of pre-made characters—it felt like we’d be getting something well-written but we also had a bit of room to make a decision.
One note on the initial options:
The first one was the most interesting because it lists a profession / activity, which the other ones just . . . don’t? It was odd that they weren’t symmetric in that way.
I didn’t care which magic type I got, so I didn’t look before I played, but giving the option to get spoilers about that specifically seems like a good balance between letting people use a radio button to pick their magic type (kind of boring, and also in tension with the plotline about story archetypes) and surprising everyone with their magic type (disappointing people who really want to fly, etc).
The school section was also enjoyable, although I think not up to the same standard as the opening. I enjoyed the NPCs (Nushi is a nicely ambiguous character, I enjoyed my no-magic-magic-right-activist roommate, and the male romantic option has some good lines). But:
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the pacing generally felt off – the ending arrived MUCH sooner than I thought. I think I only attended 2 magic classes and explored 1 part of the castle, and scheduling those had felt uncomfortably trade-off-y already.
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Relatedly, a lot of elements that I wanted to get space were very crunched
I would have loved to see more about developing magic (although, surprisingly, the magic classes I did attend were not the highlights of the game).
And I liked the plotline with Nushi, but we skipped some beats I expected to hit (Why is the PC so sure Nushi is a student? Who does the outside world think is in charge? This seems like the kind of thing that would be a topic of discussion. Does the rest of the world think this is a Lord of the Flies situation?)
And my sometimes-nemesis Jack . . . I thought there would be some explanation of why he thought I got him arrested, and maybe a resolution for that, but if there was it didn’t happen to me.
- some of the connections in the game play didn’t quite work right.
“Hannah” suddenly appeared in my dorm room and said one line, even though I hadn’t thought she was there and never saw her again.
On the night of the battle, the narration said I planned to go to Jack’s (to double cross him) even though from past game events that would not have been plausible, and that’s not in fact what my character did.
So I guess I’m over here chanting “more, more!” because there was a lot of things in this game that I was very excited about.
Front matter | ||
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Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
I wish the cover art hit the “magic” note!
Overall, a highly enjoyable YA-feeling story in the choice-of-games style with a banger opener and a middle-end section that felt a bit rushed