6 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 19.4 hrs on record (15.7 hrs at review time)
Posted: 10 Mar, 2024 @ 12:39am

Early Access Review
Good Kley-style game as of now, still could need some baking-time, mostly to become less repetitive.

This is a good step forward from ONI in terms of overall game design (UI UX mostly), and still a minor step backwards from SpellcasteerUniversity, but mostly only in game-play and ludo-narrative; in that MOM forces you to throw your students into a meat-grinder, while this is optional in SpellcasterUniversity, which feel a lot more like am interactive procedural story-adventure than MOM, being is closer to a more linear JRPG with a lot of violent death during turn-bassed-battle.
ONI is a better game than SpellcasterUnversity, BUT SpellcasterUnversity is better in story-crafting (what theSims and DwarfFortress are famous for).

ONI and MOM are research-tree-centric games, an that puts them into the Civilization/Factorio fork, where most technology-trees are too linear or dumb, if only for being too tier-ed, but MOM tech tree is hard-split into sub-trees that do not overlap and that mostly lack tiers, and this is for the better. In comparison SpellcasterUniversity has upgrade-able rooms, and that is about it (no tech-tree but diplomacy instead), an this permutes better than any tech tree (except maybe for how you customize+prototype all units in AlphaCentauri).
ANY games tech-progression tree is still a far way to be even closely as good as the one of FactoryTown, where tiers are just "better efficiency for the very same" which is great for smoothness of progression (colored science is VERY bad game design, an people need to learn why the FactoryTown approach is VASTLY superior), and it is 2 merging trees that mostly change between "tall and wide" expansion, giving you a more fluid choice-of-progress.

Upgrade-able character-perks are a great concept, but most of them are meaningless early-game, as you lack research.

Looks similar to SpellcasterUniversity, but all the game-play is fundamentally different, where Spellcaster University shines in novelty and semi-deck-building emergent-narratives, MOM is much more linear in progression and lacks the mild deck-building randomness, and this is mostly for the worse.

MOM seem to suffer a lot more from too much detail, where SpellcasterUniversity is surprisingly great in how it simplifies many things, that still permute in countless great ways.

It is generally good that ALL your NPCS become semi-established characters, that no necessarily stay forever, and are more like disposable hotel visitors than sims-spouses, BUT SpellcasterUniversity outshines MOM in making even the locations of your magic-university temporary and changing (there you have almost a dozen levels of which you may skip over only 3),

Pacing is a bit slow, just like in ONI, you usually fast-forward. SpellcasterUniverrsity seems to have better pacing and INDIRECT crowd-control.

Kley finally learned to properly categorize / contextualize constructs,, where older Kley games demand unnecesary tab-clicking in search for a poorly sorted item. This is a first.
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2 Comments
ollj 30 May, 2024 @ 12:48pm 
This game is NONE of the below games to any amount that matters, while it could easily have been. This game quickly ends up as a disappointment, especially compared to Spellcaster-University.

Mind over magic is randomly punishing and randomly rewarding (skinner-box-design) boring repetitive nonsense with WAY too many constrains and a nonsensical dumb progression.
ollj 30 May, 2024 @ 12:48pm 
good UI-UX design is all i have left in favor of this game. all else is done better by other similar games:

Skip this disappointing crap game. This is a bad b-movie of a game, smells like a side-project to keep employers busy or to use their homework commercially.

Comparing this to similar games by look+feel+theme;
Spellcaster-University is great, many good and fuzzy choices. Get Spellcaster University instead. In Spellcaster-University you actually have choices and a player-driven-story.
Sims 3 is good, mostly for role playing. This game has absolutely none of that.
Oxygen not included is good for its fuzzy physics simulation and theme. This game has none of that.
Dungeon-Keeper games look a lot like this game by theme, but better in every way, somehow. Even the worse dungeon-keeper-clones play much better than this game.