From Hogwarts Legacy to Wizard101, there are plenty of games set in magical schools. None are as good as Mind Over Magic. This early access title from Sparkypants fuses the fantasy hijinks of Harry Potter with the character management of The Sims and the base building of Oxygen Not Included. The result is a witch’s brew so good it’ll earn you an A in Potions even if your professor hates you. Despite still waiting on its full release, Mind Over Magic already delivers a complete and satisfying experience. Craft wands, teach classes, plant spooky crops, and build the spellbinding school of your dreams.
Mind Over Magic Combines The Sims and Harry Potter
Picture your perfect school of magic. Maybe it’s like Hogwarts, charming but dangerous enough to keep students and professors on their toes. Maybe it’s more like the College of Winterhold, grim, foreboding, and wrapped in mysteries. At the start of Mind Over Magic your so-called school is little more than a patch of dirt and a few hardworking professors. In time, however, you’ll build it into something great. With the help of a couple of werewolves and Eloise (the ghost of my school’s founder), I turned Deaddirt Academy into a fine institute of the dark arts, drawing young witches and wizards in from far and wide.
Yes, some students got chewed on by monsters in the Underschool, but it didn’t stop them from graduating with honors. Neither did the supernatural fog that threatened to consume the very walls of our proud school, despite my attempts to thwart it. Yes, some of the students eat rats and sleep on the floor, but that’s because of their magical wolf blood, not neglect, I swear. By day the school is a whirlwind of classes, combat, and old-timey dance parties. By night, the living sleep while the ghosts do a bit of gardening. Mind Over Magic nails the feeling of running your own dysfunctional magical institute better than any other.
Early Access and Beyond
Sparkypants plans on adding a lot of content throughout early access. That said, the list of content already in the game is impressive. You can cook, garden, craft wands, hire and retire professors, graduate students, explore, and fight turn-based battles. There’s a surprisingly deep tech tree, and combat feels fun and rewarding, although it needs more fleshing out. Mind Over Magic is only getting better, and if you’ve always thought you’d make a better Headmaster than Dumbledore, now’s your chance.
Mind Over Magic is available for PC.
