Bare-bones journaling game in which you play a wizard trying to get through a STEM-style career journey.
Prompts are minimal, with almost nothing to draw upon for inspiration, and mechanics boil down to two counters ('finances' and 'sanity') and two simple random tables of four possible positive and negative outcomes for your studies/applications.
The game ends when you either gain enough finances to comfortably retire, or lose enough sanity to 'snap' and get excommunicated from the magical community (and possibly die). While the underlying critique is clear, the lack of nuance does not serve the writer's case nor create a compelling set of narrative outcomes for the player.
There is remarkably little exploration of the magical aspect of the premise. Aside from a sprinkling of the words 'wizard/magic' throughout and a 'topic inspiration' list of 167 keywords, which are a mix of STEM terminology and words associated with magic, this game relies entirely on the STEM part of its inspiration. Even if it were being marketed as a pure STEM-career simulator, there's just not enough depth here for a successful journaling game.
Overall, Career Wizard has a premise with genuine potential but doesn't deliver on it in its current form. Perhaps with further development and a lot of playtesting, it could grow into a richer journaling game. At present, however, it gets 1/5 stars - avoid.
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Bare-bones journaling game in which you play a wizard trying to get through a STEM-style career journey.
Prompts are minimal, with almost nothing to draw upon for inspiration, and mechanics boil down to two counters ('finances' and 'sanity') and two simple random tables of four possible positive and negative outcomes for your studies/applications.
The game ends when you either gain enough finances to comfortably retire, or lose enough sanity to 'snap' and get excommunicated from the magical community (and possibly die). While the underlying critique is clear, the lack of nuance does not serve the writer's case nor create a compelling set of narrative outcomes for the player.
There is remarkably little exploration of the magical aspect of the premise. Aside from a sprinkling of the words 'wizard/magic' throughout and a 'topic inspiration' list of 167 keywords, which are a mix of STEM terminology and words associated with magic, this game relies entirely on the STEM part of its inspiration. Even if it were being marketed as a pure STEM-career simulator, there's just not enough depth here for a successful journaling game.
Overall, Career Wizard has a premise with genuine potential but doesn't deliver on it in its current form. Perhaps with further development and a lot of playtesting, it could grow into a richer journaling game. At present, however, it gets 1/5 stars - avoid.
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