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Cast spells, pass your exams, and save the world! Blackstone is more than a magic school: you'll compete for glory in the sky sailing tourney, find love, and steer the fate of magic itself.
Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts is a fast-paced 188,000-word interactive YA fantasy novel by Alana Joli Abbott, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
Blackstone Academy is a secretive magical high school for students with supernatural talents. When you discover you are a Sensor, someone who can feel the presence of magic, you learn that it's exactly the type of place that will help you develop your ability. Your first year at Blackstone you'll learn how to sky sail, practice your own magic spells, and discover the secrets the adults are hiding.
But as a magical crisis looms over campus, you must decide how you'll get involved—and which factions you'll support in guiding the future of the magical world. What will you prioritize: your academic career, your friends, or uncovering the magical threat? Will you keep the secrets of the magical world, or fight for a future without secrets, sharing magic with everyone?
•Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, demisexual, asexual and/or aromantic.
•Learn magic from your chosen mentor, and make friendships that will last forever.
•Encounter and befriend—or annoy—powerful magical beings.
•Compete in the sky sailing championships for the glory of your school!
•Fight for the rights of supernaturals, or argue for tighter regulations of non-humans.
•Earn the respect and admiration of your peers, or work to effect change from the shadows.
•Face down a magical threat, and change the course of the magical world's future.
The fate of magic is in your hands.
In this choicescript game, you play as a new student at a high school for magical kid. Kind of like Harry Potter, which the game lampshades with a character who constantly compares things to Harry Potter.
You attend classes and prepare for a sky sailing competition while dealing with periodic magical disturbances. There are also magical non-human creatures who are fighting for rights. You can decide to help them or help the government agency which tries to hide magic from the world.
This game has a lot of good elements, and it was quite a few ratings on the omnnibus app (though it has some negative reviews on Steam). Overall, I feel like everything would be great in it if things had a little more weight.
Magic itself is probably the biggest culprit here. The first chapter has almost no magic in it except for some feelings and a throwaway line or two. Essentially, what happens is:
-You cross a causeway to the school, noticing nature is in balance,
-You get a room and a roommate
-You get told what your classes are
-You get told about an athletic competition
and that's about it. Magical things start happening later on, but it never really feels like a vibrant part of your life. Your class discussions are mostly about mortal philosophy and folklore, your dates are mostly non-magical things.
And it felt like the game was controlling the character for me a lot, almost like unskippable cutscenes in video games. This happens throughout the game, even for a crucial scene near the end where it could put you in a ton of legal trouble.
Overall, though, I think other people enjoy high school slice of life games more than me (like The Fog Knows Your Name), so I would recommend trying out the demo, as it's a very accurate representation of the game itself.