Got kicked out of the fraternity in "Spellcasting 201"...

First mission accomplished!

After five hours of playing, I finally figured out the structure of Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance. This revelation came when the first day ended. I got snatched and brought to the basement of the fraternity house for the evaluation of the new pledges' daily assignment. Since I wasn't able to complete my task in time - putting a moustache on a statue on top of a tower - they kicked me out of the fraternity, leading to a game-over. Problem was, I had just figured out how to get the final spell I needed to be able to climb the statue, but I ran out of time...

I'm supposed to actually play this thing?!

While in the first game you traveled from island to island in pursuit of the thief of the Appliance, here you stay an entire week at Sorcerer's University. Those pledge assignments are the only real goals you have to accomplish, but campus is a really big place to figure out the how of those tasks. The first game was more obvious in that regard, because every part had limited locations. Now, you are searching around almost an open world with so many possibilities, it's pretty much unmanageable. Plus, there's a time limit to it all as well, and a weight limit to what you can carry around. And since you don't know when you might need which random object somewhere later on, this can lead to a ton of dead ends and soft locks.

Kidnap the mascot, they said... It'll be fun...

Finally, after many saves and restores, I was able to end Monday succesfully. Which led me to Tuesday... Seriously, I don't know where to begin describing what happened next. My second pledge assignment had me kidnapping another fraternity's mascot: a huge elevephant (no, that's not a typo). I had already run into it during my earlier explorations of the university. But my brain couldn't handle the puzzle. So I just spent some time turning a lump of iron into copper during Alchemy Class - which also unexpectedly provided me with a key I would probably need later on (only I couldn't pick it up because I was already carrying too much...) finally ending the day with a game-over.

Champagne pool party, because why not?

I don't like using walkthroughs. But if I didn't want to spend as much time on this game as I did on Disco Elysium, the only solution I could come up with for this puzzle was finally opening the digital copy of the hint book that actually came with this game. And it was great, with it regularly making fun of Steve Meretzky (the writer of Spellcasting) himself. It was a load off my shoulders, but also maddening to see that, with so many places to go and things to do at Sorcerer University, how few steps were actually truly necessary to complete the game. It certainly didn't feel good to finish the rest of the game on autopilot, so to speak, but at least it was a more enjoyable experience than the first seven hours. And I encountered many things I'm sure I would never have been able to figure out on my own, anyway.

Lola's gratitude for rescuing her in the first game seems to be depleted...

Turns out that you definitely need the information from the daily lessons to solve puzzles later on, even the Music Class and learning to play a strange instrument called the moodhorn. Every time you complete a pledge quest, you can retrieve a new attachment for the Sorcerer's Appliance, opening up new settings which allow you to tackle next day's assignment, until you finally stumble upon a conspiracy at the university itself, with a villain threatening to take it all over and using the magical powers within to conquer the world. There's a brilliant structure behind the story, I just wish it was more accessible, without the game-overs, dead ends, soft locks, time constraints and weight limits. These are really fun, often goofy games, but also - in "naughty mode" certainly - sadly objectifying of women. I mean, you actually have to create a woman Weird Science style and use her to perform tasks for you. A sign of the times, I guess... Nobody would get away with a "naughty mode" today.

There's one more game left in this series, Spellcasting 301. I dare not think about it yet, but I will play it eventually. First up are a couple more recent games, probably, starting with Near-Mage which I didn't get around to in 2025. And next in line on my list of classics is a different Legend Entertainment title, Time Quest! Which I've heard should be more forgiving in one regard, but ultimately more complex in another...

You can find the Spellcasting games on Steam and on GOG!