Alexia Unplugged

I’ve been keeping an eye on this game for about a year now, and I was so excited when it came out today that I bought it immediately to try it out. It’s on sale for $20 on Steam and $24 on the Nintendo eStore (about 20% off) until November 15! I had pretty high expectations for this game, and I have to say it generally met them.

In Spells & Secrets, you play as a student at the Academy of Greifenstein, a magic school that has been overrun by evil monsters! It’s a roguelite, which means that the main gameplay is about fighting monsters in a procedurally generated dungeon. In Spells & Secrets, that means exploring the Academy! You’re the only one who can do it, since only you were blessed with the griffin’s feather that effectively gives you immortality.

The game starts off pretty simply: you arrive at your new magical boarding school and then BAM! the school tower lights up with a magical explosion in the middle of the night. You are left to fend for yourself, running through the tutorial phase by killing monsters and moving various furnitures to solve puzzles. I thought that the introduction to the world was simple and sweet, but some of the dialogue was just strange — the professor kind of just… left you with a bunch of monsters and told you, “Good luck, don’t die!” A bit out of place for a professor to be so nonchalant about a first-year student’s life, but I can roll with it since magic schools necessitate some absurdity.

I thought that the bit of story I did see from the few hours I played through was compelling. I love the bits and pieces of school lore found in newspapers and posters around the school. The secret rooms are a nice touch too, especially the ones that give an insight into more clandestine activities in the school. The safe zone is the outskirts of the school campus, where you can find other students who give you tips, teachers with spells for sale, and the leaders of the school Factions. I haven’t unlocked too much about the Factions, but it seems like they’ll unlock some cool new spells and mechanisms to use in the dungeon (the school grounds). The game has successfully gotten me excited to see new story additions to the bulletin board outside of the school entrance and progress in the dungeon to discover more spells and story!

As for the gameplay experience, I had a hard time getting used to the controls, and not having dash or sprint functions was a little difficult to get used to at first. Maybe it’s more optimal to play with a controller! After a few minutes, I was navigating relatively well, and discovering lots of new ways to defeat increasingly difficult monsters. I do enjoy the slower pace of Spells & Secrets because it adds to the casual vibe initially established by the art style and story choices. However, I do hope that it continues to increase in difficulty as I move through levels.

Coming from my initial expectations of a game similar to Crawl or the beloved Hades, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Spells & Secrets isn’t extremely difficult. My friends who do play roguelikes and roguelites with higher skill floors weren’t so impressed with Spells & Secrets, but I think it can be a great introduction to the roguelite genre. The fighting mechanisms are simple and streamlined, and the art style, puzzle integration, and generally slow pacing makes it a great starting point for cozy gamers who might be looking for something more exciting than the typical puzzle game or social farming simulator.

The low skill floor and slow pace means that Spells & Secrets might not be for everyone. I think Alchemist Interactive definitely knew its target audience though, and that the difficulty level might be a conscious decision on the part of the devs. I had a lot of fun with the few hours I played, and I hope that the co-op play will run just as smoothly as the solo game experience. Even if I don’t, I’ll definitely be spending plenty of time with this game! Have you played Spells & Secrets? Did you think it was hard, easy, or just the right difficulty?