Train wizards, help them battle, and watch them graduate from your own Wizard Academy in Prestige
Put a spell on you
Now that the Harry Potter series is done and dusted (fingers crossed), developers are free to tread on the speccy wizard's territory.
The first into the ring is indie creator Loqheart, with its upcoming free-to-play game Prestige.
It's a Wizard Academy simulation in which you play the Headmaster. You'll be ensuring the training of wizards goes smoothly, and by the numbers. The success of your Academy, and the wizards that graduate through it, depends entirely on you.
Playing from overhead, you get an encompassing view of the Academy, and will ensure that the students and professors are always performing at their best. Having the professors researching better spells to teach students in the classroom is vital. As is making sure everyone gets a rest in their dorms.
Essentially, you're managing a school, and will greet the new students as they come in, and hopefully see them graduate with the good grades.
Prestige is not all school management, though. As we all know by now, young wizards like to go on adventures, and magic battles are common.
As such, your students will take what you teach them in the classroom and put it into practice in RPG-like missions that you choose for them.
"Your job is to prepare the battle by choosing the wizard and spell you will send to face each enemy," says David Ngo of Loqheart. "And you can add equipment (shields, potions, etc) and even a spirit guardian to help you out".
The battles will be turn-based, meaning you'll get fair chance to use equipment to sway the fight at any point, or hit "Abort" to save your students from critical injuries (at which point they're carted to the Academy's infirmary).
The missions won't all be combat-focused. Curing plagues, helping farmers, stealth missions, and treasure-hunting missions are planned for Prestige as well.
Students need to complete a bunch of missions before they're able to graduate, and their final grades depend on how they perform in the missions.
Each graduate gives your Academy "Prestige points", which you can then spend on upgrading the various parts of your Academy.
Prestige is a free-to-play title that will be coming to smartphones when it's finished. We'll keep you updated as it nears release.