Wizdom Academy – Magical, but flawed city-builder

• DEVELOPER: Kipwak Studio
• PUBLISHER: Kipwak Studio
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: City-builder
• RELEASE DATE: April 17, 2025
• STARTING PRICE: 21,99€
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

I never imagined I’d watch a game evolve so much, from spotting Wizdom Academy at last year’s Nordic Game Spring Event, to playing its demos, and now diving into Early Access. It’s like a city-builder mashed with the Harry Potter world, where you’re the head of a wizarding academy, building it from scratch into a fun, magical place. It’s still rough, with plenty of content to come, but if you want a chill city-builder without intense challenges, this one’s worth checking out.

Harry Potter-Inspired School City-Builder with Potential

Wizdom Academy is a single-player management sim where you oversee the construction, operation, and growth of an academy, balancing resources like mana, gold, and fame while nurturing students into skilled mages. The Early Access build offers a playable experience with core mechanics such as building, teaching, and defending against magical threats, but lacks a complete campaign and suffers from bugs and balance issues. The game’s loop involves designing your school, managing staff and students, and addressing challenges like mana droughts.

No matter the starting location – whether sunny, vibrant lands or moody, dark places – every beginning in Wizdom Academy feels pretty much identical. You kick off with a brief “warm-up” tutorial, then dive into quests. I don’t mind the structure, but there’s no free exploration right away; you’re locked into the first part of the tech tree before the world opens up. The game does a solid job teaching you the mechanics, but it can feel a bit dull if you’re craving a true clean-slate adventure from the start.

The core mechanic is constructing your academy on a tile-based grid, starting with a mana-oozing tree as the magical hub. You place prefab rooms such as classrooms, dormitories, exam halls, and utility spaces which are connected by hallways, with the ability to build vertically across multiple floors. The building system is intuitive, with rooms snapping into place and auto-adapting to creative layouts, allowing stacked or sprawling designs. Customization includes 39 unique rooms and 23 decorations, with a tech tree unlocking new structures and upgrades as you progress.

“The building system is intuitive.”

Wizdom Academy’s Quirky Yet Flawed Systems

However, the construction system has issues: builders occasionally fail to start projects, and there’s a lot of issue with upper floors, requiring manual fixes, and the starting grid feels cramped with obstacles limiting expansion. It’s wild how many obstacles clutter the map’s center, it’s a hassle since the bricks you get from them are key. A simpler layout would’ve helped, as it feels overwhelming at times.

You recruit students and teachers, each with 91 unique traits affecting their skills and personalities, shaping their growth from apprentices to mages. Students develop through classes, with their education quality impacting their skills and behavior, but neglected students can become troublemakers. The game’s vibe really shines here as mana fuels all the life and happiness in your academy, and even the council can turn against you if you don’t treat everyone well. It’s a cool touch that ties your choices to the world’s mood.

Teachers are assigned to classrooms, and their success hinges on resources and your management skills. The focus on meaningful education over profit feels fresh, but I wish there was more depth in customizing the curriculum. My biggest gripe is the imbalance, students and teachers have way more negative traits than positive ones. If you don’t stay on top of things, you’ll end up with a pile of troublemaker students. Plus, the best teachers cost a fortune, while the cheaper ones are so bad they’re barely worth hiring.

“Neglected students can turn into troublemakers.”

Balancing Resources and Goals

While mana is crucial, frequent “mana droughts” force you to shut down facilities, throwing gameplay into chaos. Gold, earned from student tuition, pays for building and hiring, while fame boosts your academy’s prestige. Early on, resources are tight, gold trickles in slowly, and mana shortages hit hard, making it tough to hire teachers or fend off magical creatures. If you don’t manage your gold carefully, it can seriously mess you up, especially since early-game gold sources are limited. You can store resources, but those droughts are honestly more frustrating than anything else.

Research points, earned through education, unlock tech tree upgrades, but the game barely explains how it works. You can upgrade anything, yet there’s little info on what each upgrade does or what to prioritize, leaving you guessing. On the plus side, there are 29 explorable locations such as villages, dungeons, and rival academies which sound exciting, though half feel like teasers for future content. The real issue kicks in after the first part of the game: with no clear goals to guide you, continuing feels tedious and directionless.

When it comes to the graphics, they bring classrooms, dorms, and trial grounds to life, with a magical art style that feels like Wizard101. Students and teachers bustling through halls create a lively vibe, and zooming in to watch them work is fun. From a “God mode” view, it looks great, but character models get rough up close. The big letdown is the AI-generated character headshots, which stand out poorly, though the devs plan to swap them for human-drawn art.

“Graphics bring a lively, Wizard101-like magical vibe.”

Ending Thoughts

In the end, Wizdom Academy is a charming but rough wizard school sim that nails a Harry Potter-inspired vibe with fun building mechanics. Its flexible construction and evolving students lay a solid foundation, but bugs, AI-generated art, unbalanced resources, and weak onboarding drag down the Early Access experience. For now, it suits patient city-builder fans who can handle glitches, while casual players should wait for updates or check out the demo.

“Charming but rough wizard school sim.”

Review copy provided by the publisher

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