Here's a link to Fairy Godmother Tycoon: Fairy Godmother Tycoon
4.4 not all bad
It was one week ago to this very day that I first heard about Abra Academy, famed school of witches.
Like the Mystery Case Files series, Abra Academy is a "find the item" game. All I can tell you about the game's story is that you play as Wanda, a girl dumped off at Abra Academy with a bunch of other freshmen and expected to learn how to cast spells. No training - it's a sink or swim situation, which is often the best way to learn. I've always heard there are two schools of magic: black magic (souring fields, invoking sneezing fits) and white magic (creating food, bringing dead unicorns back to life). The game doesn't explain which Wanda is studying, because she doesn't cast spells or learn how to cast spells. (Well, to be fair, as far as I played... she did cast one spell. In a text cutscene.) I think it's safe to assume that Wanda is a nice girl, and learning to be a white witch. Good for her!
Anyone intelligent enough to order a pizza knows that BrutoMemo Entertainment, creator of Abra Academy, is trying to cash in on a certain craze involving a certain book series... which shall remain nameless.
Abra Academy is a very modern school in principle, if not in architecture. Students don't attend classes or cram for final exams. A new student's guide or handbook is not provided, so I decided to write one myself to give you some idea of what awaits you in these hallowed halls:
Hello future witch! Welcome to Abra Academy, the finest school around for witches and cunning-folk. My name is Wizard Constantin, Headmaster of this fine institution. Tell your parents not to be late with those tuition checks. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Seriously, don't be late.
Here at Abra Academy, we divide each year - not each day like in most schools - into six periods. You will be given a set of locations on campus, and a spell recipe scroll for each location. Set up your cauldron in your assigned location and give it a nice roaring fire. Don't burn down the dormitory! Don't burn down the Music Hall! Every year someone burns down the Music Hall. If you were assigned one of your classmate's quarters in the dormitory as a casting location, make sure you set up when they are out so they don't see you stealing their personal belongings. I must reiterate, you will be expelled if you burn down a campus building. Search carefully for the items written on your scroll, and add them to your cauldron. You will be timed!
I don't know why we call trowels "shovels," but that's the tradition here at Abra Academy. And a word to the wise: we spraypaint some fruits and vegetables to make them harder to find. So don't eat them! Complete the recipe for each location and you'll have completed the coursework for the period.
You have until your cauldron's fire burns out to find the items on the provided scroll. Just click on them in the scene and they'll be dropped into your cauldron. But if you go crazy clicking away like Clicky Doubleclick McClickyton, you'll see this message: "Don't click too fast or you will call the gargoyle [sic] attention!" and a gargoyle will fly onto the screen and squirt water onto your cauldron's fire. Boldly, radically, realistically, BrutoMemo Entertainment has decided that he has to squirt your fire about ten times before his tiny water pistol puts out the giant flames. If they do go out, you can find tiny matchsticks in each scene that will rekindle the flames.
By the way, the universe will die of heat death before the cauldron fire goes out on its own.
You'll sometimes get annoyed because items are strangely named or colored. Green lemons (where I come from we call those "limes"). Oranges that look like onions (where I come from we call those "inedible"). In point of fact, color blind players may be just as at home on campus as the able-sighted. Games like Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst try to have a consistent artistic style to its cluttered rooms, but Abra Academy fails in this respect. It looks like the authors just used various pictures from the internet or clip art archives with little concern for shading, color, art style, etc. The production value leaves a lot to be desired. Another annoyance: sometimes you click and nothing happens. It's like the game is daydreaming in class. Come on Abra Academy! Pay attention!
If you can't help Wanda find an item, does Wanda call her parents to pick her up, and become an AA drop out? No. That's just silly. Instead, she keeps a collection of fairies trapped in a bird cage. It hangs above the smouldering caldron at all times, and they can be let out one at a time to find any item that has stumped you. But once you exhaust the fairies in the cage, you don't get any more for that period! Don't get panicky, however. You can earn extras by completing various minigames. These minigames are rather forgettable, so I can't remember what I wanted to tell you about them. One involved spelling (probably because this is a game about spells).
One location, Dark Forest, had a grinning goblin peeking out from behind trees. If you've ever seen a real goblin, please write to me at casualexplosion at gmail dot com and tell me about it. One of my hobbies is collecting goblin stories. For example, my brother's story about a one-legged goblin. And R.A. Lafferty's "Ride a Tin Can," an excellent story about a planet of goblins.
I can safely say that few who try Abra Academy will pay for the full, unlocked version. Unless they're insane.
