Review by: Neilie Johnson

In the year 2010 P.H.P., (post-Harry Potter), the hottest profession among the tween set isn't doctor, veterinarian or fireman—it's wizard. Many game studios have taken advantage of the current magus-friendly climate, and with its new text-based RPG, Academagia: The Making of Mages. Black Chicken Studios does its part to tap into our modern day fascination with all things magical.

More specifically, Academagia is an RPG/life sim set in a Hogwarts-style academy for aspiring wizards. As in most RPGs, you start by creating your very own wizard character, setting its name, gender, temperament, family history, astrological sign, shoe size... OK, I lied about that last one, but the amount of fictional background the game lets you create for your character is huge. Once you've got your character's story worked out, you head to the Academy of Magic in the sprawling city of Mineta.

Bear in mind – Academagia is an old-school text-based game. That means that unlike other modern RPGs, the game doesn't just have text—it's all text—as in no 2 or 3D environments and no physical character to control. Aside from a static menu screen and still illustrations accompanying the game's story beats, nothing on screen ever changes. You're presented with text descriptions of the action and it's up to you to you imagine how all of it looks. OK—now that that's out of the way...

Gameplay in Academagia consists of two main things: going to classes and finding ways to spend your recreational time. All your activities are organized within a weekly calendar where you can set aside time to shop, adventure, explore, and compete with other students, study, suck up to your teachers, and much, much more. You can also decide whether or not to attend classes (but you'll do mandatory detention if you don't). Random events (over 800 of them!) are generated depending on what you choose to do – the game presents you with story scenarios and you're allowed to choose from several different ways to react to them. Your reactions and your character's unique attributes affect how well you handle each situation, which can be anything from helping other students gang up on an unfortunate victim or suddenly being shrunk to the size of a mouse by a magical book.

Your choices during these events shape not only your skills but your character's moral slant. If you've always felt pulled to the dark side, you can practice your forgery and the Forbidden Arts; if you've always been something of a straight arrow, you can learn to protect the school and its inhabitants by becoming an expert in the Five Pillars of Magic. Aside from building your skills, you also spend a lot of time building your relationships – with teachers, students and your own magical familiar. You attract people by helping them, gossiping or flirting with them and bond with your familiar by talking to and training it. What with adventuring, making friends (and enemies), training to become the world's greatest wizard and partaking of the umpteen other activities available to you, you could spend literally hundreds of hours with the game.

If you grew up with posters of Merlin on your wall and you're the type who used to sprint to the book store every time a new Choose Your Own Adventure came out, Academagia is the spellbinding RPG you've been waiting for.