Arcane Arts Academy. Game by SQRT3. It’s a time management game with an interesting story and relaxing gameplay. Ever played a time management game? They are easy, mostly. Something like Jane’s Hotel or perhaps you heard about older one like Amelia’s cafe or early Delicious game series. Maybe you even heard about more obscure ones like Burger Mania. Well if you want to relax after hard session in a competitive shooter then time management is good way to relax. Personally I would recommend something like Ecco junior for relaxation but that game is in the other genre.
Let’s start with a plot story’s going to be long, so far Arcane Arts Academy has three games available on Steam and I played two of them. So we start in a tiny cozy book shop. Couple of grumpy looking police officers brought in a young lady to her grandma. Young lady’s name is Erika Tinley and she got caught causing troubles. Grandma looks at her with a bit of disappointment but can’t stay mad at her for long. So Erika is troublemaker, rebellious teenager etc. Couple of days later after that incident Grandma went missing and store looked like somebody broke in. Erika panicked and called police. Police said no to make a fuss about it because it’s normal that adults sometimes can be late home. Officers leave and another wild thing happens. Young blond girl enters the store and asks to open a portal for her. Huh? What portal, what are you talking about? Blondie quickly gets tired with Erika’s confusion and with a flick of wand opens portal herself. Which leave Erika with a dropped jaw similar to how Mr. Krabs been when he heard Spongebob swearing. Next day while still being shocked Erika started to reading books trying to figure out what just happened? She did figure it out and with the help of her cat Sphinx managed to open a portal somewhere unknown. That’s how she ended up in the Arcane Arts academy. A turn out her grandma is a sorcerer teacher in the Academy and her whole bloodline are magicians. That’s how it starts, Erika will meet many new friends she will learn great deal of magic and related crafts. She will also learn a dark secret about her.
But how it goes in the gameplay section? Well just as I said it’s pretty easy and relaxing. Every level is you being a shop keeper serving students and teachers. You have a room with items that you can interact with. You wait till someone enters and orders something from those items. You then need to assemble the order and bring it to the client. Do it fast and assemble full order and you’ll get extra bonus points for efficiency. Some items can be assembled with different combinations, some are need time to be prepared, some need to be restocked. And of course will require a mini puzzle to solve. Each level has five diamonds to obtain, you can get them by completing three tasks. First task to finish a level with three stars rating each start grants a diamond. Second task is to complete a side objective, there are varieties of second objectives such as cleaning up a room, do some extra studying, ignoring someone, not letting someone in etc. Final task is to find an animal. All of the SQRT3’s games have this, in this game you need to find your cat Sphinx, usually cat will pop up somewhere in the beginning of a level. But what do you need those diamonds for? They are for decoration room,once again SQRT3 has diamond room in their every game, you unlock some furniture with them it's purely for achievements. SQRT3 has its own palette for time management games compared to say Game House and you will figure out everything after one game.
Lastly I would like to say that this game actually have memorable OST at least theme is. It sounds epic, perhaps not fitting for a teenage light drama but still it is good. Anyway I say don’t skip out but… I can’t overlook one thing. For some reason the price on SQRT3 games tripled since last two years. Except for Welcome to Primrose Lake it’s stayed the same for some reason. And I cannot really justify paying triple the amount of I used to pay for a basically the same game but with a different wrap.
Look very good
