Scholar of the Arcane Arts

AI art is used, despite not being mentioned in the description. I will be willing to change my review if this is removed.

Don't be fooled by the art, this is a wild gem of an experience. I would heartily recommend Scholar to any roguelike fan. The amount of spell combos is truly ridiculous. It's not just that there are lots of combos, it's that nearly everything combos with nearly everything. It's impossible to memorize every single permutation and these aren't simple things like, "+5% attack speed" permutations. It's the difference between shooting a fire ball and then putting up a defensive wall to making a maelstrom of fire and ice that generate living plants which might walk on your fire patches to then turn into fire plants. Even something as simple as the order you cast your spells leads to monumentally different combos and possibilities. Due to all these combos, it always feels like you have a possibility to make something busted. I've never felt like I was handicapped because I was missing some meta relic or item or anything like I do in other Roguelikes where you just refresh the shop until you find the thing that makes the build. It really feels like nearly anything CAN be incredible as long as you are able to think through it and adjust appropriately.

Scholar of the Arcane Arts is an extremely creative indie spell-slinger rougelike that focuses on the power trip of stacking powerful, interacting spells. You can make combos that clear the screen if you can remember the order and execute. The game also includes an index of spells you have and a chart on how they interact (once you've tried out the combo). It's magic feels like a stepping stone to Noita, but the difficulty is much more approachable and there is no platforming. The creator is very passionate. When I booted it up, I encountered an installation error. I reached out, and Endo hopped on a discord call with me to troubleshoot. We tweaked a Windows permission and got it running! Really a great guy to buy a game from.

LETS YOU PET THE CAT

i love the game for the most part how the spell interact with one another is very fun and new but i don't like losing everything when i die. it would be better to unlock spells and change them out as needed.

++ some very original spells / spell mechanics ++ spell combos are awesome. It's the single most important thing this game offers to make it stand out from the endless sea of action rogue-whatevers. + pleasant visuals, especially the enemies. Quality animation. +/- boss fights are reasonably difficult and mostly fair, the one with the avatar of earth being the exception to the rule (might be skill issue though) +/- spells don't drop that often - individual runs take forever. Levels are too large and kind of empty. -- spell cooldowns are long and there aren't many ways to shorten them -- and, worst of all: limiting maximal spell level (that means damage) by the amount of collected power-ups that randomly drop during a run adds another level of unpredictability and – quite frankly – just sucks. It's very much possible to get great spells but no power orbs for that particular element. Yes, those come in several flavors and also yes, lack of them greatly limits the damage potential of that school of magic. Could use some balancing and more content. An enjoyable game to a certain degree but definitely not the next Nuclear Throne. <EDIT @2025-10-27> some addit…