Mind Over Magic News

A common request we hear from new players is that they want a tutorial that provides more guidance. Now we have one!

Our goal was to make a system that reacts to your play, rather than force you to do exact steps before you can make your own choices. For example, if you start summoning students before that goal appears, you'll never see it. We tried to find a balance between delivering easily understood guidance and maintaining a feeling that you can do whatever you want, no matter what the goals say.

The tutorial is only active for new games and can be disabled in settings at any time.

As always, we snuck in some QoL. There's now a School History button at the Book of Rituals where you can see every Mage that has left your school. We added plenty of other bug fixes and improvements as well, which you can see in the build notes below!

[h3]Features[/h3]

• New tutorial system and UI!
  
• New tabs at the basement book (now called School History) that shows all former students and staff, how they left, and what they looked like.
  

[h3]Gameplay and Balance[/h3]

• The gruel pot is now a little faster to research.
  
• Fixed skill cap allocation for new students so that all magic skills have an equal chance at being a secondary skill.
  

[h3]Fixes and Improvements[/h3]

• Fixed a problem where the Build menu could get stuck closed by holding control and right-clicking while placing furniture.
  
• Added a keybinding for showing the Codex (Y).
  
• No longer show Ember Dragon in Sources lists since they show up for about everything.
  
• Updated the Sources order so that quilted are at the end.
  
• Use 24h time in the two places we weren't (log display and hud clock mouseover)
  
• Fix not being able to place furniture when using search while the Shrinks tab is selected.
  
• On unreachable bed alert, show individuals who can't reach a bed for sleeping instead of the groups that are allowed. This prevents one blocked-off mage from triggering an alert that says 'all staff, all students' can't reach a bed.
  
• Performance improvements for Mages putting lots of things in storage in complex schools.
  
• Don't show Possible Break Risk unless Mage is in the Bad Mood Conviction zone (which is 7.5 hours before a break is possible).
  
• Fix for count of incorrect rules when displaying room type checklist
  
• Added the Loud Room keyword to help make the Silent keyword easier to understand.
  
• Fix small arch support research being unlocked at game start.
  
• Fix for debug trailer camera mode so that it can be properly closed.
  
• School start screen uses proper faction icons now if you allow all factions.
  
• Fix for popups at the start of game not processing properly if there are multiple.
  
• Don't show dragon need alert when need can't be satisfied because a quest is active.
  
• Fix for visuals on top of hallway block when stacked directly on top of other hallway block.
  
• Make sure as students become apprentices and eventually staff, any allowed groups they were set that are now illegal get cleaned up.
  
• Fix missing range calculation in ghost spellcasting so that ghosts no longer sometimes have infinite range.
  
• Fix possible exception in rare case of spell targeting failing.
  
• Fix for recreation need status being improperly shown on status page
  
• Fixes for typos and language support throughout.
  
• Fix a rare situation where a Mage thinks they can't reach a position to cast, but actually can.
  
• Disable the Begin Ritual for Student Summoning if no wand is selected.
  
• Don't show Captured creatures in the Resources/New lists until you have actually captured one.
  
• When using the pathing filter with something selected that allows Assignments like a bed, show the pathing relative to the assigned Mage, not the selected object.
  
• Fix new school UI to properly show shuffled keywords after editing in the Customize UI.
  
• Fix for DoUntilX crafting for paintings/sculptures not showing the proper amounts.
  
• When changing the difficulty level during gameplay, the Architecture Style (room keywords) no longer change automatically. You can still change the Architecture Style directly if you want to.
  
• Fix for situation where battles that ended with a Mage taking lethal damage while using the Move action would soft lock. Schools stuck in this state will now exit combat when loaded.
  

[h3]5/15/2025[/h3]

• Fix for Jade Dragon not growing in Creative Mode.
  
• Fix rare exception due to blocking object forced to change position.
  

[h3]5/12/2025[/h3]

• Fix for Withered Jade Eggplant sometimes failing to spawn correctly.
  
• Fix for issue where relics could become unusable when selecting them for rituals and then cancelling the ritual.
  

One of the most common topics for feedback we receive is, "I want to be able to just build whatever!" That's what Creative Mode is all about. You don't need to research or worry about the Fog or resources in order to construct the perfect school and furnish it. For some, this will be a practice mode to try out different ideas for their next Relentless run. For others, this is is the mode they've been wanting to play in all the time. We're looking forward to see what you do with it!

There are also some frequently requested QoL and balance changes in this update, like shorter quest and construct times and the ability to queue up new Initiate Summons.

We've also heard from many players that combat can get repetitive when you're not playing on Relentless mode. We've now enabled Advanced Battle Strategy by default on Standard difficulty and show that as a top-level checkbox when creating a new game. This is not about making the game harder, but about letting the full depth of the combat systems show through in the standard game. Like other difficulty settings, you can disable it at any time to simplify things!

We have two more updates planned. The next one will add more guidance to the beginning of the game to help new players get started and explore ways to add more replayability to the game. After that, we'll be focused on QoL, especially for commonly requested UI and planning improvements.

We hope you enjoy the update. Thanks for playing Mind Over Magic!

Build notes below...

[h3]Creative Mode[/h3]

• All research is unlocked.
  
• Construct and Assemble Tasks cost no resources and require just one cast to complete.
  
• No events trigger.
  
• Resource quantities and harvest/gather/mine amounts are tripled.
  
• Freeform room keywords let you freely build whatever room you'd like.
  

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Added Emergency Priority to Fog Incarnate and Bramblespawn. This causes all Mages with the Hunt Jobtype set above Never to attack. They return to normal behavior afterward.
  
• Construct times for Roof, Wall, and Floor blocks reduced.
  
• Renamed Advanced Battle Difficulty to Advanced Battle Strategy.
  
• New games on Standard difficulty default to Advanced Battle Strategy on. This is now visible outside of Custom settings.
  
• Quest durations have been reduced by half.
  

[h3]QoL[/h3]

• Summon Queueing
• Queue up multiple Summons at once so you don't have to keep coming back to the Summoner.
  
• Show the reason why right-click staff to Lecture is not allowed. (Not scheduled, etc.)
  
• When no Mage/Helper is selected, the Pathing filter now shows regions only connected by Brooms as different colors to visualize the connections better.
  
• Show Conviction value for Staff on the Hire Ritual.
  
• Hovering a Wand recipe now shows all of the same information as other recipes.
  
• Added feed alerts for Terror, Insomnia, and Melancholy statuses.
  

[h3]Fixes and Improvements[/h3]

• Fix for Relics getting destroyed if selected for multiple rituals.
  
• Fix for Fog Aegis from older saves not functioning as intended.
  
• Newly placed Small and Large Arch Support visuals no longer partially block doors.
  
• Fix for quilted still being crafted showing up in groups.
  
• Fix for wording when right-clicking on a Relic to attune it.
  
• Fix some cases where Jade Dragon care value showed 100%, but players did not receive achievement.
  
• Removed errant mention of Wand Crafting from descriptions of Sal Alembroth and Sal Oblivium.
  
• Removed inaccurate text from Wand Upgrade ritual and now showing all information in the Effects section.
  
• Fix so that Golden Berries event fully negates Ate Gutberries penalty.
  
• Repositioned tier roman numerals on research to avoid overlapping progress bars and text.
  
• No longer showing alert for being tired while having an Emergency Job if the Mage has Insomnia.
  
• No longer triggering the Runaway event if number of runaways will put player over the population cap.
  
• Added mention of ladders to Private rooms tutorial.
  
• Fixed rare case where trying to place an entity in the world results in the entity being 'lost' and never usable.
  
• Protect against mages consumed by Fog advancement when being teleported into Corrupted Mana Lantern rooms.
  

[h3]Fixes & Improvements - 3/14/25[/h3]

• Fix exception if delivery is interrupted by another delivery, and item being carried is stacked with same ingredient nearby.
  
• Fix problem where Relic on Relic Plinth cannot be removed and is not granting its power.
  

Hey everyone! It's been really exciting to see the influx of new players and feedback since the 1.0 launch. We read everything and appreciate hearing all the compliments and critiques.

This is the first of multiple updates you can expect over the next few months. By popular demand, you can now play on a totally flat world or challenge yourself with more hills to deal with. There are numerous bug fixes, QoL improvements, and perf improvements in this update as well. Thanks for playing, and keep the feedback coming!

The next update will have improvements for new players and lots more QoL. More info as we get closer!

Build notes below...

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Start new games with the Hilly or Flat setting.
  
• Starting with 1.0, the MAGE score contribution from harvested reagents was too high. This could cause events to trigger too early. You'll see lower MAGE scores in all games now.
  

[h3]QoL[/h3]

• When hovering a link for a placeable item, the dimensions are now shown.
  
• It is now possible to repair walls behind hallway runners inside hallways.
  
• Updated how Relic drops are rolled. The Affinity is still always an Affinity that the Manifesting Mage has a slot for, but is now always the least rolled out of the last 40 Relics. Previously it was the Affinity that you have the least of currently.
  
• Auto-assign checkbox on beds is now included when copying / building a copy.
  
• When hovering an Unreachable Alert, it now shows what Task is triggering the alert.
  
• Added credits for very early Beta testers.
  

[h3]Fixes and Improvements[/h3]

• Added additional hover text about delivering meals to Starving Mages that are At Death's Door.
  
• No longer allow pathing through Underschool rooms with Nexus Gateways and a Corrupted Mana Lantern.
  
• Some mods are breaking the game by setting stack sizes to 0. The game now repairs these when loading a save.
  
• The Dispel Seal Ritual button now shows when you do not have enough Seal Keys.
  
• Right-click harvest on plants now shows that when a plant is not fully grown, it can't be harvested.
  
• No longer showing the alert for Mages being unable to sleep while they are on a quest.
  
• Fix for small chance that Mages would Break immediately after being revived. Their Conviction is now at 65 instead of 25 after the Break ends.
  
• Fix for Boss Achievements that could fail to trigger if you killed them with Poison.
  
• No longer showing the No Arcane Secretary Alert if you have completed all research.
  
• Removed Minimum Room Size data that was not accurate.
  
• Fix for haulers who get stuck because they want to use a higher priority storage that is blocked by new furniture.
  
• Added a tip about how to train staff who have 0 in a Skill. (They can teach!)
  
• Using the unlock all research debug cheat no longer removes fog from the game.
  
• Changes to the Room Type Goals UI to help make the Must NOT Have section more clear.
  
• Layout improvements to the Tutorial Codex entries.
  
• Fix for auto-scrolling to the selected mage on the Mage Sheet not working properly at all screen resolutions.
  
• Fix Task Type Priority UI so that the Reset button doesn't overlap other controls.
  
• Fixed Founder's Grave visuals to show that it occupies two cells.
  
• Fixed a problem where Haulers trying to move items to higher priority storage would get stuck if a Relic in storage is set to be Pulverized.
  
• Fix for Arch Support visuals blocking doors.
  
• Fix for Z-fighting on final boss door.
  
• Fix for Dragon Wok FX when rotating.
  
• Added more Ember Dragon idle animations.
  
• Improved perf when many errands that only the Founder can reach exist in the school.
  
• Fix rare issue that could cause ingredients to be unavailable after Founder changes deliveries while carrying an ingredient.