From John, Evan and David Szymanski - names you might know from the likes of DUSK, My Friendly Neighborhood, Kyle is Famous, Butcher's Creek, Squirrel Stapler and more it's a thoroughly chaotic and ridiculous game about toppling an evil crime syndicate hidden beneath a prestigious wizarding school. I tried the demo back in October which worked great on Linux with Proton.
A sandbox-style chaotic sim that really is Harry Potter meets Goat Simulator, that's probably the best possible way to describe it because it's thoroughly nuts. You know you're in for a good time when the Steam page notes how it has a "complete lack of safety nets or boundaries", so it firmly leans into the comedy of what might happen with the physics simulation going on. You'll likely find numerous ways of doing things they don't expect or plan for and that's part of the point of it.

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The game runs perfectly as expected with the latest Proton 9.0-4. As perfect as an Early Access from a tiny team can be, that is. The developers noted: "Building such a game is difficult in several ways. Mainly, designing and developing a game driven by emergent physics and object/AI behaviors is difficult without lots of feedback from players and testers. We need lots of feedback to ensure the game keeps the right balance of open-ended sandbox gameplay and interesting world progression, and to identify what bugs and general quirks work against the fun rather than adding to the fun."
A lot of things will kill you in it, and it can end up pretty funny. There's a target in the opening courtyard, and if you hit it a big bouncing pad appears. For science of course, I tested hitting it again while in the air and yep - fell then to my death as the bouncing pad vanished.
I respawned, accidentally picked up a plant (was aiming for something else), so I threw it away to the side. Ah — but I didn't think of the physics. The plant must have hit someone, as a watering can came flying at my head and…dead again. Either that, or the watering can was hit and just bounced back at me. Never can tell with the physics in this one, it's so over-the-top. There's also actual traps to worry about too, some deaths just made me facepalm because they were obviously a trap. At this point I've completely lost track of how many times I've died, or what I'm supposed to be doing.
Brings back fond memories of playing various PS1 games for endless hours doing as many stupid things as possible.
Features:
- A multitude of spells to learn and inflict on others.
- Chaotic, barely contained physics-based mayhem.
- Open-ended goals to accomplish (or ignore) however you see fit.
- Online co-op, although actual cooperation is unlikely.
- Retro-themed third person action, straight from the days of Unreal Engine 1.
- Landmines and other non-magical ordnance.
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