
The Fool’s Apprentice is a brand-new cosy management game developed by The Planar Danse that just released on Steam. Take on the role of a prestigious Arcanist and try your very best to get some knowledge into the heads of your rather unskilled students, no matter what it takes.
Fool Me Once…
When I first saw the trailer and read about the general premise of the game, I was quite excited! Magic and management, two things that are fun on their own but now combined! Until I actually launched the game… but more on that later. For now, let’s look at the gameplay, shall we?

Gameplay
The Fool’s Apprentice tasks you with educating and managing a group of unskilled apprentices. You manage their skills, build Research, respond to multiple choice Dilemmas and more! The game is all about strategy and management. Guide your apprentices to achieve great knowledge, even if it isn’t in their best interest. A bit of malpractice never hurts anyone, right? Except for the ones who die in the process, but those kinda things just happen from time to time.
In theory. That’s what it says on the box. In practice? Oh boy.
Where Do I Even Start?
The Fool’s Apprentice aims for a cosy, engaging experience. Unfortunately, the reality falls rather short of that goal, with several design choices weighing quite heavily on its overall enjoyment.
When you first jump into the game, you are greeted with the tutorial. This presents itself via multiple text-filled pop-up boxes to explain the very basics of the game. You move around a bit, levitate stuff from A to B, take on your first students, get introduced to the shop and get told the overall goal of the game. While you do get more pop-up tutorials throughout the game, some explanations are just lacking, requiring players to learn via trial and error. Which is not an inherently bad thing, just a bit unusual for a game that is meant to be chill like this one.
The general gameplay loop is quite fast-paced for a cosy game. You get some apprentices, you let them do their thing, learn, study, experiment, and eventually prove their skills in a dangerous test that provides you with valuable Research… If they even get that far.

Really Does Make You Feel Like A Fool
The game tells you straight up that most of your apprentices are probably gonna die, which isn’t all THAT bad, all things considered. The issue I have faced the most is that all of them simply get bored and quit if you leave them alone with their thoughts for more than 3 seconds (mood, but still). So you sit there and micromanage their every move, so that they don’t just run off, in the hopes that they will make it far enough to take their test. Those tests will provide you with the necessary Research points to unlock challenges that will eventually provide you with new skills or stations. These challenges can range from placing some decorations to casting spells to using a certain station.
Sounds Easy Enough, Right?
Well, another feature of this game are these little Goblin thieves that come in and steal your Arcanum and stations. While you are watching your apprentices work, they will just sneak in and take whatever they can get their hands on before running off. You can shoo them away or zap them so they drop whatever they took. However, you have to notice them for that, which is just not as easy as you think. There is no real tell that they have entered your building. If you are not constantly watching your entrance, they are really easy to miss, letting you wonder what in the world happened to that desk that was JUST there a minute ago.
This had me end up in a situation where I had to have my apprentices use an Arcane Matrix for a challenge, however, my only one just got stolen, and I have no way to replace it. I can not buy a new one because it’s locked, and the game is not really keen on telling me how to unlock it.

Fool Me Twice
As I was going through menus trying to figure it out, my game froze. Not a big deal. Let me just restart it… aaaand my save is gone. There has been a patch for this issue, but it came a bit late for me. After losing a 4-hour run to something beyond my control, one does tend to get a wee bit frustrated. In the current version of the game, your Research and experiments are saved, but station layouts etc. are not. The developers have stated that they may introduce this as a feature in the future, though.
Another thing that frustrated me is the lack of an active pause function to read up on your apprentices or stations. The only pause options are to go into the game menu with the escape key or to enable a setting that pauses the game while you are in the shop. According to the developers, this is intended. They may add a pause function in a future update that adds difficulty options, restricting this feature to the ‘easy’ mode.
Graphics & Audio
Probably the best thing about The Fool’s Apprentice, in my opinion, are its looks. The game looks fantastic, really capturing the atmosphere of the game. The environment looks and feels magical, and the different stations as well as the students just fit right in. It’s got charm, I gotta give it that much.
The animations are smooth and look great, and the menus are straightforward and easy to traverse. Everything is very readable, and the colours match the game nicely. The music is a bit of a mixed bag. There are about 2 songs that play on a loop. One is rather calm and nice, while the other sounds rather suspenseful, which had me checking all over the place if something was being stolen or blowing up. They could use some more variety, but it really isn’t all that bad.
Final Thoughts
The premise of the game is great, it really is. Unfortunately for me, the game just does not cut it in terms of gameplay. The lack of a pause function really hurts the game. Also, in my opinion, and the pacing could be improved a bit. If you are really interested in the game, I would suggest waiting a bit until the game has received some more updates and patches. Perhaps watch a video or livestream of the game to get a feel for the gameplay loop. Maybe even wait for the introduction of the difficulty modes if the missing active pause function is an issue for you, or the saving of station placements if you tend to get attached to your decorated layouts.
Keep in mind that all of this is just my personal opinion. I don’t think that The Fool’s Apprentice is a bad game whatsoever; the premise is interesting, and the game has great potential. I just think it would benefit from quite a bit more polish and a couple extra tweaks.
For now, however, I will be giving The Fool’s Apprentice the Thumb Culture Bronze Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
While we are on the topic, why not check out a preview of another cosy game that fell a bit flat?
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