Magical Diary: Horse Hall

Magical Diary is a visual novel / life simulation / RPG hybrid in a fantasy setting where you have to guide your (customizable) female character through her first year on the "Iris Academy", a school for magic. You will meet several characters, attend classes and master tests in the school dungeons - and eventually you will even find the love of your life.

The game features a traditional visual novel interface, showing a picture of the current location with images of the currently present persons and a dialogue bar beneath it. An additional important element are your character's stats: attending classes will improve your magical skills or your smartness, other attributes are modified depending on your actions in the game. You may also do sports - increasing your strength - or just relax for a day to decrease your stress level. At the beginning of a week you may freely choose what you want to do during the week, unless a certain event already takes up the whole day.

Whenever you reach a certain skill in one of the magical arts, you will learn a new spell. Those spells may either be used in the school dungeons (see below) or may add more options during dialogues or certain events. Depending on your actions and skills your relationship to the other characters in the game will change, leading to several different endings of the game. The game also features an optional online yearbook, making your character's stats and journal entries visible to posterity.

As already mentioned you will occasionally have to visit the school dungeons: The interface will be slightly modified here so you can check your environment, move forwards or turn to the left or right, cast spells or even give up. Your goal is always to reach the exit of the dungeons, but to escape you will have to circumvent some obstacles or fight monsters. The dungeons usually have multiple solutions from different spell categories - e.g. you may fight against a monster or lure it into a trap.