Scrabdackle is hand-drawn using traditional animation techniques, with tons of curious creatures to study, characters to squabble with, and tough-but-fair bosses to overcome, made by one developer who was maybe a little over-ambitious about all this.

Here’s the setup: When the wizard academy is attacked, novice student Blue is thrown out the academy’s window and face-first into the unfamiliar world outside. Pushed out of their sheltered life, Blue reluctantly sets off on a long journey home, learning to navigate the world of Scrabdackle for the first time. Along the way, they’ll contend with daunting foes as well as uncomfortable truths as they reckon with just how much of the world outside differs from their books in the academy.

It’s a big game with a huge, sprawling world worth getting lost in - if you’re up for a bit of adventure!

Scrabdackle is a scribbly, open-world adventure drawing from zeldalike, soulslike, and metroidvania influences. You can explore the world in whatever direction you want, but may be blocked from some pathways until you learn a new spell to help you get by. Or you can just turn around and head somewhere else first instead! Nearly all spells, bosses, and regions of the game can be found in any order.

While exploring, you’ll come across tons of hidden secrets and challenges, characters with their own storylines to progress, mysteries about the world to slowly piece together, and endless things to study and write about in your academy notebook. Chat with the locals to get your bearings, or walk away mid-conversation if you’re ready to move on and see something new (although, some of them might find that a bit rude!)

Some areas are more open and interconnected for harmless exploration; others operate as ‘dungeons’ with linear challenges and puzzles to navigate. Bosses will test your skills along the way, with each attempt bringing you closer to a hard-earned victory. If you’d rather focus on puzzles and exploration - or alternatively, if you want to really push your skills to limit - challenge settings are always available!

A first playthrough of Act 1 on the Poet difficulty should take about 12-15 hours to see all the ‘main’ stuff and roll credits - but if you really like to poke around each nook and cranny for secrets and tackle every optional challenge, it’ll take a bit longer!

Scrabdackle Act 1 features:

6 spells to learn,

9 bosses to challenge,

10 11 regions to explore,

60 unique stickers and stars to find,

90 minutes of music to nod to,

122 130 notebook entries to scry,

and about 70,000 80,000 words to read!

Acts 2 and 3 will launch (later on) as free updates, each with just as much content as Act 1. Think of them like episodes in a TV season - each one is doing its own thing, but they're also part of a greater whole, building off what came before. They're designed to be played with a little time to digest in between each, too, like how you tend to get more out of a show that releases episode-by-episode rather than a whole season dropping at once.

Worth calling out as well: the base game price will go up with each act that launches, meaning you can either buy Act 1 and wait to get A2+A3 free, or buy later to be able to play multiple acts back-to-back for a slightly higher price.

All that to say - Act 1 on its own is a pretty cool and large game, and it's only going to get bigger and better with more acts to come. Hope you enjoy!