Kitori Academy: Magic and Marketing

Sure, maybe you never got your Hogwarts letter. But thanks to Kitori Academy, it’s never too late to learn magic. 

From indie developer Cubenary, Kitori Academy is a new school of witchcraft and wizardry where your character learns tools of the trade, makes friends with NPCs, and deals with darker magic as well. 

The Academy protects the Ancient Tree, a magic fountain, but everything is not as it seems. In this magical life-simulator, you take up the helm of a wizard apprentice studying there with an adorable spirit-cat companion. 

Start each day in your home before heading to campus and engaging in a variety of classes. Head to the potion classroom to experiment in your cauldron, the gardens to water and harvest your plants, or practice dueling in the spell classroom. Completing these activities – and others, like chatting with other apprentices – grants you skill points, which are used to unlock new abilities and skills to learn.

But Kitori Academy is not always peaceful. Strange events unfold, like blue goo flooding the halls, and dark magic lurking in the shadows. You’ll definitely have a busy schedule with lots to discover. 

However, the game is a highly customizable experience, complete with the freedom to explore and learn at your own pace. You can also design your character, pet cat and living quarters. 

With cute and cozy graphics and a stellar gameplay idea, Cubenary and Kitori Academy are already popular – long before its release date.

The game and its developers are also a testament to fundraising, engagement and marketing strategies for indie games, which is no easy task.

Cubenary’s first game, Fantasy Little Jobs is a VR game in which you run a shop in a fantasy medieval world. Despite interest from Twitch streamers, it didn’t do very well on steam.

“It could be not enough marketing, not many people are interested in the game, or could be that we didn’t have a community waiting for the game,” Bee Sanz, writer and game designer for Cubenary, writes.

This time around, the company made some changes. Instead of waiting until a few days before release to post GIFs and requests on Twitter, they made their first post months in advance and consistently used social media throughout the production process. Today, Kitori Academy has over 4,000 Twitter followers and a growing Discord community.

“This is the first thing we changed for this game; we shared progress of the game right at the beginning of development,” Bee says. 

On Discord, they also pitch Kitori Academy in other servers like “Wholesome Games” and “PitchyaGame Server.”

Cubenary has also seen huge success on Kickstarter. With rewards for donors (like in-game skins) and unlockable stretch goals (like adding a broom-flying mechanic to the game), their incentives for donating to their campaign likely contributed to this success.

At only a few days left, they have raised more than double their original $39,695 fundraising goal. 

Kitori Academy is sure to be a cozy, wholesome hit. While the release date is unknown, it will be available across platforms and is available to wishlist on Steam now.