Near-Mage

Near-Mage is a story-driven adventure game where curiosity, exploration, and atmosphere take center stage.You play as an aspiring mage arriving in Transylvania, attend a magic school, learn spells, and slowly uncover the hidden stories of the people who live there.

Study spell crafting in the Transylvanian Institute for Magick as a Near-Mage

Craft your own spell inventory, use it with different results in every play-through

Progress through a structured, story-driven journey while freely choosing the classes you take, the spells you learn, and how and when you cast them, shaping the world around you for better or worse

Explore 3 different realms inspired by Transylvanian architecture, myths, and landscapes

Meet a cast of quirky, memorable characters, each with their own secrets

Experience a deep and engaging story that plays like an adventure game

You're Illy Vraja, a teenager at a crossroads in her life who gets invited to Transylvania by her mysterious Great-Aunt, Domnica, only to find out she comes from a long line of witches, and is entitled to enroll in the Transylvanian Institute for Magick!

As a Near-Mage, you are entering a summer preparatory school, hoping to graduate into a full-fledged spell caster. You’ll take classes in different types of Magick and see how you can use your growing powers to affect the lives of those you come across.

We are from Transylvania, Romania ourselves, so we’re doing a deep dive into its rich lore, legends and superstitions, heavily drawing on them in creating Near-Mage’s dark and colorful world.

Travel freely between three main hubs: the real-life town of Sighișoara, the mythical town of Rakus, that lies beyond a Magickal veil and cannot be seen by most, and the Transylvanian Institute for Magick.

Near-Mage will allow for a lot of freedom when approaching the situations you’ll encounter within the Transylvanian Institute for Magick and its surroundings. When it comes to spell-crafting, you can choose what type of classes you’re taking on a whim, or you can look up recipes in a spellbook and strategize your build.

This build variety will in turn lead to different outcomes for some quest lines, affect certain NPCs’ fates, and result in high replayability. Maybe you’ve erased an NPC’s memory on your first play-through. What if you used a different spell on them this time around… or no spell at all?

You’ll be able to play Near-Mage as a point and click, or you can control the character directly. Walk to your objectives, run at full speed, or even fly there!

Designed for Players Who Enjoy

A story-driven adventure with a clear narrative arc

Cozy, relaxing experiences

Hand-crafted worlds

Authentic Transylvanian folklore & locations

Games that value mood, art, and storytelling

Make friends or enemies with fellow students, learn to be closer to your Magickal calling, and lift the veil off of ancient mysteries in Near-Mage!