Starfall Academy: The Year Two Review

Reviewer’s Note: Just as a note, this review assumes that you’ve either read my review of last year’s inaugural game and/or played in a Starfall Academy larp at least once. By which I mean I won’t be going over a lot of the basics about how the game works such as character creation, sects, world lore, classes, saber combat, etc. – I’m going to focus on how the game has evolved and things that have changed/improved in the game’s second year. If you need that foundational info I highly recommend putting a pin in this page and going back to read the year one review first. (I tried to be pretty comprehensive!) I’m also focusing on the perspective of a second year student returning to the game as opposed to a new first year player, as I feel my first review covers the new player experience pretty well.

Spoilers: As with my previous review I have attempted excise all narrative details and otherwise avoid story spoilers, but that said I may accidentally let slip enough details to put plot points together in course of my review. If that happens and it bugs you, I’m sorry. I tried. Also, I suppose if you just played a first year student but don’t want to be spoiled about some of the way second year works and the decisions you’ll be making in 2024, you may want to come back to this review later as that’s the bulk of what I’m covering in this year’s review. YMMV, of course, I’m just giving a heads up.

Review Disclaimer: If it matters for you to know – and fair enough if it does – I am not affiliated with Quest Adventures or Starfall Academy in any way, and did not receive any compensation for this review (or the last one either). I am a fan, sure, but I came by it honestly, no incentives required or provided. 🙂

All set? All set! Then welcome back, Guardian! Let’s get to it!

Elevator Review
No sophomore slump here – while the first year of Starfall Academy set the bar high for an immersive narrative game set in a sci-fantasy school anchored in a rich universe both familiar and novel, the second year still managed to exceed that standard. The school experience deepened and diversified for both returning second year students and new first years alike, with more activities, more combat, more plots to navigate, and of course, a brand new sport so madcap and violent it immediately makes lifelong fans of us all. Staff continues to develop the premise in new and interesting ways, while still delivering an excellent school experience that is at the heart of the game.

Unity & Hope: Player Culture & Overall Game Experience
I’m putting this category first in the review this time because before we talk about anything else I feel it’s important to talk about the overall personality of the game – the soul of Starfall Academy, if you will. Much as I did in last year’s review at a few points I’m going to use another “school larp” for comparison here, namely New World Magischola, as I also experienced the first two years of that larp and saw some interesting parallels here worth mentioning.

Starfall Academy really found its voice this year.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying that last year wasn’t an amazing experience, and I’m definitely not saying that the wonderful staff in any way let us down last year either. Not at all. This might a tricky needle to thread, but please, hear me out. What I’m saying is that for all of the fantastic staff and amazing lore and incredible players who came together to make Starfall Academy come alive last year, like any first year game it was still very much finding itself. What kind of tone would it have? What sort of energy would the different sects display? Would rivalries stay friendly or would some serious in-fighting take hold? How would the mantras go over? What would saber classes really be like? (Can you seriously require gamers to do push ups in June?) And so on. Questions that staff can – and did – try to steer a bit but which no game runner can ever lock down, because emergent play is a huge part of any larp and besides players will always find ways to take stories in directions no one could possibly have anticipated.

After all, for all we put into making our characters in the absence of a previous Starfall experience to draw from or a sense of what the school would be like, characters tended to be more or less similar to traditional Jedi types. Again, I’m not saying people lacked character and originality! Please don’t take it that way. I’m just saying that with Star Wars as our only point of reference up to that point for the type of experience we were entering into, that’s what a lot of people stayed closer to. Not to mention that being a Jedi was the draw in the first place for many folks, which, fair enough, it’s certainly a big one for a game like this even if great pains have been taken to make the setting rich and unique in its own right. So in year one the energy was generally fantastic, but it still had a galaxy far, far away hanging over it.

By comparison, I remember how the first two years of New World Magischola had a similar sort of arc. The first time out, for all the efforts of players and staff alike the only point of reference anyone really has is Hogwarts and so like it or not despite a healthy body of its own lore, that popular influence colored a lot of the roleplaying and expectations for the first year. And that was fine – it’s part of the appeal that made people come in the first place! But when second year rolled around, things changed dramatically because the school had become its own distinct experience, with its own culture and traditions and vibe, and people felt comfortable diving into characters the likes of which you’d never see on Platform 9 & 3/4.

That is precisely what happened at Starfall Academy this year, and I loved it.

With so many second year students returning who could speak to the lore and culture and memorable jokes and crazy adventures of last year and help bring new first year players into the spirit of the game right from the jump, the school positively exploded with personality this year. It helped that as second years, the returning students were allowed to dress with more costume pieces in their sect colors (as compared to first year students who are encouraged to dress mostly in neutral tones since IC they don’t know their sect until after the saber ceremony and so wouldn’t pack particular clothing colors), so any student gathering was awash in colors in a way that made for a great visual parallel to the huge surge of personality going on throughout the game.

It made it vibrant, on every level.

I suppose it sounds like I’m gushing about a fundamentally intangible quality but that’s just it really. It’s so very important for a game to find its own identity; I’ve stopped going to games that were mechanically fine because there was nothing particularly new or interesting about them either. In my year one review I spoke about how much I enjoyed the school spirit and game culture that was already developing, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t still holding my breath at least a little bit until I saw how it evolved in its second year. And it was wonderful to see that I needn’t have worried. It grew into itself and I can only see that improving as it went on. Unity and hope, as it turns out, are exactly the words for this school.

Harmony & Growth: Character Development
Aside from some tweaks to the makeup and prosthetic requirements of some of the playable species, which allowed for some different costuming and presentation choices for returning students, the fundamentals of character design stayed the same. However, second year students quickly learned that they had a big choice ahead of them because come third year they would need to choose another sect as their secondary path (basically their minor, in standard college terms). So while realistically that’s at least a year away in real time as well, assuming that is a third year of Starfall would take place around the same time again in 2024, it definitely added a certain excited energy and a perpetual popular topic of discussion among the second year students for the weekend.

As a design choice the announcement was compelling – giving the second years a chance to think ahead instead of springing it on them to decide by say the end of the weekend really gave us time to incorporate it into our roleplay and think over where we want to go as Starfall continues. Indeed the potential for mixing your main sect with another and what that says about your character’s goals is an interesting one and a great spur for viewing your character as continuously evolving as opposed to simply becoming “more powerful” – a Bellati who takes a Vindori secondary path is going to be a well-rounded combatant but could also be choosing it for the focus on tradition and law enforcement, while a Bellati who takes a Medicari secondary could naturally be aiming for the role of a combat medic … or supplementing their already deadly saber skills with some debilitating Medicari abilities to quite literally take opponents apart. Likewise, a Vindori who takes a Bellati second could be doing so to add some more offensive punch to their strong defense, but they could also have an eye toward being a strategist or military historian. A Venefari pacifist who chooses a Ouiori secondary might be doing so to increase their connection to all living things, and so on.

The only sect that remains unavailable even as a secondary option is the Dominari, as the Supreme Master of the Guardian Order has decreed it is too dangerous to study their abilities even in such a limited form. Rumors abound that there might be hidden paths to learning such abilities … but if anyone learned the truth of such whispers, they’ve kept it to themselves. As well they might.

Overall, second year felt like a nice focusing experience after the broad foundation of the first year, bringing us back to center out thoughts and roleplay on the sect that represents our character’s primary role in the Order, while at the same time not locking us wholly into it since we’re also thinking of our upcoming secondary paths. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about not having classes with each other sect, but as the weekend went on I really enjoyed it – it helped second year stand out as not just another helping of the first while also guiding us to keep thinking of how we’ll fit into the Order.

Tradition and Preservation: Classes and the Campus Experience
Coming back as a second year student, in a mechanical sense character progression remained similar in structure to year one – attend classes and learn some new powers related to the lessons learned, with said powers represented as before by the game’s stylish and super cool power card props. That basic gameplay structure is the same, but the focus shifted sharply from the first year’s liberal arts curriculum – instead of taking classes with every sect, as previously noted in second year classes focused primarily on your own sect. This was a substantial shift from the liberal arts approach of first year that saw everyone taking at least one class with every sect, but it definitely helped underscore that we’re heading into serious training in our chosen sect, especially as there were some impressive powers to master in those classes. Staff definitely wanted to make second year feel different, and succeeded.

Which is not to say that you never saw students from other sects! One of the most interesting twists awaiting year two students was joint classes – while most second year instruction was sect specific, four of the five sects paired off for special classes that spoke to shared traits they had in common. The Bellati and Vindori joined forces to learn specialized combat techniques, for instance, while the Medicari and Ouiori teamed up to tackle special curative powers. (Lacking a sister sect since the Dominari are long gone the Venefari did not have a joint class in this style, but instead delved deeper into their own abilities.) This not only provided some great roleplay but also underscored some of the natural complementary pairings that students could look into for their upcoming choice of secondary, though of course that’s by no means obligatory. Still, it made for some interesting class combinations and definitely got people excited thinking about how different powers might combine.

One huge addition this year was the introduction of player-led extracurricular activities. While there were some great staff-directed extracurricular activities last year – some of which came also returned – this time before game second year players were encouraged to submit ideas for student clubs and associations, with staff faculty members acting as (sometimes nominal) advisors. And the student body responded! Activities ranged from a choral group to a crafting circle to a sort of group therapy session for Guardians grappling with the lives they left behind, and it gave campus life a great boost of energy and individuality to be able to find activities that suited your character and get involved. It also provided a good way for second year students to mingle with other sects since classes were more confined to individual sects than last year. It also meant that players could fine tune to sort of roleplaying experience they were looking for even more than last year, and combined with a class schedule that was a bit looser than last year and provided more time for extracurriculars, these player-driven clubs were a major win all around.

And, of course, there was the glorious madness that is Hammerball.

Starfall Academy got its very own insane in-universe sport with Hammerball, where our beloved Starfall Meteors team went up against local favorites the Hondru Herns in a sport that can best be described as a lightning-fast clash of utterly unnecessary violence (and I mean that as a compliment). There’s more to it than this but I’ll keep it simple here – two teams square off over possession of a heavy ball and try to put it through the opposing team’s goal, only some team members are armed with hammers and can beat opposing players unconscious. It’s objectively insane and so naturally the game was also the high point of Saturday night, with lots of cheering and chants and even a halftime show! What’s not to love?

Knowledge and Truth: The Evolution of Light Powers
As a longtime game designer, I’m always wary of two things when it comes to long-term ongoing games: complexity hike and power creep. Complexity hike is the phenomenon that as games run longer, they tend to become increasingly complex as old rules are revised to deal with unexpected outcomes and new rules come into play to handle situations beyond the scope of the original game. Complexity hike is not inherently bad – games need to evolve to suit the needs of staff and players – but if you’re not careful it can turn what was once a beloved rules light system into a tangled, snarled mess. I wish I wasn’t saying that from experience, but sadly I’ve seen it happen more than once, and it’s a real drag because it transforms the nature of the game experience when it does.

Power creep is another familiar problem with ongoing games, and it refers to the idea that the longer players are part of a game the more powerful their characters become, which requires commensurately stronger enemies to challenge them, which can lead to a vicious loop that can not only desensitize veteran players but also create situations where new players are utterly helpless/useless against threats intended for veterans and wind up feeling like they’ve wasted their time in playing. Since Starfall Academy only runs once per year, I was less worried about this than complexity hike, but it’s still something I’m always mindful of when I get into long-term games. Even in games with a strong rules-light, narrative forward focus such as Starfall, it’s a natural temptation to go bigger and more complex as you go.

Fortunately so far at least I haven’t seen much evidence of any problems along these lines. While we did learn new powers this game, as you might expect, none that I saw steered away from the intuitive, rules light framework the game has established so far. Nothing requires halting gameplay and breaking out measuring tape, for one, and there were some really innovative takes on abilities such as throwing a saber at a target (without actually throwing it of course), which impressed this old larp designer with their efficiency and how well they stick to things that are easily represented in game. If I have a quibble, it’s that some powers need more mechanics added to their in-game call to make it clearer what they do or how long they last. For example, I have a power which can cause a surge of emotion in a target that lasts for five minutes, but the call merely tells them to feel that emotion – I’ve taken to adding the duration to the call anyway for clarity so it’s not a hard fix but it’s something that shows up with a couple of powers. I suspect it may also be a limitation derived from the small amount of space on powers cards, which tracks.

Power development and use also leads to one of the other weekend highlights – prism training and tactics. Just before dinner each day, all of the second year students were called to a lecture on prism training, where they were presented with different scenarios and asked to work out a plan to solve them that best utilizes each member’s capabilities. (These scenarios were things like hostage rescue, siege tactics, etc.) To keep it interesting, prisms were randomized so everyone had to learn to adapt to people they don’t know, since prisms are more fluid and can involve working with Guardians you’ve only just met. It was also a chance for the Bellati to learn some new powers, called Tactics, that allow them to help their prism achieve tactical objectives more easily by regrouping in the heat of battle and adopting offensive or defensive postures as needed. They’re costly but potent, and really help position Bellati as the battlefield command of the Order by giving them excellent mechanics to back up that narrative position. Even if you weren’t Bellati, though, the prism training sessions were a great time to mingle and learn what your classmates can really do.

Passion and Honor: Combat Comes to Starfall
It’s a good thing the Bellati got those tactical abilities, too, because this year’s event featured significantly more combat than last year’s, both in terms of more scripted NPC-led encounters as well as free-roving dangers found around campus. I should add that air quality concerns during the first week kept us inside for significant parts of Friday and Saturday, which curbed some of these combat scenes (or relocated them), so we actually had fewer combat patrols than the second weekend from the accounts I’ve read. So you can take this with a pinch of salt since we didn’t have quite so much action due to wildfire smoke.

As with everything they do, the staff at Starfall go beyond to try to make sure every combat scene has a purpose, whether it’s cleansing a blight taking hold in local farmland, investigating sinister sounds coming from the tunnels under the school (and yes that’s a real thing, there are actual tunnels), or simply trying to determine what is driving dangerous wildlife toward campus. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a complex scene, every combat scene still had an underlying drive beyond just “kill monsters” and I appreciated that. There were also multiple ways to resolve different situations, allowing different sects to try to use their abilities to find solutions, which also made it possible for different groups to reach very different outcomes.

From the look of it it seems like staff is probably going to continue the combat model along these lines in the future – while the occasional “random encounter” will strike out on campus, even those aren’t just random excuses for bloodshed, and most encounters will be more controlled and directed. That allows the staff to play to their narrative and staging strengths by setting up scenarios full of atmosphere and meaning, while still letting groups of Guardians flex their muscles and light their sabers. It’s a solid model for this staff and this player base, and if this year is any indication I am very much looking forward to more of these directed encounters in the future. Something a lot of combat games miss is making sure encounters mean something, and Starfall always delivers on that front.

Don’t get me wrong – while combat was noticeably more prevalent this year, if you’re coming looking for something more like your average boffer larp weekend with nonstop combat and hooks leading groups out on the regular while monsters burst out to menace you all the time, Starfall Academy is definitely not going to be that experience. And I feel it’s important to remember it’s not intended to be. It’s just not calibrated for that level of constant combat and danger, so while I think the expansion of combat patrols and random encounters did a lot for the game in terms of letting characters use their saber skills and their powers in dynamic settings, it’s not supposed to be the same experience as a combat-focused boffer game. Form your expectations accordingly.

Compassion and Life: The People of Starfall
I want to end this review on something that comes back full circle to the first part of the review, if from a slightly different direction; I want to talk a little bit about the people who make this game happen. I mentioned this last year as well, but it bears repeating – the staff of Starfall Academy are some of the kindest, most helpful, most dedicated, most friendly, most talented, and most fiercely inclusive folks I’ve had the pleasure of telling live-action stories with in my 30+ years of doing so. And I want to be clear that I’m not busting out that number to seem like some sort of Wise Infallible Larp Sage; you only have to read my posts for a minute or two to realize I’m nobody special, just another geek who loves costumes. No, I’m only doing it because it’s true and I wanted to give a sense of just how much it means to me to say that, because I’ve been at many wonderful games over the years run by many amazing people, and even so Starfall still lands right up among the top games of the list.

In particular, I came to my second year of Starfall in kind of a bad place – I won’t go into all of it, just suffice it to say that on top of my awful trip anxiety making me dread the journey almost to the point of bailing, I also came to game still recovering from a torn meniscus some weeks back. My character is a pacifist, so missing out on saber fighting wasn’t too bad for me (though I still wish I could have used it at least once or twice, because SABER), but I was faced with a lot of challenges just getting around. I needed a knee brace and a walking stick, sure, but I also needed time to rest and ice my knee and wait for meds to kick in, as well as a ground floor room (since none of the dorms have elevators). I worried about how much of game I’d actually be able to see and participate in. So before I left, I reached out to Starfall‘s staff account and sort of word vomited a whole bunch of concerns. Not my best moment, but anxiety disorders don’t care if we put our best foot forward.

I needn’t have worried.

Even before game I got personal responses from Alex, one of the game’s creators, that provided great answers to my concerns and sincere encouragement to help me get to game. I never doubted that everyone, and I mean everyone, at Starfall Academy had my back. Not just my friends and fellow players but the staff as well. Especially the staff, who made a point to discreetly but constantly check on me, see how I was doing, if my knee was OK, had I had meds lately, did I need to rest for a while, and so on. (Special thanks to Erica the player concierge and most worthy keeper of the Iron Throne for never, ever failing to check on me whenever I walked by.) Staff made accommodations for me easily and immediately, often without my needing to ask, and even though I know from experience that being staff at a game like this is nonstop running around juggling flaming chainsaws the staff always gave me their full attention and never made me feel rushed or like I was a hassle.

If there’s a single moment that epitomizes the genuine care the staff displays for their players despite the rigors of game, it came on Friday night when Casey, a senior staff member who plays one of the main face NPCs and whose time is therefore very much at a premium every minute of the weekend, took time out to be OOC and literally give me an arm to lean on so I could join my fellow Guardians walking out to a more distant encounter I otherwise could not have managed to see. No hesitation, no complaint, I didn’t even have to ask – he simply saw I’d need help and so he did. He probably could have gotten another NPC or even a player to help out, but he did it himself because he was there and it needed doing, and I think that says everything you need to know about Starfall Academy.

There are a lot of great games out there, make no mistake. But if you’re going to invest your time in a long-term, narratively-driven experience, you’d do well to put your time and stories in the hands of people who genuinely care about both of those things and more importantly who care about you as a person. It matters. More than mechanics, more than props, more than costumes, more than puzzles, more than plots, more than anything, it matters.

It’s why with any luck I’ll see you there next semester.

Go in the Light, Guardians.