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SpellHollow School

A social game you play in your browser, set at a castle school of magic in a lakeside hollow. Go to lessons, fly over the lake, keep a room of your own and make friends worth dueling.

Play now

Play on a computer

SpellHollow needs Google Chrome on a desktop or laptop. Send yourself the link for later:

game.spellhollowschool.com

  • Free
  • Open source
  • Google Chrome on a computer
  • 18 and over

The trailer

Have a look round first

The trailer, with music and title cards: the castle across the lake at first light; breakfast in the Great Hall; friends climbing the Grand Staircase; four friends running to the lake, mounting their brooms and flying toward the castle, down the flying pitch and low over the water; a Potions lesson; a bare dorm room filling with furniture, then friends visiting; the wardrobe; a club meeting with its roster and club chat; a duel with spells in the air; supper in the Great Hall; a party of six by the fountain and walking out together; friends flying under the castle; the library; and the castle at dusk with its windows lit, under the words "Play free in your browser".

School life

Eight ways to spend an evening

The timetable keeps you busy and the castle keeps you curious. What you do between the bells is up to you, and to whoever you bring.

Classes Lessons that need you there

Ten subjects, each with a professor who expects you on time. Slip in while the door is open, follow the lesson, trace the wand gestures on your pad and answer when you are asked.

Every lesson ends with a grade, some experience and points for your house. A castle day lasts two real hours, so the next bell is never far off.

A Potions lesson in the dungeon classroom: students in robes stand at their cauldrons while the professor calls for an ingredient; the lesson panel shows round one of four and six ingredient cards to choose from.

Dorm decorating A room of your own

Behind your house's door is a dorm room with your name on it. Furnish it how you like: a four-poster bed, a writing desk, a velvet armchair, rugs on the floor, a painting on the wall and a candelabra on the table. Turn each piece, nudge it into place and stand things on shelves.

When it is ready, invite your friends round, or leave the door open to them.

Pieces in one room
150
Friends at a time
11
A Roarwing dorm room in the tower, furnished by its owner: armchairs and a candlelit side table on a round rug, a writing desk under a landscape painting, a bookcase, a house banner and pennant by the four-poster bed. Two friends have come to visit.

Flying The sky over the lake

Flying, with music: four friends, one from each house, mount their brooms at the lake shore and fly low over the water, along the cliff under the castle, down the flying pitch between the stands and round the Owl Loft tower, then land on the lawn before the gatehouse and wave.

Take a broom out over the grounds, the pitch and the lake, and as high as the air will hold you. Brooms stay outdoors; the castle has views on that.

Flying is a lesson like any other, with a ring course to practise on, and the better you fly the faster your broom goes.

A student in a scarlet cloak flies her broom out over the lake with two friends alongside, the flying pitch and the castle rising behind them.

Duels Only when you both say yes

Nobody duels you unless you agree. Challenge someone at the Dueling Club, step into the arena and mind your Poise. Spells are telegraphed, so you can sidestep, shield, reflect, disarm or bind.

Lose all your Poise and you lose; when the clock runs out, the higher Poise wins. Others can come and watch, and wins earn your house points.

100
Poise each
90
seconds on the clock
2
yeses needed
A duel on the stage of the Dueling Club: a Roarwing and a Serpentyne student cast at each other, a red Stunning Spell and a green Knockback Jinx passing in mid-air, while a dozen students watch from the floor.

Dress-up Dress for the occasion

The creator

Choose your house, then your looks: two bodies, height, the shape of your face, ten skin tones, eleven hairstyles, and colours for your hair and eyes.

The wardrobe

School robes in your house's colours, jumpers and cloaks, velvet jackets, tartan kilts, boots and brogues. Some pieces are cut for one body, most for either, and dyes recolour them.

The wardrobe window: a Skytalon student in a wide-brimmed witch hat tries on a plum and gold dress robe in the window's preview, with her clothes listed beside it and the dye palette open.
The Grand Staircase from a third-floor balcony: a flight of stairs climbs across a well seven floors high, its walls crowded with framed portraits, and a student waves from the steps to friends coming up behind.

Exploring Off the beaten corridor

The castle is large and not entirely straightforward. Portraits talk, house ghosts drift about their common rooms, and the grounds run down to the water. Your map fills in as you walk it.

  1. The Grand Staircase. Three of its flights swing to new landings on a schedule.
  2. Five hidden passages. Shortcuts you find by walking into them.
  3. The Wishing Room. Pace the right corridor a few times and a door appears.
  4. Find spots. Hidden all over; search each once a day and see what turns up.

The houses

Four houses, one Cup

Supper in the Great Hall: students of all four houses sit at the long tables under hundreds of floating candles, house banners hanging by the great window, while one student waves from the aisle.

You choose a house when you make your student, and its common room is yours from then on. Lessons, finds, crafts and duels all earn it points, under a daily limit, so steady beats frantic.

The House Cup is counted every week from Monday. The winners' banners hang in the Great Hall for the week that follows, and everyone who earned ten points or more for it gets a pennant for their room.

Open and free

Free to play, and yours to run

SpellHollow School is non-commercial and free to play. Its code is MIT-licensed and its art is CC BY-SA 4.0, so anyone can read it, change it or run a server of their own. One modest machine, two CPUs and 4 GB of memory, is enough for a thousand players.

Price
Free
Code
MIT
Art
CC BY-SA 4.0
Servers
Anyone’s
Browser
Chrome, on a computer
Players
18 and over
Characters
Five per account
Sign-up
By email
The castle of SpellHollow on its hill at dusk, its windows lit under the first stars, seen across the lake from beyond the boathouse. Three students on brooms fly past over the water.

The lamps are lit

Sign up with your email, choose your house and make your student. You can keep up to five, if one house is not enough.

Play now

Play on a computer

SpellHollow needs Google Chrome on a desktop or laptop. Send yourself the link for later:

game.spellhollowschool.com