Hitherto: School of Swordcery and Shieldjuration

Hitherto: School of Swordcery and Shieldjuration casts the player as a teacher at Hitherto High, a royal magic school. The task is to train a class of students in magic so they are prepared for their final exams. The game is a turn-based tactics title played on a tile-based battlefield.

Each turn, the player positions their students across the board to make attacks, after which the opposing students take their own turn and counterattack. Defeating enemy students grants experience, and accumulating enough experience results in a level-up, at which point the player chooses a special power-up. The player controls three students, each of whom gains experience in a different way: the Punk earns it by absorbing damage, the Nerd by dealing damage, and the Goth by healing. Paying attention to how each student learns is part of the intended approach.

The game is structured as a series of ten stages, with the tenth serving as the final exam. Players need to have gathered sufficient experience and levels before reaching that stage or they will fail. According to the developer, all ten stages can be completed in roughly two hours.