Magicmaker

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Magicmaker on Steam

MSRP: $9.99

Platforms: Windows

Release: 9/22/14

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We’ve been here before: I’m bad at platforming games. Very bad.  One of my favorite things about Magicmaker from the demo is that the enemies ALSO seem to be bad at platforming games, so I have a fighting chance.  Sure, they probably get better as time goes on, but I might get better too, right?

But that’s not supposed to be the allure of Magicmaker.  Magicmaker is all about the spells. Instead of there being silly stuff like gold in treasure chests, what you discover as you go through the levels is spell ingredients.  There’s a lot of spell ingredients. And you can combine them however you please to create spells with different effects.  You have a wand, which will cast an infinite amount of low damage spells, as well as being to able to cast a different spell in hand using mana, which regenerates over time.  In hand spells do about 10 times the damage of wand spells.  You can also enchant your clothes for permanent effects on yourself.  So if you like making up your own spells, this game has that.

Of course, if you don’t want to make the hard decisions (and if you didn’t why are you playing this game?!?!), you can always hit the random button.  If you find a particularly effective combo, you can save it to use at another time, and then load it in where needed.

In each level you will have a quest or quests to complete, and a number of gems to find which will unlock bonus treasure at the end of the level (as well as healing you up when you loot them). At least in the early levels playable in the free demo, the boss battles are challenging without being frustrating. Magicmaker doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s all the more enjoyable because of it.

Once you’ve beaten the levels, there are new game+ options, and there are oodles of achievements to get on Steam.  There are also a ton of NPCs that will assist you with character customization when you’re between levels.  All in all, it’s a fun little time-waster, and I’ll be picking up the full game while it’s on sale for half price this week on Steam.