Magicmaker

About

Magicmaker is a single player role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Tasty Stewdios LLC and was released on September 22, 2014. It received positive reviews from players.

Ever wanted to shoot poisonous lightning lasers? Freezing fireballs? Turrets that fire waves of miniature suns? How about lasers that shoot exploding black holes that suck out your enemies' life force? You can do that all in Magicmaker, the spellcrafting-focused platformer dungeon-crawler!

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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89%

Audience ScoreBased on 419 reviews

story21 positive mentions

optimization3 negative mentions

The spell creation system is incredibly fun and allows for a vast variety of combinations, making each player's experience unique.
The game features charming graphics and a humorous tone, enhancing the overall enjoyment.
The gameplay encourages experimentation and creativity, providing a satisfying sense of progression as players unlock new spells and abilities.

The game is relatively short, with some players feeling it lacks depth and replayability after completing the main story.
There are performance issues, including lag and crashes, especially when using complex spells with many effects.
The level design can be repetitive, and some players find the difficulty to be inconsistent, with certain spells being overpowered.

story
99 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
75%
4%
The game's story is generally perceived as short, simplistic, and lacking depth, with many reviewers expressing disappointment in its potential. While some appreciate its whimsical and humorous tone, others criticize the dialogue and plot for being poorly written and juvenile. Overall, the narrative serves more as a backdrop to gameplay rather than a focal point, leading to mixed feelings about its execution and replay value.
- “The story is charming and funny, and the art style is adorable.”
- “The story has a real tongue-in-cheek flair to its writing.”
- “It's fantastic; the story is quirky, the gameplay is unique, and there's so many ways to get where you want to go.”
- “The plot is short and silly; I wish the developers had taken the whole thing more seriously.”
- “The story is extremely short, but there's enough extra stuff to play around with that it's not so bad.”
- “Honestly, I wish I could give this game ten thumbs up because it's such a fun game, but because of the developers saying it's 'finished,' there's no chance the game will be anything more than a repetitive bad story with endless sandbox fun.”
gameplay
84 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
36%
56%
8%
The gameplay is centered around a creative and engaging spellcrafting mechanic that allows for extensive customization and experimentation, providing a fun and unique experience. While the core mechanics are solid and responsive, some players find the gameplay can become repetitive over time, particularly after discovering effective spell combinations. Overall, the game offers a charming art style and enjoyable mechanics, but it may benefit from additional content to enhance replayability.
- “The gameplay is amazing; I love the freedom you have with your spells and robes, and I just love that they allow for overpowered builds if you can find them out (or look them up, which I only recommend after you've run out of ideas on your own).”
- “The spell combination mechanics are so fun.”
- “The gameplay is both addicting and fun.”
- “The fun of making different types of spells runs out quickly due to repetitive gameplay.”
- “The gameplay becomes repetitive once you get something that works.”
- “The area where this game really suffers is actual gameplay.”
graphics
77 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
71%
8%
The graphics of the game are a mixed bag, with many players appreciating the charming, papercraft aesthetic and nostalgic art style reminiscent of old flash games. However, there are frequent complaints about graphical glitches, performance issues, and a lack of polish, which can detract from the overall experience. While the spell effects are often highlighted as visually appealing, the simplistic graphics and UI design leave room for improvement.
- “The graphics are stylized and are very pleasant to look at; the papercraft aesthetic is like playing through a storybook.”
- “It's got a cute, papercraft-like art style, humorous and sarcastic dialogue, and a spell-crafting system that's actually extremely robust and makes for some really ridiculous spells.”
- “This game caught me completely by surprise and immediately won me over with its charmingly cute papercraft graphics and intuitive spellcrafting system - especially with the crazy amount of spell combinations you can make!”
- “Part of that is attributable to its art style being a little jarring, and part of it due to performance.”
- “The graphics suck, or if you like, 'have a very unique flavor,' the controls are a tiny bit wonky, and sometimes there's just too much crap on screen to even see what's happening.”
- “And for a 2D game with such simplistic graphics, it's horrifically laggy and bug-laden.”
humor
45 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is widely praised for its humor, which blends lighthearted and darker elements, often shifting unexpectedly. Players enjoy the witty dialogue, absurd scenarios, and creative spell combinations that lead to hilarious outcomes, making the gameplay both entertaining and chaotic. Overall, the humor is described as charming, quirky, and capable of eliciting grins, with many references and jokes that enhance the experience.
- “It's generally humorous, but it features both lighthearted and darker humor and can shift suddenly between them.”
- “The humor is great too, and I've wasted a good hour or so just paging through the descriptions and laughing at them.”
- “The dialogue pokes fun at archetypes and the absurdity of a society of wizards, and the physical humor's pretty great too when it shows up.”
music
39 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
46%
46%
8%
The game's soundtrack is generally described as calming and enjoyable, with a nostalgic charm reminiscent of classic titles like Legend of Mana and MapleStory. While many players appreciate the music as fitting background ambiance, some feel it lacks excitement and memorability, particularly during intense gameplay moments. Overall, the music enhances the game's atmosphere, though opinions vary on its standalone appeal.
- “The game has a generally calming, upbeat soundtrack, especially the forest level theme.”
- “The adorable soundtrack reminds me of the games of my youth, such as Yoshi's Story or MapleStory, where I would simply sit and listen to the soundtrack because it's so heartwarming.”
- “Soothing yet bright soundtrack.”
- “However, the gameplay can get somewhat intense (especially on the higher difficulty levels), making the soundtrack feel unfitting at times.”
- “There is a soundtrack edition of the game, though I think you can pass on it - sure it's decent and pleasant music, but it's very average music that fits perfectly as background music for this game and nothing else.”
- “Unfortunately, the sounds and music aren't that good and don't deserve a soundtrack.”
replayability
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
52%
13%
The game offers significant replayability through its spell-building system, allowing players to experiment with various combinations and unlock new abilities. While the main storyline is relatively short, features like New Game+ and additional challenge modes enhance replay value by encouraging players to revisit levels and refine their strategies. Overall, the customization options and the potential for creating powerful spells contribute to a fun and engaging replay experience.
- “Fun and basically simple gameplay, but a ton of replayability and customization options with all of the spell ingredients you can unlock.”
- “The spell-building system alone has tons of replay value.”
- “If you want to play a game with witty humor, good replayability, and where you can make your own spells, then this is the game for you.”
- “The problem is, the game is short and relies on the new game+ mechanic for replay value.”
- “Overall, the game is quite short (new game+ helps a little with replayability) and it can be completed in about 6 or so hours, although there are challenges and free roam maps so you can mess about with your spells.”
- “Short little game, worth the money, but not much replay value.”
optimization
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
37%
38%
The game's optimization has been widely criticized, with users reporting significant performance issues, particularly on lower-end machines. Many have experienced crashes and lag, attributed to both the game's demanding art style and its lack of multithreading support. While the spell configurations offer some engaging gameplay, the overall performance detracts from the experience.
- “Still, the spell configurations are nice to play with, and while not captivating enough to play for hours at a time, they do make you think about 'spell optimization' - more power, greater range, area damage.”
- “Random bits of dead enemies tend to clutter the floor and reduce performance.”
- “Right from the get-go, the game's performance left much to be desired.”
- “The game also suffers from low performance on lower-end machines.”
- “The game has flaws; there are performance issues from time to time, and I did crash a couple of times.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is generally acceptable, with users noting it is not overly buggy compared to similar titles, though it does have some graphical glitches and outdated visuals. While the user interface and sound effects could use improvement, players have reported a mostly smooth experience during gameplay. Overall, it offers a stable experience with some minor issues that do not significantly detract from enjoyment.
- “Not perfect in every aspect, but also not terribly buggy.”
- “UI is tiny; Times New Roman is used for the font; graphical glitches abound; graphics are from 1998; sound effects are awful.”
- “Naturally, I looked to the game's Steam discussions for troubleshooting help.”
atmosphere
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
33%
The atmosphere is described as pleasant and uplifting, contributing positively to the overall experience. However, there is a contrast between this lighthearted ambiance and the presence of a complex crafting system for weapons and tools, which some feel could disrupt the cohesive feel of the environment.
- “However, under the pleasant atmosphere that just adds that small smile to your day, is a massive crafting system for weapons of mass destruction or tools to water the school's flowers.”
- “Now that's asking too much, but I feel it would have just... fit the atmosphere.”
- “Now that's asking too much, but I feel it would have just fit the atmosphere.”
grinding
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players appreciate the grinding aspect of the game, noting that while it involves some trial-and-error, it remains enjoyable and engaging. Fans of dungeon-crawling particularly enjoy experimenting with new spells and optimizing their map completion times.
- “Some trial-and-error and grinding involved, but not to the point where it loses its charm.”
- “Since I love dungeon-crawling and grinding, I enjoy going around and testing out new spells I've created and seeing how fast I can complete a map.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the emotional aspect of the game deeply resonant, with a nostalgic soundtrack that evokes fond memories of classic games like Yoshi's Story and MapleStory, creating a heartwarming experience that encourages them to immerse themselves in the music.
- “The adorable soundtrack reminds me of the games of my youth, such as Yoshi's Story or MapleStory, where I would simply sit and listen to the music because it's so heartwarming.”