Magi is a fine surprise for the casual gamer looking for something nice to play. Easy to play but still demanding the same time its not easy to master. The matches usually last for 5-15 minutes and you can break at any time.

I can recommend it - its worth the 20$, if you missed it.

It plays btw. very well with a Radeon Mobility 9700pro (notebook gpu chipset) - nothing to worry with similiar and superior notebook graphics. The graphics is nice, yet isn't complex and should be managable even by the simplest IGP graphic units.

The only thing i currently miss is a multiplayer mode - both a split screen and a networking mode could be possibly fun here. I'm strongly looking forward and would be glad if one would be adopted in a future version :)

I am sorry I missed this one.

I downloaded the software but did not realize you also had to install it right away. I love games like this.

I just heard about this website from a friend. It is a great site. I will continue to check back.

~Duri

1:
Its not really an RPG, more of a mage fight like Harry Potter fighting another wizard.

Also, Magi isn't a "new" word, its the plural word of Mage I belive :)

Wow I've been playing this all day. Addictive, I recommend playing at full speed maybe.

Warlock alternating small and strong attacks. Maybe keep a shield around.

The AI isn't all that bad for a shareware game, the Reapers pretty tough to beat, didn't expect
my player to die permently but wouldn't want it too easy.

Thanks for making such a cool game, I hope performance can be tweaked further in future.
One of the few games that runs glitch free even on my laptop which I run down speeded to a lowly
800Mhz to save battery life.

Just wanted to say thank's everybody for participating in the GiveAway ;).

Enjoy your copies of MAGI and remember to visit our forums at www.getmagi.com/forum. I hope to have more of interesting games for you in the future.

very fun!!

Swam,
never you mind the usually crowd of brown nosers. You know the crowd that are in awe of every Tom,Dick and Harry that has a brain fart translated into a game. It is rather clear from their writings that they are beyond clueless. Keep up the good work.

To Game seeker
If a person has such a slow connection that they can't be bothered to check out a different site to read a review then please tell me how they don't have a problem downloading 15 - 20 - 80Mb worth of game?

I find it ironic that I never saw you complain about games that were clearly bloated rubbish but I do see you complain about someone that takes time and effort (screenshots included) to test a game out.

Stephen a.k.a. Whiterabbit, as always thanks so much for your extensive reviews!

My favorite RPG/Strategy fan was initially interested in this game by the programmer's brief description. But upon reading your review and following your links he decided it wasn't quite what he wanted. It looks good to me and the screen shots look terrific. :)

As to the other subject, Stephen please leave your reviews here. I used to write reviews here too but have far less time these days. Additionally, this site's community once had a much nicer atmosphere. Stephen was great contributor to that nicer atmosphere. (Remember when the site first started, when it was just one site?) When I do still manage to get here I look for Stephen's reviews and skip other comments.

Another reviewer I trust is Merrill, and agree with her comments that those who create outside sites for reviews of this site's offers are mainly engaged in self-promotion. There are people in some countries who either have slower connections or do not have flat-fee unlimited access to the internet. Expecting them to go to another site, especially a slow-loading and graphics-intensive site, is just thoughtless! Even for those with fast connections or unlimited access, the practice is still exploitive of this site's guaranteed built-in audience. Ironic how those who DO engage in such exploitive acts and shameless self-promotion have never been among the best writers or reviewers here.

Stephen, please keep up the great work and many blessing to you on your continued recovery.

I gave this game a try and was sorely disappointed. On my Vista computer it was slower than a slug crawling through molassas in the winter.

But on my XP computer, it works like a charm. I love the game.

My only complaint is that it is not optimized to work on Vista.

I will be playing this game daily for quite a while.

Got it, tried it, LIKE IT a lot! Thanks much TeeGee! PS-graphics are wow! :)

Ok Whiterabbit, you talked me into trying it. Wow, I'm surprised! Nice graphics, great music and it *is* fun...confusing at first, but Tutor helps(and adds a personal touch).I can tell a lot of love went into this game and some really good ideas too. Thanks TeeGee for this keeper!

"Graphics card does not meet minimum requirements." I do have a 'lower-end' laptop.

Seriosuly, I think this is the best give away so far.. though the later levels get kind of cheap =/

and my doom missles never seem to go through their defenses after destroying, but lord do theirs never fail to =/

i have been playing this game for the last 3 hours. it is very addictive and fun to play.

~Swan, please tell us you're joking. What on God's green earth gives you the idea that people want to see your "reviews" on this page? Did I overlook some comments? The regular posters of "extended" reviews (WhiteRabbit, Merril, and the sorely-missed Game Seeker) are clearly well-informed and interested in giving a knowledgeable, helpful review of the day's game. Your reviews, like your site, are clearly about ~Swan. You have every right to a website of your own, but let's face it--your site is a poorly constructed, self-serving vanity project.
It's a wonder you have space for an amateurish stab at reviewing the work of others, what with countless ads, "vote-for-me-here" spots, and, (my personal favorite), offers to review stuff FOR PAY!!!
You've put on airs from day one, and time and time again you've shown that you don't know what you're talking about. Your attitude is grating, to put it mildly. Please, if you have an ounce of compassion, leave your reviews right where they are. If someone wants to see them, they'll click. It's not too much trouble. Honest.
By the way, there's no charge for my "no-punches-held" review of your site.

Well, my first experience with GGotD and I'm a little disappointed. Having to install something before the Giveaway period ends... maybe that should be a little more advertised. I lost out on three cool things because frankly, I didn't have the time or inclination to sit there and install it right. just. then. :( Meh.

Definitely my kind of game. There are many different strategies, and what works very well at first often turns out to become very hard later (such as maximum power/incantation at the cost of resistance). Graphics are hardly spectacular, but functional and as good as you could ever need in this kind of game. I like the music very well despite listening to it for several hours playing.

Someone already mentioned Magic the Gathering, and I agree this comparison is easy to arrive at. Where MTG Battlemage failed miserably to translate to realtime, Magi creates a great system. For those who enjoy this, Astral Masters may also be your thing. It has lots and lots of cards that you can mix and match for near unlimited strategies. Contrary to Magi it's turnbased, so which you like most will likely depend on whether you prefer that or realtime. I can't decide.

This is an excellent game, very well considered system, and balanced. Thumbs up, way up!

Its good to finally see some good games here, this and the game from yesterday have really given me something fun to do when im at work, thank you very much GAOTD

Great game! Highly addictive. The intro is kinda cheesy though. Otherwise two thumbs up!

One thing I fail to understand is how users like WhiteRabbit can post seemingly as many comments as they wish, and when I try to post, sometimes I can't get a single comment to appear on the page! I think the comments section of this site really needs some renovation so that users like WhiteRabbit don't get 16 comments per page, and users like me only get one or NONE. What is going on?

The game do have some minimal requirements and in general, won't run on lower-end laptops with integrated graphic chipsets. If you happen to posses one, that's probably the case. If not, I would need more info on you system specs.

Necromian, thanks for the comment. Glad to make you happy - that's what game designers should do, right? ;). Actually, I don't think that GameMaker has any sort of "bad name". It's a quite capable and convinient 2d engine and it's used in some successful commercial indie games. I really think that engine used doesn't matter, as long as the game is not limited by it.

Like iceman in #4. the game crashes before it starts. whats up?

OH MY! I'm so happy that I'm getting a chance to play this! I've played the demo countless times on the GMC and now I'm getting the full thing for free! Thanks GGOTD! I think it's wonderful how so many people think game maker is a terrible program, yet things like this and immortal defense can be created in it. I'm glad you're giving it a good name ^_^

Thanks for the review Stephen. Glad you liked the game.

Have fun, guys ;).

Oh dear, one of those instances where somehow the Submit button was highlighted and pressing space-bar entered it.... My last post should have read

#13 Thanks so much WR!

Nah, morphine or no morphine, no-one's reviews could sparkle like yours. Take good care and thanks again,

Merril

Overall, a very good game. It is unlike anything I have played before.

The only downside I've found so far is that I can't seem to use [ESC] to exit during a match.

Continue writing the excellent reviews Whiterabbit.

I played a demo of this a while ago. I believe it is created in Gamemaker, a game creation system. I was really impressed with the professionalism of it then. I was put off by the demo restrictions. I'm glad I can get the full game now.

Thanks GGotD :)

i agree with 5&6,sort of like most the games giving away,play one level you played them all,once i seen rpg game i figured it was going be good,but another b grade game,thanks anyway

Good morning everyone,

I see that many are unhappy with me just posting a link to my reviews. As such I'll copy and paste them here in the future.

The reason I moved to my own site, is that I now get paid for many of my reviews (not GGotD,) which wouldn't have happened if I'd simply stayed here alone.

I apologize for having made this an issue.
~ Swan

By the way, thanks again for everyones comments from yesterday. I've only just properly read them today as yesterday was hectic for me. In particual Nola and Merrils. I hope both of you are okay; and as Nola said yesterday, I do hope to see your reviews here again soon Merril. I love the way you add sparkle to your prose. It makes reading the reviews so much more interesting. Maybe if I stopped taking the morphine I could emulate you, but I doubt it, lol.

This looks like a very well crafted game, with gorgeous menus and excellent in game effects. The music is ethereal and appropriate to the games concept. The options menu has toggles for the music, sound effects, tutorial hints, detail level, color depth and speed. There’s also a Grimoire, which is basically your stats and awards page, although the term Grimoire is more normally known as a book with a collection of magical formulas or symbols with instructions for their use to attain certain ends. The book also describes magical beliefs (such as magical schools of thought) and practices. These books were prevalent from the late Medieval to early 18th Century. I had to look that up in a dictionary by the way, lol.

The introduction to the game, which is accessible from the main menu’s intro button is very basic, but thought provoking, with appropriate medieval music to accompany the AVI sequence. There are no actual instructions on how to play the game apart from the detailed in game tutorial, which I have taken screenshot off and intend to package up into a zip file and upload to my file front account, so if anyone who is goung to keep this game wants they will be able to download a set of instructions of sorts. I’ll post a link to the download later today (probably tonight as it’s almost time for the kids to come home from school and I’ve not finished uploading the screenshots yet, lol) once I’ve finished this review of the game. The whole game is accompanied by various pieces of music, all of which I enjoyed listening to. The intro music in particular found very relaxing. There are six tracks in total. All of them can be found in the games main folder. You’ll need an audio converter to convert the files from ogg to wav or mp3 though. Thankfully for those who have only just joined the giveaway project, the giveaway side of the project often gives away audio converters, then again check out the freeware library for freeware alternatives. :)

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/dir/50186/Download-Free-MP3-WMA-WAV-Converter.htm


For the best possible enjoyment out of this game it is important that you follow the in game tutorial. I’ve posted 19 screenshots of the tutorial, so you can see it will take more than a few minutes to get to grips with the game play; but in my opinion it will be worth it. (I like this sort of game occasionally, although I don’t profess to play much MMO games these days….I used to be seriously into Dungeons and Dragons before computers were common, playing it with several friends around a table for upwards of 24 hours at a time…. :). That was over 30 years ago though, lol.

At the start of the game the basics of the characters are explained; for example the attributes, force, incantation, resistance, communion and intellect. Basically as you gain experience you are given points which can be added to any one of the above attributes, thus improving that particular attribute. You may want to improve your defense, so add more of these experience points to Resistance, or you may want more powerful attack spells, so add your points to force etc.

You have 10 professions to choose from, for example, Magus, witch, Technolich, Pure one, Ice Queen, Necromancer and more. These belong to several schools of magic for example the destructive and protective schools of magic. Once you choose a character, it’s basic attributes remain unchanged, but you can mould the character into whatever you wish by adding the experience points to specific characteristics. Indeed, the main point of this game (apart from preparing yourself to meet death) is basically that. The rest is just eye candy. :) So…. You can see there is a lot of variability in this game. You can find out more information about the schools, professions and spells by right clicking the mouse over the symbols that you find throughout the game. They are always available to the right of the playing arena.

At the start of the game you are talked through everything you need to know about what to do via the long tutorial (It doesn’t really take that long), and is straight forwards. You start with two spells each from the four schools of magic. There are 28 spells in total, seven each for the four schools; however 19 of these are unknown at the start of the game. During each round you can queue a certain number of spells, which show up below the spells index to the right of the playing arena.

From a very brief time spent playing this game, my impression is of a good gaming experience with loads of potential game play; trying out the different characters and using different spell tactics and combinations. This game should appeal to those with lots of patience, or who like something different from the run of the mill arcade games; however If you want instant action, then this isn’t the game for you as you do need to ponder the game a little at every stage, attempting to build up a character that will be able to win the ultimate prize of ‘immortality’ This is almost a fully fledged game as opposed to an arcade game. I’m impressed at how small the file size is considering the music, AVI file and the rest of the game. :)

The game works fine on my Vista computer and for those with hand disabilities, the game is fully controlled by the mouse.

I personally enjoyed it and give it 7 out of 10 for playability, and originality. Some may find it a little complex at first, but bear with it and I think you’ll find a gem of a game that you’ll be returning to many times in the future.

Thank you Tee Gee and the Game giveaway team for such an unusual arcade game. It’s definitely different from anything that has been given away before.

Follow the link below for the captured tutorials and other screenshots of the game; and, if your interested check back much later for a download link for a hard copy of the tutorial screenshots.

All on two pages:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Magi/

As a slideshow:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Magi/?action=view&slideshow=true


Have a great Tuesday folks


The link below is for the downloadable tutorials. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I didn’t bother renaming each of the images which you may find is a useful exercise. I suggest placing the unzipped and edited tutorials into the installed game folder. You could even create a shortcut to the game shortcut and tutorial, so that whenever you start up the game, you can remind yourself of the game play. This will be useful for those who (like me) tend to leave a game unfinished for months at a time.

http://files.filefront.com/Tutorials+for+Magirar/;8811027;/fileinfo.html

Thanks for all the positive comments, guys.

I hope you'll have tons of fun with the game. Also, feel free to join MAGI forums, if you would like to get some strategy tips... or anything else ;).

Good luck in your duels :).

Hi, I just wanted to say that although I unfortunately cannot review this game today, I have just read yesterday's comments and wanted to thank #45 NolafromNZ for her kind words; I will hopefully be able to review daily again soon, thank you again for what you said X

A very good Game Maker game! Loved the demo on the Game Maker Community and love the full game.

Wow ! That is great game ! I like it !

I downloaded the demo of this once and got hooked on it. Thank you ggaotd

I downloaded and played this game.

Its kinda indepth with all the different types of spells. It has an overhead view that is a common battlefield that doesnt move scroll or change. It does have beautiful graphics [colors] of clouds and fire. It is kinda like a dual against opponents that stand in front of you. Over all, i really didnt like the game play. it reminds me of the card game magic- or somethin like that. I guess [as the opponent fires spells at you] you gotta prepare spells and they fire back.

not really my type of game. i only played it for about 10 minutes.

I do like dungeons and dragon style games, and may play this again later.

Not my kind of RPG, too boring for me. I like the adventure RPG.

Currently getting the following error immediately upon trying to run the game:

'Magical Strategy Game has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.' (eg just your standard XP program crash notice)

Program does not get far enough to post an error log in the install file, no further info on the crash is available. Any ideas?

allow me to rephrase ...

a lot of fun!!

if I could give it two thumbs up .. I would ..

good idea, kinda fun .. only downside is the lack of being able to change the screenmode .. at all.. not even to a windowed mode ..

still - thumbs up

This is new . Not only is the kind of game but also the name ^^" Anyway , since I've never tried RPG be4 , I think this one will be just great . Thanks alot GAOTD :D