The Magic Circle Early Access Review
GameSpot's early access reviews evaluate unfinished games that are nonetheless available for purchase by the public. While the games in question are not considered finished by their creators, you may still devote money, time, and bandwidth for the privilege of playing them before they are complete. The review below critiques a work in progress, and represents a snapshot of the game at the time of the review's publication.
Like with any scene of disaster, it's hard to avert your eyes from The Magic Circle. The monochrome world it depicts is a shambles of spectacular proportions, so thoroughly misjudged that there's an almost perverse allure to it. Here, the genres of high-fantasy and sci-fi collide inexplicably; to the south of the game’s map lies a mountain-sized hand that reaches up to the heavens, while to the east stands a vast star-gate holding open a cosmic tear into another galaxy. Spread between these two landmarks is a vulgar wasteland of unfinished artwork and abandoned structures, often rendered in hurried black scribbles. Various interiors are stripped down to placeholder textures, while elsewhere internal dev annotations remain exposed. Key characters, meanwhile, have yet to be animated. It's as if a snow of bad ideas had fallen overnight.
All of this, however, is intentional. The Magic Circle is a fictional game project plunged in limbo, developed and farcically mismanaged over two decades by the (also fictional) games industry icon Ishmael Gilder. Famed for his Spectrum-era text adventures, Gilder commenced work on The Magic Circle in the mid-nineties, seemingly inspired by the System Shock brand of sci-fi that was popular at the time. Then, some ten years later (probably as The Lord of the Rings fever reached its peak) it was decided that the project needed to be wholesale rebuilt with a new fantasy setting. Now, just days before its “E4” world premiere, it is neither sci-fi or fantasy; it has become a black-and-white fiasco, waiting to be exposed.
In fourth-wall breaking fashion, you play as yourself beta-testing it (occasionally your Steam profile appears on screen, and during one unnerving journey into the game’s code, it lists your exact PC specs). While the industry’s propensity for hero narratives would suggest your role would be to rescue The Magic Circle from certain disaster, the opposite is true. Old Pro, an abandoned character from the sci-fi build who is now a ghost haunting the game world, wants you to sabotage Gilder’s rescue project. And so begins a story of vengeance against the gods who have built a digital dystopia. Burn it all down.
However, a problem: Gilder’s team has yet to finish coding combat features, meaning your character is little more than a first-person camera with an erect right hand. Old Pro, armed with an intimate knowledge of the game’s rules, bestows upon you a spell that can cast a magic circle over nearby items and enemies. Anything trapped inside this digital lasso becomes a convulsing glitch and, at the press of a button, the player can rewire its synapses.
Once teleported inside the matrix of an in-game character’s code, a surprising degree of alterations can be made. Does it move by land or air? Does it even move at all? Who are its allies? Who are its foes? Is it fireproof? Can it attract electrical signals? Does it attack with teleport beams? Is it part of a wider hive-mind? Can it heal others?
The sheer number of possibilities on offer, and the way in which you are free to discover them yourself, is perhaps The Magic Circle’s greatest achievement. You can assemble a platoon of fire-breathing rocks, if you wish, supported by a paramedic unit of giant metallic wasps. Or, just for kicks, you could instead send out a pack of dogs with mind-manipulation powers. Experimenting with the alchemy of NPC behaviours is essential for progress, and while the solutions to some challenges (such as a horde of spiders defending a castle) are rather straightforward, elsewhere you'll spot puzzles and riddles that require more elaborate thinking. A key placed far out of reach, or a lethal turret at the end of a narrow corridor, inspires creative improvisation and small eureka moments.
Equally rewarding is the riddle at the game’s heart. Early on, you’ll spot a character stranded on a distant platform to the east of the map. Key to your revenge plot is casting your spell on this character, and while at first this seems impossible, the creations and ideas you encounter across the rest of the game will eventually give you enough tools and ideas to fashion your own solution. (There are, by the way, at least two possible ways to solve this final puzzle). Not since Portal 2 has a game so expertly taken you on that emotional journey from pure bamboozlement to sharp, bright, blissful clarity.
That’s not to say The Magic Circle is as accomplished as Valve’s flagship puzzle game in other key aspects. Cut-scenes eventually become rather tedious, and the dark comedy isn’t as sharp as it needed to be. It also would have benefited from a basic command tutorial--as far as three-quarters into the game, I was unaware that there was a jump button.
The overarching story, in particular, is disappointing. Clearly there is a challenge in portraying Gilder and his team, due to their existence in a physical world outside of the game. But the proposed solution--collectable audio tapes and virtual in-game avatars of floating illuminati eyes--falls short. As does the script, which is too preoccupied with uninteresting double-crosses, petty office politics, and flabby monologues. Don’t be surprised if you fail to connect with any single character by the time the credits roll; their motivations are too vague, their redeeming qualities unknown.
The same shouldn’t be said for the unnamed island itself, which is bursting with character and imagination. Unforgettably bizarre and abstract structures dominate the landscape, giving the unnamed island a mystifying, dream-like quality. Clouds of ink float across the sky, as though they were ideas that never landed, while towering space-station facilities dominate the skyline with purposely appalling jaggies (there is no anti-aliasing in developer hell).
Perhaps the most imaginative idea of all can be found through the burrow holes that are dotted across the wasteland. These underground pathways lead you to the original sci-fi build of the game, as though Gilder and his team had buried it like a dark secret. It’s the little details of this space station that impress the most; the lo-fi synth melodies, the modest beeps and bloops to save audio memory, the PlayStation-era texture mapping--it is all so legitimately ‘90s.
One cannot avoid the irony here: The Magic Circle is an interactive metaphor for development hell--a fairground mirror-image of a game project that has not been cared for. Yet it is also a more interesting place to visit than many of the spotless, by-the-book examples of sci-fi and fantasy games which it apes. For all The Magic Circle’s other shortcomings, such a unique quality makes it a worthy consideration.
What’s There? | A four-hour single-player campaign, which unlocks a very basic game editor once completed. Those who want to return after completion can begin a treasure hunt of hard-to-reach developer notes. |
What’s to Come? | Nothing has been announced, and unless entirely new features are added, it would appear that this build is near-final. It’s not exactly clear why this version is on Early Access. |
How Much Does it Cost? | |
When Will it Be Finished? | No comment on a final release date. |
What’s The Verdict? | A striking, unique, inventive, abstract puzzle-adventure let down by its writing and cut-scenes. |
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