GameMaster: MAGUS

Great idea and looks truly to be a solid start at development. I encountered no bugs in my short play time, I'll probably put another hour into it just out of curiosity. The problems are simple: 1) Lack of updates 2) Lack of explanations about what's currently in the game, how to properly structure quests, events, etc. 3) Lack of information from the dev. It's obvious that this is a solo dev or small team and normally I'd hold off on the negative with that in mind. But I've owned it a year and there's been nothing done in that time that I can see so it's most likely a dead project. Seems like an awesome idea and seems like it was off to a solid start so I'm not sure why it hasn't improved. Time, money, health, who knows, but there isn't enough here to justify buying it at any price without some signs of life from the developer. He responded to other reviews so maybe he'll respond here. If it gets updated I'll be more than happy to review it again at that time.

From the screenshots I couldn't tell what's the gameplay about, but given they wrote "Magus is a unique RPG simulation, bringing you the ultimate role to play in RPG games: The Game Master", I thought it would be similar to a Dungeon Keeper game. However, it's barely an RPG and barely a card playing game. User interaction is limited to placing cards onto the playfield (cities and locations on the map), and that's it, literally. Then it turns into a waiting game where you look at giant men running around a huge map from location to location and "completing quests", then you get more cards to put on the playfield.. There is also a fog of war, even though you don't have an opponent or any reason to worry about not getting information from a region. In all game modes you are going to be spending time looking on a big empty map, there are no battles to be fought, no cities to explore, nothing, you control nothing, neither a unit like in a HoMM game, nor a single character, and you can't manage anything other than which card to put on the screen. -sidenote, AFAIK, MAGUS is played with dice, not cards, and in this version you are being told that there is a diceroll, but just as with everything else, you have no say in it, not even a dice roll animation or anything - I can't recommend it, actually I would advise everyone to wait until the game is out of EA, because as it is now, there is barely anything in it to play with. It's also hard to look at, the art style and the presentation is dull and repetitive, it's basically a handful of assets all around a huge terrain. But, if you love reading, there is plenty of text about cities, with generic information like how much fish they have and info on Economy, Army and whatnot (not that it's relevant, since you don't know what those mean, and there is no way you can interact with the cities other than placing cards on them). It would be also nice to get gameplay videos from the devs because it is really really hard to know what you are getting into right now. For those who would like to play card games, Gwent and Heartstone are out and free, for DM roleplaying, you are better off with War for the Overworld or, you know, Dungeon Keeper.

Not a good game... tutorial needs a lot of work. Doesn't explain things clearly enough.

This review should hopefully serve to enlighten those on the fence about this game; as has been mentioned before it is hard to figure out what this game is without actually playing it. I also would point out that this review is not a hard pass, as there is limited potential, I suppose. TL;DR: Gameplay is shallow and repetitive, with no reason to care about anything in the world. All you do is place cards to level up to unlock more cards to place, and ultimately for what purpose? The game doesn't say. In depth review below: As one reviewer stated, there is hardly any gameplay to speak of here; the entirety of the gameplay is as follows: You start off with a hand of cards and a small portion of the map revealed, which you can place on locations for adventurers to complete. By successfully completing said cards the adventurers will gain gold and gems for you that fill 2 bars, when these bars are filled you can click them to level up; each time you do so you get to pick 1 of 3 cards to unlock. The stragegy aspect, if you could call it that, is that once your hand is depleted you have to pay gold to draw more cards, either a full hand or one by one, thus lowering the gold bar. Cards range from +1 cards such as location or adventurers which allow you to summon additional adventurers or unlock additional locations on the map, monster cards for your adventurers to fight, tasks for your adventurers to do, a +time bonus to extend the timer of the cards you put down, a rarity type to change the rarity, and a class type to match it to a specific class. There are also bigger chained quests that you can place on towns, each quest has slots for the location (which can only be placed on its specific location) an event, like Pirates or the like, a class slot, and a time bonus slot. Below these slots you can place as many cards, such as challenges or monsters, as you want. There seems to be a cost associated with this, but I couldn't swear to it, and the more cards the more difficult the quest and the greater reward. These quests also have a timer, but you activate it when you are ready to do so, as with every other quest the adventurers will either do them or they won't, and other than matching a certain class with what you put down you have no control over this whatsoever. There are also specific story quests which require specific cards to complete, you then play whatever cards don't need to be saved while gathering the cards you do need; once you have them you assemble the quest, click the timer, and hope for the best; as before they will either do them or they won't; if they can't complete said quest (or don't bother to) and the time expires, then you get to do it all over again until they succeed. It is also worth noting on these chained quests that once a card is added to it, it CANNOT be removed, and until the quest runs its course you will never draw said cards again unless you have multiple copies. So if you accidently place a card down on one of these quests, or change your mind at any time, tough luck, although these quests can also be dismissed if you so choose. The biggest flaw that I see is that due to the lack of interaction with the world, there is plenty of information provided about things, but no reason to care. Towns give vague information and list things such as trainable skills and the goods they have, the adventurers list character traits and attributes and weapons, but there is no reason to care in the slightest about any of that because ultimately it doesn't really mean anything. The location of where you place cards doesn't really matter, I assume it might as you unlock more of the map if you wanted to try to entice a particular character to do a particular quest for some reason, as then you'd place it close to them, but other than that it doesn't really matter. Adventurers can be renamed, which is a nice touch, but honestly I couldn't be bothered to care about whatever their name was in the first place, let alone come up with a new one. They can also form opinions of other adventurers, which is meaningless other than just to be there. The crux of the game is this; loads of meaningless information that is just there to be there. There is no reason to care about any of it, those I suppose these small details are a nice touch as well as far as fleshing out the world. Ultimately my time in the game ( which was all spent in the tutorial, mind you) consisted of playing cards at random, just willy nilly, and not giving two ♥♥♥♥♥ if the adventurers completed them or not. If I had a class modifier or a rarity modifier I used it, and if I had a location I would just pile them on the chained quest. Ultimately I had to quit because of a bug of some sort that has caused the game to crash upon reloading my save, but I was stuck anyways due to be poorly given directions; there is a quest in which all it says is "Find a way to cause your adventurers to pass your hardest quest yet", and the few times I initiated the quest after gathering the requisite cards, they largely ignored it all together, and when they did try they failed it, but I was not clear in what way they had failed; it might be their stats weren't high enough, therefore I think I needed to use some of the required cards and use them to get their stats up, and then attempt it when I thought they were ready. Not that I really felt the motivation to do that; like I said I couldn't be bothered to care if they succeeded or not, as all I would have gotten for my troubles anyways would be more cards to put down randomly to see if they did them or not. Ultimately what little gameplay there is is very repetitive; to be honest I don't have a problem with that, however, what is the point? Do I just play cards and level up endlessly until I get bored? Is there some ultimate endgame goal to strive for, or do I win once I reace a certain level, or what? The game does not expain what the ultimate point of the game is, it just says that the bigger quests tell a story, but let me tell you, english is clearly not this guys first language, so often times it is hard to make sense of what he is even saying. There is also a sandbox mode where apparantly you play with everything already unlocked from the get go, which sounds even more pointless to me, because unlocking cards by leveling up is all there is to do in this game. Play cards to level up to unlock more cards to play to level up more, to unlock even MORE cards to play, but for what? Given that if I were to continue to play I would have to start over again, that is a no for me, and I have since requested a refund. I would consider repurchasing this again, but NOT at full price; if you charge a premium price, I expect a premium product. This is not. A word of advice to the developers concerning the level up bars, there needs to be better feedback than just flashing when it is time to level up; far too often I had filled the bars and didn't realize it, causing me to waste my time, unless the gold and gems you earn after that point carry over (I couldn't tell). If they don't, they should. Perhaps a non-intrusive sound effect would be nice.

Um jogo diferente, mas só recomendo a compra se estiver em uma grande promoção, eu peguei 90% de desconto. Basicamente você cria quests para os NPCs usando cartas, usando elas isoladamente ou em conjunto em diversas combinações entre as cartas. A Sua propria quest é criar algumas quests usando uma receita exata pedida pela quest.

Avant toute chose je précise que cette évaluation est susceptible d'être modifiée lorsque le jeu sera finalisé (même si nous en sommes proche v.0.9.7). Vous commencez le jeu avec un aventurier (sélectionné au hasard par le jeu), vous disposez de cartes qui vous permettront d'envoyer votre aventurier explorer la carte, augmenter ses compétences et accomplir des quêtes, augmenter votre taille de main et recruter d'autres aventuriers qui grimperont de niveau (tous seuls sans que vous puissiez choisir quoique ce soit) et... c'est tout ! Oui oui, c'est tout ! L'intérêt du jeu (en tout cas tel que je l'ai compris) sera alors de débloquer d'autres cartes, pour construire des quêtes plus complexes et plus rémunératrices (en or pour dépenser des cartes et en XP pour vos aventuriers). Ce jeu est plutôt joli, a du potentiel mais pour le moment ne propose pas un contenu suffisant. Je l'ai obtenu à 10% de son prix, ce qui m'a convaincu de ne pas me faire rembourser (et j'ai envie de voir ce que ça va finalement donner). Mon conseil donc : wait & see !