Ova Magica

This game is not for everyone, and it isn't perfect by a long shot, but it seems like the dev basically tailor-made it specifically to my tastes. Josh's Gaming Garden's review was pretty accurate: it's simple in all the ways it needs to be simple, the turn based battle mechanic is really fun (and 80% of what you'll be doing), and the creature breeding mechanic is strangely in depth in a way I like. Midgame is VERY grindy in a way I didn't like, but my advice to newbies is to max out friendship with Flint ASAP and that grind lessens significantly. Also surprisingly well written with brutally authentic portrayals of normal but harrowing life stuff a lot of people go through? It goes to some surprisingly dark but very earned places and sometimes you forget you're playing a game about blobs. Everyone (except Ruby) has an arc that makes sense and motivations that make them much more understandable and likable by the end, even if they're abrasive at first. Yes, even Lapis and Carnelian! I wanted more of these characters (barring Ruby) and ended up being sad that I couldn't invite everyone (except Ruby; she still sucks) to my wedding. On that note: The romance/marriage mechanic seems rushed and extremely shallow by comparison, likely because it was tacked on at the last minute for 1.0. Maybe wait for a couple more updates if you were looking forward to that. The 2D character art is *phenomenal* though!! As someone who'd never heard of Ova Magica until 1.0 (thanks Josh's Gaming Garden) and wasn't there for a lot of the rough early development, I absolutely *adore* the final product. Looking forward to more shippy content in the future if that's on the dev's radar (pls), but for now my focus is going to be breeding a shimmering monstrosity that will treat the friendly tournaments like a wood chipper treats a rotten log!

[h1]Introduction[/h1] I played a lot of farming/creature collector games out there and many of them failed to satisfy me. I dunno what it is about the the Stardew x Pokemon formula that makes it so hard, but I think I finally understand why. A lot of those games tried to incorporate ALL the features of farming life sims and creature collectors in order to bring out a "complete experience" for the player. On the other hand, Ova Magica (which I affectionately nickname as "Blob Farm") does the opposite. Ova Magica cuts the annoying parts of both genres to fuse together what is the ideal mix of farming life sim with creature collector that elevates the genre mix to its heights and stand above the others. [h1]Gameplay - Creature Collector[/h1] Gone are the complex aspects of creature collectors. Instead of a million different elements, there's only three. Instead of a bunch of stats and hidden stats to focus on, there's only a handful and they're all visible. Moves no longer have all these weird interactions. Here, they either do damage, buff, debuff, or a combination of them. There's no evolutions, blobs shouldn't evolve anyway since that's how they stay cute. The simplicity sounds like a downgrade at first, but the more I play it, the more I realized how creature collectors bloated themselves with mechanics to the point where it's unfun. Ova Magica, instead, takes several steps back in order to stay in the fun zone and that's where it chooses to stay. Breeding is fun, no need to hunt for ideal parents with IV's and all that stuff to pass down. Just find two cute blobs, fuse them together, and get something even cuter. Blob appearances can be practically anything with how the breeding system works. You can breed any blob with any other and get something that's a mix between the two. I bred a turtle blob with a fox and ended up getting a turtle with fox ears and fox tail. It's the most adorable thing ever. [h1]Gameplay - Farming Life Sim[/h1] Just like with the creature collector aspect, the farming life sim had a bunch of things gutted from the typical slog, too. Seed planting and all that stuff is still there but gone are the crop quality variances. No more pickling. No more turning things to wine. You can no longer gift the love candidates, but IMO, that's fine since having a wiki open just to know who to gift what isn't a great way to play. Instead, you can challenge them to Blob Battles and get extra social points that way. A great replacement for gifting IMO. No more randomized mine diving. There's still a mine you dive into, but it's static and the nodes all produce a number of chunks of ore at a time. So as long as you know your mining pattern, it's just in and out and not a total day waster like it is with other farming life sims. Crafting structures on your farm/in your house/barns is done straight from the work bench onto the field/room. No need to turn it into an inventory item and lug it around personally to place it. However, the part that makes Ova Magica stand above the rest of the farming life sims x creature collectors is how it incorporates the blobs into the mix. For most of the competitors, the farming life sim and creature collector aspect feels hugely divorced and do no interact with each other. For Ova Magica, that's the complete opposite. Blobs are a major part of the farming system as they have abilities that help water crops, till the soil, plant seeds, harvest en masse, etc. The thing that impressed me the most were the Blob Barns. Normally, I disliked animal husbandry in most farming life sims as they require a ton of work. Blob Barns here can become hugely automated. Not only that, the range of products the Blobs produce surprised even me. You've got your standard milk, eggs, wool (yarn in the game). But then you also have Blobs that generate butterflies, coal, candy, even coins, Each new Blob type found became a surprise if it's a boon to the barn or farm fields. [h1]Graphics / Music[/h1] The PS2 era graphics combined with cute anime art really fit the vibe of the game well. It felt like I was transported back to the golden era of gaming and chilling on my couch while I played this game. The music is soft and cozy. Overall, the presentation is super healing. [h1]Quality of Life[/h1] Ho boy. This game is jam packed with quality of life stuff. Right off the bat, you get a town map with where all the bachelor/ettes are. There's a fast travel system. You get a global storage right off the bat, it has organization tabs, and there's a global storage near every fast travel structure and then some. There's little icons on corner of shop items and cooking recipes to tell you which things haven't been submitted to the museum yet or claimed as a recipe. There's a lot of QoL features disguised in the form of Blob abilities, too. Such as the angler fish Blob's ability to greatly increase the bite rate of fish, or the ability to put some wild Blobs asleep and get past them. All in all, the game dev knows what frustrates people with farming life sims and aims to reduce that frustration through a variety of QoL features. To that, the 60 hour of gameplay time I've had with this game has been a massive joy. [h1]Gameplay Loop[/h1] Most games of this genre typically have divorced gameplay loops. People either do only farming or creature collecting when it best suits them. Instead, here, they're very much intertwined. Farming is boosted by the Blobs you collect through either their farm yard abilities or their barn production. These fuel the money and resources used to go diving into the Blob Worlds, a series of randomized dungeons with a different variety of Blobs to capture. Upon coming back, the new Blobs have more farming or barn abilities to utilize and the loop continues. The game gets more and more comfortable the more you play and progress. On that note, for the life sim side of things, heart events can unlock new structures for you to build. This is something I've seldom seen in other games where Heart Events in most life sims. The majority of life sim Heart Events are just cutscenes and nothing else. Here, they have purpose and give a very strong incentive to get the Heart Events of all the major candidates in the game. On top of that, the writing for these cutscenes are top notch. The structures are the bait, but the writing is the real hook. There's some tear jerkers, heart string clutchers, and straight up goofy moments to laugh out loud at. Incredibly well done by the game dev. The game's pacing is fantastic IMO. Seasons didn't feel too long or too short and there were just enough festivals to keep things interesting. Due to how the Heart Events unlock new structures to be built, there's a steady introduction of new things to do in the game and new mechanics to explore. [h1]Negatives[/h1] There really aren't many and I admittedly have to go out of my way to find some. The only thing that really comes to mind is that it's a bit cumbersome to feed Blobs in your party and use their abilities (where you have to hold down shift, move next to the Blob, highlight the item in your inventory, and press F). However, it offers more of that nostalgic PS2 experience where there's always that one weird clunky mechanic to make you take a deep breath but still smile at because its feeding animation is amazingly cute. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] All in all, I had a very unexpected good experience with Ova Magica. While the life sim and creature collecting aspects of the genre mix are greatly simplified, they were simplified for the better in order to let the strengths of the game play out. The aesthetics are super charming, the gameplay seldom got old for me, and I absolutely love the writing. Looking forward to more from the dev, either as DLC or as a new game.

I love Ova Magica; I do. Coming off the back of playing the infinitely more popular and well known "Wylde Flowers" vs this is night and day. I have also recently replayed Coral Island, a game I love and keep playing due to its freedom and depth of how you approach it. The way I see life sims is this, there are two kinds- the very indepth, sprawling, highly detailed games like Stardew Valley and Coral Island- and the more focused, simpler, boiled down games clearly made for all ages like Wylde Flowers. Ova Magica certainly falls into the second category; but where Wylde Flowers failed for me, Ova Magica has been succeeding in droves. Now, straight off the back I must say I am a kickstarter backer, which naturally may lead for some changed perceptions- but I have played many of my own kickstarter games that failed in my eyes, even if they reached commercial success. One thing that always worried me about the game was its graphics- even back in the kickstarter days. It feels Chibi and overly cutesy to the point of where I was afraid I just wouldn't take it seriously. Right off the bat I must say that in-game I don't have that problem. The game, while cartoony, matches its setting and gameplay perfectly without feeling overly childish. The screenshots do not do it justice, but it isn't nearly as childish in game. Gameplay wise, it is rather shallow, the battle mechanics are simple- but also fun and rewarding. The daily grind is repetivie, but sprinkled with many different item rewards, foraging tasks and some of the best heart events I have ever seen in a life sim. Unlike many games, where heart events are just sequences- this game has a surprisingly deep number of interactions with the heart events. Some contain small quests or items to bring, they may span over multiple locations and even reveal things about their friends and families along the way. Most importantly they all involve you explicitly, and doing each one is fun- rather than a chore. This is an important distinction too, because doing these heart events is directly tied to the games main progression. You can't actually progress in the battle league without befriending everyone at least a little. Honestly, this is likely one of the weaker elements because befriending everyone to 2 hearts, while it works for me and the way I play, may not be the thing for everyone else. But doing so does allow for more interesting interactions in the heart events so I'm not sure. The main thing isn't the farming, but the combat and mystery dungeon style exploration. Every day after talking to everyone, you can battle them. Battling is important as it gives you item/gold rewards, but also powers up the other NPCs in town. This helps you get more powerful blobs to train with, AND in the case of the "friendables" even more power for your dungeon explorations. The dungeons - or "blob worlds" are diverse and contain a lot of unique items and interactions. At the time of writing I have just visited the third world, the candy world, which introduced a whole bunch of things I wasnt expecting. This dungeon not only has the normal items, of most dungeons, but even its own currency for buying things from a giant gumball machine. The pirate world may have fish traps you can empty and even the original magical forest world offers new unique loot and fun things to unlock and explore. Honestly, the game itself is full of exploration, unlocks and surprises. Beyond the dungeons, as the friendship levels increase you begin building a number of new buildings in town. Inspired by the whims and dreams of the people you are befriending, you literally start to bankroll the town's construction. Each building adding new NPCs to talk to, new things to do, and changes to the personalities and routines of the characters involved. Even the non-friendable NPCs have their own little storylines you can follow over the days, and it is really interesting to see the world development and unlocks the further you go. Wylde Flowers never sat right with me because it felt like it was holding my hand to the point of no matter how much I explored and progresed, I could never do anything in my own time, but the game's time instead. I would finish everything, then I HAD to finish the main quest to get new things. I hate that about a game, I like being able to really focus on something and be rewarded for it. This is where Ova Magica strides; depending on what you do, where you go, there are so many things to buy and do in your own order, sometimes I feel I am able to through skill and perseverence go further than I was "meant to" and this feels really good. Being able to beat a boss early, get a new tier of equipment faster than the game expected, it all just feels fun and reactive. Honestly, while it is a very simple and accessible game on the surface, it really scratches that Cozy Games itch, I could talk longer on all of these things but let me just say; Ova Magica while not my favourite life sim, is certainly incredibly good at what it does, and I am very happy I backed it.

Hey zusammen ! ^-^ Ich habe das Spiel inzwischen sehr lange gespielt: 107 Stunden, 30 von 43 Erfolgen freigeschaltet, und es macht mir immer noch mega viel Spaß! Am Anfang muss ich gestehen, dass mich die Grafik etwas abgeschreckt hat. Die könnte wirklich noch verbessert werden, bitte! Aber davon abgesehen ist das Spiel absolut empfehlenswert. Es fühlt sich ein bisschen an wie ein Mix aus Trainer-Spiel und Stardew Valley, macht richtig viel Laune und die Geschichten sind spannend. Nicht nur die der NPCs, sondern auch die Hintergrundgeschichte der Welt selbst überrascht immer wieder. Sehr gut finde ich auch, dass man kaum etwas googeln muss. Das Spiel erklärt vieles selbst und liefert einem die nötigen Lösungen direkt mit. Ein kleiner Kritikpunkt ist die deutsche Übersetzung. Die müsste an einigen Stellen noch einmal überarbeitet werden. Außerdem werde ich in Dialogen manchmal als Mann angesprochen, obwohl ich eine Frau spiele. Das ist etwas schade. Zusammen mit der Grafik ist das für mich aber bisher der einzige wirkliche Nachteil. Bis dahin spiele ich das Spiel weiter und genieße es :)

If you enjoy harvest moon and pokemon this game is perfect. The breeding system is addictive trying to make the perfect blob for battling. The only weak point is the character design but it’s still charming and simple. Hopefully we see an ova magica 2 one day it would be an instant buy.

I've been playing this game since early access, back when we only had three blob worlds and if you wanted to feed your barn blobs for several days you had to have a dozen food tables in there. I liked the game then, and I adore the game now. The idea of not having upgrades like sprinklers or a better watering can, but instead having blobs that do the job instead is just fun. The blob battling and breeding is simple, but feels fun to do and isn't frustrating to get the kind of blobs you want. Even getting the blobs with special passives through 'perfect' breeding has a ton of leeway, and makes it fun, rather than a slog. The characters are fun, maybe not super deep, but they all have nice stories that are enjoyable to go through. The farming sim part of it is fun, too, and I never felt pressured to farm as much as possible and scrape up money. There are even flower crops designed just to help you make money, so you can use your crops to feed and power up your blobs. The two integrate very nicely. The blob battling part of it is great for two reasons. One, it gives a good break from the farming part of it, and keeps the flow of gameplay going much more smoothly. I don't have to stare at cabbages all winter. I can breed my slimes, battle them in blob worlds, or go fight in the tournament to progress the story a little. Two, if you're not good at the battling, or just want a farming sim, you can just click it on Easy. You can go back and forth from Normal to Easy battles whenever you want, with no penalties. Overall, this game is really fun. It's one of the few farming sim games where I feel like there's a solid End, where I could either keep breeding blobs and making silly creatures, or start a new save file and try out different blobs and see what I end up with. The QoL in 1.0 is also absolutely fantastic, too. I can absolutely recommend this game as a relaxing, enjoyable time.

I was not an early access/Kickstarter support and only discovered this game by chance when 1.0 went live here on Steam. I don't often post reviews, but I enjoyed this one so much that I felt the need. At 63 hours I just finished getting my last achievement, and even so there is still plenty more depth to the game I could continue to play with. Judging by the dev's comments in the community discussion, this is a passion project for them and it shows. I hope that this game gets more content added in the future because I will absolutely come back and play this again later down the line. If I had to make a direct comparison, the closest game I could compare it to would be Rune Factory 4. If you enjoyed that, you will love this as well. The characters are endearing, the pacing of different activities on the calendars keeps it dynamic, and you have a lot of freedom in how you play. I would call out that there is a good bit of progression that is locked behind the monster battle aspects of the game. I did find the battles to get a bit tedious about halfway through, but I dropped the battle difficulty to easy and it brought the pacing back to where I wanted it. Having finished the game I would not count that as a negative. With the power of hindsight that is more a symptom of me not understanding how important breeding is for building an effective team. While you can grind through battles, breeding stronger blobs appears to be the intended route for progression. All that said, I played through the game with the same couple blobs I grabbed at the start so you aren't forced to do any of that. All in all, this is a great buy at full price and a do not miss if it happens to go on a deeper sale.

一開始覺得這遊戲畫風可愛又簡陋 應該玩不久，結果不知不覺就玩了快100小時 女角都很可愛 男角可能就還好了 一開始還很煩惱沒有想追的對象 還特別討厭拉皮斯www 隨著天數慢慢過去 反而越來越喜歡拉皮斯XD 後面每天都去找他喝咖啡聊是非 寵物也是為了繁殖技能跟想要的外觀，狂SA 弄到快抓狂 如果不在乎外觀只在乎技能 應該不會刷這麼痛苦

it's basically harvest moon + pokemon + slime rancher combined the game is good, easily 9/10

Dieses Spiel..... keine Ahnung wie ich es beschreiben soll, es fühlt sich an wie eine Mischung aus Lufia mit Harvest Moon und Pokemon, nur eben als hätten die drei eine wilde Orgie gefeiert und Ova Magica ist enstanden. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf den Blobs, die niedliche Wesen aus Fabeltieren und echten Tieren sind, nur eben sehr gut im Fudfud <3. Ich muss tatsächlich hier überlegen, wo ich anfangen soll...ich fange am Anfang an. ClaudiatheDev muss eine ziemlich geniale und coole Person sein, weil mich nerven normalerweise diese überacted cute Scenes oder Hollywood-Style, weswegen ich oft einfach Dialoge "wegdrücke...blablabla...zeig mir was ich machen muss". Diese Claudia hat anscheinend sehr viel Kaddi geschaut oder ein ähnliches Humorbefinden. Auch die komischen Geräusche der Männeken und der Blobs klingen nicht überdreht, sondern mal will wissen, was als nächstes absurdes passiert. Ich spiels jetzt das zweite Mal, weil ich nochmal über alles nachgrinsen möchte <3. Die Vertonung ist eher spartanisch und erinnert so an einen Mix an Bud Spencer und eben frühkindlichen japanischen Humor, der nicht überdreht wirkt. Ich bin schon soooooo gespannt, wie die Geschichten weitergehen. So Tabula Rasa Claudia, wie ist das Spiel sonst so? - Du hast daran gedacht uns direkt eine grosse Kiste zu geben in der wir uns lagertechnisch austoben können. - Dafür ist das Inventar am Anfang echt etwas zu klein, gerade weil man mit den Werkzeugen nur 2 Slots hat. Und ich hätte vielleicht gerne noch etwas mehr gemacht, als alle 2 Minuten zu einem magischen Lager zu rennen (aber ich kann verstehen, dass das einzige Mittel war ein Gefühl des Anfangs zu vermitteln, weil alles andere ist ja eher ein schnurriges an die Hand nehmen, da merkt man auch die Liebe, die in dieses Spiel eingeflossen ist, weil der Rest ist sehr stimmg <3). Aber gerade beim ersten Gang in die Blob-Wald-Welt hab ich doch etwas traurig einigen Items nachgeschaut, obwohl ich auch nur Hacke, Schaufel und Spitzhacke + Blobfudfud dabei hatte. - Das Farmen macht Spass, weil selbst anfangs kann man 4 Parzellen gleichzeitig bewirtschaften indem man faul F drückt. ^^ Später bekommt man ja dann Hilfe, da spoiler ich allerdings nicht <3. - Es gibt viele Festivals, was ich super finde, weil sie abwechslungsreich sind und Spass machen. Also im Jahr 2 hatte ich in der EA auch nochmal Spass mitzumachen, weil man doch noch Items bekommt mit denen man craften kann. (mehr will ich auch hier nicht spoilern). Ich würde mir evtl. hier noch wünschen, in der Vorbereitungszeit vielleicht noch aktiv was beisteuern zu können. Auch wenn es keine Auswirkungen auf das Game hat; aber in der Vorbereitungszeit fühlt man sich doch etwas "bestellt und nicht abgeholt". Ja, das zum Grundlegenden, jetzt kommt der Hauptteil: Die Blobs !!!! Liebevolle rundliche Kreaturen - die man kombinieren und züchten kann. Spielt ihr noch Pokemon oder Palworld oder züchtet ihr schon? ^^ Das was ich eben an Palworld vermisse ist hier Realität. Ich kann Kuhblob und Blumenblob paaren und habe dann eine Kuh mit Blume. Dazu eben die verschiedenen Eigenschaften von Papa und Mama...eh Blob und Blob. Der Kreativität ist keine Grenzen gesetzt. Es gibt Grundblobs aus denen man sich seinen Lieblingsblob züchtet. Gefällt Dir dann die Farbe nicht? Bau die Blob-Färbestation und färbe ihn...wennn Du die Mats. hast <3. Gefällt Dir der AOE nicht und Du willst was anderes? Kombiniere die Blobs und campe am Automaten für Fähigkeiten, beim Turniereingang. Ich habe meinen ersten Blob Eierwurf gegönnt, und das war ziemlich gut <3. (variert aber von Blob und Stärke und Blobwelt *mytisch gugg*). Ja, ich muss sagen, das Genetik-System inkl. Mutationen funktioniert sehr gut. Ich denke da ist ClaudiatheDev so wie James von Dinkum mit Wasser (ey Krafton, ich hab da wen, die kann Blob-Genetik! - kleiner Scherz am Rande). Im ersten Durchgang hatte ich ca. 90 Stunden Spielzeit, weil ich eben bewusst gestoppt habe, nachdem Claudia angekündigt hatte, dass sich das mit dem Energiehaushalt verbessert und die Nacht-Penalty wegfällt. Dankeschön dafür <3. Ja; aber ich habe mich oft ertappt, dass ich eigentlich ins Bett musste und ...hihi...noch warten wollte, was ich ausbrüten darf. Bringt mich auch direkt zu dem nächsten Teil Blob-Kämpfe: Ist nicht jedermanns Sache; aber ich liebte damals diese Kämpfe in Lufia oder Breath of Fire, mit Tiktak und nicht Knickknack xD. Da ist man hier sofort drin - schnell mit dem schwachen Dings den den dicken Bumps stärken oder doch noch eine Himbeere zuwerfen? Welche Blobs nehme ich das nächste Mal mit? Wen kann ich als Dr. Blob-n-Stone ranzüchten und trainieren? Das Spiel hat auch 3 Schwierigkeitsgrade und für Chipmunks lässt sich der Tag auf 10 Minuten verkürzen. Zur Grafik braucht man nicht allzuviel sagen, sie ist bunt und erfüllt ihren Zweck - sie holt mich auch ab. Einige Spiele mit besserer Grafik hab ich nicht mehr gespielt, weil ich die NPCs nicht leiden konnte; aber hier ist echt keiner, den man hassen könnte, weil selbst der schrulligste Charakter dazu gehört. Was ich mir noch wünschen würde: - Ova Magica 2.0 mit Glitzerblobs <3 Dringend kaufen!!!!! (ich hab Schreibfehler gefunden, die besser ich nach der Fliegenplage hier aus ^^)