Red Robot has something quite interesting up their sleeve, and it turns out that it is magic. And free magic at that.
Hot after their last popular title, Life is Crime, comes Life is Magic. The game takes place on a world map that is based on the real map data of where you are currently located.
What do you do on this map of your town? Well you go into dungeons and fight monsters of course. There’s also treasure to find hidden amongst all the local businesses that have now become dungeons. I always thought there was a basement filled with monsters at that Starbucks.
The dungeons themselves are broken up into many floors with a single battle per floor. You can choose to leave the dungeon after every battle and escape with your loot, or you can risk the loot and journey onward.
The battles themselves, at first glance, look like a traditional 3 person party RPG battle style. However there is also a magic element system that changes what skills you and the enemies can use during the battle. Using a fire skill will give you a fire element that can then let you use a higher level fire spell. And there are also mixes of elements to create spells. The whole system looked deep enough to get enjoyment out of while not feeling like you will have to strategize for a long period of time to succeed.
To add more to the system is a deck of cards equipped to each character. These cards affect what skills can be used during the battles. Cards can be found in dungeons or in different regions of the world (you can teleport to other places but there are some limits to how many dungeons you can go through in a different land).
The party members you get to use include your own character and the rest are made up of your friends that are also playing the game. When you use someone else’s character they get experience from your journey and so do you when they use your character.
Each dungeon location has a leaderboard and you can work to be the best in you general area as a whole also. PvP should arrive before Christmas and that means giant east vs. west turf wars as well as smaller localized battles.
Based on my hands on time with the game, it looks to be yet another mobile game that sucks away at your spare time, and I mean that in the best way possible. Life is Magic is a mobile game that goes beyond the simplicity of most mobile games but keeps all the good features like competing with friends. There’s a lot going on here and that is very good for us players.
Life is Magic is launching in late September for iOS and android devices. Until then, check out the trailer. If you are on the fence, I feel I should remind you that it is completely free to play.
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