If you’ve played your fair share of action-roguelikes then you’ll know how great it feels to put together a build that works just how you want it. These are games that blend frantic combat with experimentation to create unpredictable and oftentimes exhilarating moments of emergent gameplay.
Magicraft is a game that takes those basic principles and runs with them. It was developed by Wave Game and recently left Early Access on Windows PC. In a nutshell, I would describe it as a fantasy action-roguelite with a big focus on creating powerful builds that are imbued with eye-catching magic.
What is Magicraft all about, then?
So there’s this Demon King, right? And this Demon King, he’s a bad dude, right? Not only is he bad, but he has unleashed all this evil magic, corrupting the world around you. In response to this, the player must take a magic staff and use it to kick the many butts of some ancient gods, and in doing so, save the world. It’s not a nuanced story by any means, but it does the trick.
Starting as an apprentice, you must advance through five worlds and battle all of the monsters that greet you, levelling up via new spells and powerful trinkets that grant fresh abilities. Magicraft is all about creating a potent build with elements that synergise, and there are several ways to be clever as you assemble your magic powers.
Together with your ever-improving spell book, you’ll move through a series of combat encounters against increasingly challenging monsters. Not only that, but the rooms themselves get more dangerous, with spikey traps and extra waves of baddies spawning in. And then, once you’ve cleared an area, there are boss battles to overcome. In terms of structure, it’s not ground-breaking stuff, but it does the job.
Spells, wands, and trinkets
The heart of the game, as implied in the name, is crafting your own magic powers for the run ahead of you. This is done via several interlinking systems, and it is in these systems that Magicraft reveals itself to be really rather good.
You main weapon is your wand, and you can carry several at once, switching between them at will. Each wand (or alternatively, grimoire) is different, with distinctive base stats and a bespoke number of slots. Some wands might recharge quicker, while others have a wider spread to create a shotgun effect with your magic projectiles.
You can equip your wand with summon spells, which conjure friendly units to the battlefield. My favourite is the little cat-looking blob thing that acts like a turret and barfs magic bullets at your enemies. If you’ve got the right wand, you can cast multiple versions of this little critter, filling the stage with these handy little allies.
Spells are usually positioned in the left-hand slots on your wand, and their effects pass on to the abilities on their right. Maybe your spell allows for bullets to rebound off walls, or pass through opponents and hit a second; there are loads of ways that spells can interact and much of the fun you’ll have with Magicraft is discovering how these systems interact.
Magic you can see
One thing I always like to see from a game like this is transmogrification, when you can see the changes you make on your character. This is something that Magicraft does really well, and you’ll see the trinkets you collect manifest on your character, whether that be a book on your back that can summon a friendly spirit or elven ears on your head.
The visuals are another really pleasing part of the experience. As your spell book has so much potential for variety, seeing the different magic effects helps you to truly understand how your magic spells and abilities are working with each other. It looks great, for the most part, and you can certainly feel the influence of Don’t Starve, with its offbeat cartoon style.
It all comes together quite well, and Magicraft has quietly become one of the highlights of my year. It’s great fun to just pick up and play, especially on Steam Deck, thanks to the accessible controls and its familiar setup. Yet, there is also enough freedom for players to lose themselves in the action, and enough variety to keep you coming back for just one more run.
