Most of you video gamers out there know about “Magicka”, a top-down action-adventure game that lets you combine elements to cast spells. What makes the game so great is that the combinations are almost endless…just check out the game’s Wiki and you’ll see what I mean. “Magicka Mayhem” takes that sometimes hilariously frustrating mish-mash of spells and condenses it into a relatively easy-to-play card game. Players will be able to use element cards in conjunction with spell cards with the intent on reducing their opponent’s life force to zero like in “Star Realms” or Magic: The Gathering”. Special thanks to Game Creators Ken and Ethan Erickson for sending me a copy of the game for press coverage purposes.
Due to medical reasons I opted to link a wonderful “how-to-play” video done by the makers of the game below as opposed to typing out the rules by hand. There are four videos in all, so make sure you watch all of them!
All in all, I did feel that the card game did indeed capture the theme of the video game quite well. The art in particular was very well done. While I found it odd that the cards were in a box that were then inside a stronger box, I appreciated the extra effort made to keep cards secure. Part of me wonders though why they didn’t just opt for the strong box and include a middle box insert. The inside box fits the cards fine, but there’s no separator to prevent the top/bottom cards from sliding into the other pile. I’m just OCD about that kind of thing.
The game includes a few different modes of play: one for beginners and one for advanced players that introduces counter-spells and the like. In either game mode, players can opt to draw a mayhem card on every spell cast (as opposed to only doing so when rolling a 1 on a six-sided die) if they want more unpredictable levels of crazy to be added to their game. While not mentioned in the rule book, you can do away with the mayhem cards altogether to reduce the amount of randomness to the game. Those who know me understand my position on this…it’s your game, play how you like.
While I admittedly found the video game frustrating at times (my old fingers and poor memorization skills contributed to this), I did find the card game to be a great way to summon your inner wizard and cast spells with even the most casual of gamers. I actually had time to think about chaining spells to do some extra damage, which this game also offers. Targets can become frozen or wet for example, making them vulnerable to certain elemental types. In summary, this game allows you to be a bit more strategic in your spell-play (since you’re not playing in real-time like in the video game) and for that, it deserves a permanent place on my gaming shelf.
Final Verdict: 9/10
—
Buy it on Amazon for $15.00 (as of the date of this posting): http://amzn.to/2qjUQBf
—