Magicka

[Artemas]

So a cheap ($10) indie game came out recently called Magicka, it's a isometric co-op rpg type dealy, and it takes place in a delightfull parody of a generic fantasy land, but there is no real inventory and everyone must play a wizard. The core of the game is the magic system, wherein you combine a total of ten different elements in different combinations to get spell effects. Earth and fire makes a flaming, exploding boulder, for example. Or lightning and life revives teammates. You can also find special "magicka" which gives you the formula for a special spell, that usually has special effects, such as the revive spell above, or tornado, etc. In addition, the elements have varying effects that can often have unintended results, such as trying to use lightning magic while wet will damage you, and so on.

The only inventory you need worry about is you staff and your sword. Scattered across you path are obvious or less obvious weapons and staves with varying inspirations behind them. From legendary weapons from myth (specifically Norse) to MacLeods katana, there are a slew of weapons and staves with varying effects. A very simple system, it is very welcome after diablo-em ups like din's curse and blands.

It came out a few days ago, has been heavily patched, is STILL buggy as fuck, with a new patch due monday. Given it's low price, i would still recommend it for the clever spell system, but the amusing world and dialogue, hilarious co-op hijinks, and pop-culture references are definite bonuses.

Anyone played it? Opinions? Anyone up for co-op?

[adam_grif]

This game is definitely on my radar, will check it out as soon as my new PC is up and running. The coop looks like a blast.

[Zixinus]

I tried the demo. Neat, but I don't have people to play it with, so its out.

[Coaan]

It's hilarious good fun, especially in Multi when you have multiple doom blasts of magic going off. Be prepared to learn your revive spell, you are going to need it

Which brings me to the downside. It's heavily buggy so far, especially in multiplayer. Be prepared for black screens, computer crashes and all manner of badness with the isometric view only following the host player, so often times, the game is heavily disorientating.

Other than that, good fun and it's still being patched.

[White Haven]

The iso view doesn't follow either player, it moves to keep both on-screen as far as possible. If people get too far apart, well, tough titties. Either player moving movies the camera to an anchor point between the two barring fixed-view scenes or map boundaries. And yes, loads of fun, buggy multi, but thta's being aggressively patched so I'm hopeful.

[xthetenth]

Great fun but some seriously messed up bugs that highlight the rather silly camera. I was playing a three player game and #3 wouldn't move on my screen. However, the spells are awesome. I was having extra special fun once I got the combo for lightning bolt in muscle memory so I could go cyclic with a second or so between bolts.

[Kojiro]

It's currently a real gem but covered in deep layers of buggy shit. I've played a few hours and I'm really looking forward to being able to play properly.

[DesertFly]

I've only played the single-player so far, and I haven't run into any bugs yet, but I'm having a blast.

I'm definitely up for playing if anyone wants to try to set something up.

[xthetenth]

It's currently a real gem but covered in deep layers of buggy shit. I've played a few hours and I'm really looking forward to being able to play properly.

Is this in the single player or multiplayer? I haven't had more than one bug in single player, and it was a weird camera thing that was easily avoided with teleport once I knew where it triggered. Multiplayer is a whole different thing though, it doesn't seem too bad with two players (it's playable at least) but with three it got seriously wonky.

[Kojiro]

I tried three player multi- we had issues for about 2 hours then said screw it. No single player issues yet.

[White Haven]

If Magicka had drop-in play, the disconnects/crashes in multi would be tolerable. Without it, they're crippling. Here's hoping one or both deficiencies gets rectified soon.

[xthetenth]

If Magicka had drop-in play, the disconnects/crashes in multi would be tolerable. Without it, they're crippling. Here's hoping one or both deficiencies gets rectified soon.

It gets even worse when combined with a save system which was probably crafted from the tears and anguish from the 1990s' worst save systems.

Yes yes, let's take this hilariously buggy multiplayer game and make it so that you need to beat the whole level to make any permanent progress. How could this possibly go wrong?

It's really no wonder Paradox has such a reputation for the quality of its games' initial releases.

[Xon]

Teleport isn't baked in very well, I've managed to teleport onto a loading zone, while skipping a cutscene which results in the game being left in a bugged state where I can't do anything after it loads the new zone.

[xthetenth]

I've gotten launched to the zone with the druids in monty pythonvania straight from the airship, and they hadn't loaded. Didn't know how lucky I'd been till the next time through.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think I'll wait for a patch or three:

PC indie Magicka a "hit" despite broken, negligent release

By Ben Kuchera | Last updated January 26, 2011 9:55 AM

Expectations for game stability differ depending on what title is being released—the wretched state of Fallout: New Vegas at launch didn't seem to hurt the game—but we expect games to be playable, at least partially. Yesterday's launch of the independent and satirical title Magicka wasn't just problematic; the game has been completely unplayable during our testing.

The co-op, fantasy-based game is supposed to be a funny, low-cost alternative to Diablo clones, with an innovative element system for magical spells and team play. Game-breaking bugs kept us from launching even a single game to test those claims.

The official forum has a list of bugs players are experiencing, but the real truth is that the game is fundamentally broken. Last night we had four players attempt to play, and sometimes it crashed, sometimes it didn't launch at all. At one point the menus disappeared so I couldn't make any selections. Online play is completely broken, with games not showing up in the server browser, and LAN play is likewise nonfunctional. The single-player also has numerous bugs, making the game impossible to play.
Developer brags while gamers facepalm

Magicka has enjoyed positive buzz from PC gamers, and interest in the title was high. I had even convinced three of my friends to buy the $10 game so we could play co-op, and I have a feeling they're going to be slightly more skeptical of my recommendations in the future. According to the game's developer, Magicka has sold 30,000 copies since launch.

"The reception for Magicka has been better than we dared to hope, watching the numerous YouTube clips of gamers and editors worldwide laughing themselves senseless as they misfire spells left and right as well as the comments on twitter and forums show us people really get the humor and the idea behind Magicka.” said Shams Jorjani, Producer at Paradox Interactive. “Singleplayer and LAN is what most people are currently playing but updating the multiplayer lobby and continuously improving the game is our top priority."

While the marketing speak mentions that the team is hard at work on patches, the tone of the press release is in stark contrast to the threads in the gaming forums, with players complaining about the state of the game, and Paradox representatives promising timely fixes to the issues. Magicka, at this point, is in the worst possible position for an independent release: it has good word of mouth and a decent start in sales, but the product itself is fatally flawed. To release a glowing report of the game's performance to the press is at best hubris, and at worse negligent. Shouldn't players be warned that the game doesn't, you know, work?

Magicka is a game my friends and I are still looking forward to playing, but after spending precious spouse-points to get out of bathing babies to open our schedules for an evening—and maybe even getting some beers—it's maddening to be greeted with a press release glowing about the game's popularity after struggling and failing to get the game to run.

30,000 people may have bought the game, but odds are most of them are regretting the decision. Paradox needs to lay off the hype until the game is playable.

Update: We were contacted by Paradox Interactive, who had nice things to say about this story. "I do agree with you that the MP game should have been better on release, probably the SP game as well. I know working on the game after release is a sorry excuse," Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox, told Ars. "Our press release had no intention to brag about the numbers—WoW [sold] around 2 million first 24 hours after all—,rather telling the gamers we do not consider the product finished but in need of updates, sorry if it came out the wrong way."

We plan on continuing to cover the game as the patches are applied.

And a follow-up:

Paradox tells Ars what went wrong, how it's fixing Magicka

By Ben Kuchera | Last updated January 28, 2011 6:52 AM

It's not often you get to put questions to the man responsible for a broken game your friends just bought so they could play with you, but that's exactly what I did when I spoke with Fredrik Wester, the CEO of Paradox Interactive. Readers commented that our first story sounded personal, and it kind of was. I don't often get a chance to get all my buddies together to play a game, and it was galling when Magicka simply refused to work for any of us.

"We ran the game through two rounds of external QA, one of them dedicated to co-op multiplayer, including hot seat, LAN, and over the Internet. We got a lot of good feedback from the QA team on all forms of co-op," Wester told Ars. "I want to make it perfectly clear: it's obvious not enough was done to fix the online multiplayer part, as it turns out."
Life at Paradox

Paradox Interactive is a busy company. Its 28 employees are working with outside studios to launch 12 games this year. "Paradox also tends to invest in good ideas and people with strong visions, and oftentimes those fresh and new ideas come with less experience," Wester said, listing the many first-time developers they've worked with, including Taleworlds and Nitro Games. "That's kind of our thing now. The risk is always higher working with new studios, but we want to introduce the global gaming community to these teams and their games. While we might encounter challenges, we're convinced that the pros outweigh the negatives at the end of the day."

How Magicka was delayed

As the above video illustrates, the game was already delayed past its planned release in spring 2010. The extra time was spent on the tutorial and campaign. "The Internet Connection problems should have been better detected and addressed then, but now have to be fixed after the fact," Wester said.

If you read the comments on our first piece, you'll see how many gamers bought the game and continue to support Paradox. It's a balancing act to keep those gamers playing while assuring those having problems that you're listening. "When you get negative feedback, it will of course cause sales to slow down. On the other hand, we are also getting some good feedback from people who aren't having trouble and they seem to enjoy it a lot," Wester explained.

He's hoping sales continue to pick up once the game is running smoothly for everyone who wants to play. "We will also continue to release content to the gamers and make small changes that are suggested by the fans. I enjoyed this game immensely myself, but I confess to having mostly played it on LAN and local co-op, and that has been running smoothly."
Moving forward, putting out fires

So if Wester could go back in time a week or two with the knowledge of what happened, what call would he have made? "With that advance knowledge, we would have held the release a few weeks to test and fix the connectivity under more realistic circumstances to avoid the situation where people cannot connect properly to games online, instead of being limited to hot seat and LAN to enjoy Magicka," Wester told Ars.

Now the job is clear: fix the game, get people playing, and then the word will spread about the quality of the game itself rather than the bugs. "The development team is working around the clock and we will get this fixed," Wester promised. "We will make this right."

[xthetenth]

It's considerably better than that by now for me at least. They've been patching basically every day and it's definitely playable, for me until you get three players in one game.

EDIT: typo

[xthetenth]

Double post, delete please. Sorry about doing it so soon again.

[Steel]

Paradox have 28 staff and release 12 games a year? Good shitting lord!

Thats why their games have such wank QA! They build an entire game with effectively TWO PEOPLE actually working on it!

[Bakustra]

Paradox have 28 staff and release 12 games a year? Good shitting lord!

Thats why their games have such wank QA! They build an entire game with effectively TWO PEOPLE actually working on it!

They only publish most of those games. The only published games they've developed in 2010 were Victoria II, the Divine Wind expansion pack for EUIII, and they contributed to the Majesty II expansion pack. 2011 doesn't look to have much more that they've developed- they've got another Majesty II expansion they contributed to and the next HoI3 expansion announced. They may well have a Vicky II expansion in the pipeline as well, but you are right that their size does contribute to some of their problems with QA. In any case, probably half their efforts will be focused on Crusader Kings II for 2011, which may make it half-polished when it's released.

EDIT: Oh, they also did the first HoI3 expansion in '10 too, but that's about it.

[Zixinus]

Anyone in GMT +1 (or so) time zones willing to play Magicka, please PM me.

[Dooey Jo]

I was not aware that Paradox is considered "indie" these days.

Actually, I think I may still have the early version of this game from the Swedish Game Awards...
Nope. Oh right, now I remember. That was the stupid one that could only be played with an Xbox controller. I could never get it to work. Supposedly the game could be played with a keyboard, but apparently not the menu

How ironic

[Sarevok]

I was not aware that Paradox is considered "indie" these days.

That reminds me of something. Paradox claims to publish indie titles.

Speaking as a Swedish game developer whats your opinion of Paradox ? Is it worthwhile to approach them ?

[Dooey Jo]

I was not aware that Paradox is considered "indie" these days.

That reminds me of something. Paradox claims to publish indie titles.

Speaking as a Swedish game developer whats your opinion of Paradox ? Is it worthwhile to approach them ?

Well, I haven't had much interaction with them, but they mostly publish strategy and role-playing games. I don't know how interested they'd be in games outside their niche, although they did eventually publish the Penumbra series. But I also hear they have quite a bit of stigma attached. Just reading this thread, it's clear that people almost expected Magicka to be buggy to the point of being unplayable, and Paradox wasn't even the main developer. However, your chances may be better with them than with the big publishers, and maybe they'll even let you keep your IP. They certainly won't buy you out like EA would (though this is actually something many small studios strive for).

So if you don't want to self-publish and publicize, like all other indies, it couldn't hurt to ask. It'll probably help if you have prototype or something to show them, too, so it's not just a concept.

[Stofsk]

So uh how do you play with your friends online? Because vympel and I spent the last hour trying to figure it out and no dice. Do you have to do some strange voodoo shit to get this to work or what?

When I click on 'online play' it takes me to a screen where there is usually 5-7 games coming in and out, but when I try to host a game vympel can't see me and vice versa. When we try putting in the IP address it will say 'connecting...' and then take us back to the online lobby rather than the hosted game lobby where one of us is already hosting.

For those of you who have gotten multi to work can you clue us in? Because this is balls.

[Spoonist]

Paradox again failing badly with beta testing. Its like a curse with them.