''The Magic Circle'' is a video game developed and published by American indie team Question for Microsoft Windows,

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Gameplay

The game primarily takes place in a sandbox environment but contains a mixture of puzzle-solving, indirect combat and exploration. The player has the ability to trap enemies, objects and other items in the game in order to take their functions and modify the creature. The functions that you collect can then be given to any other object or creature to create minions that will defend the player or help them overcome certain obstacles and puzzles. All the player's decisions will have a major impact. The game has

metafiction Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and stor ...

al elements.

Plot

In ''The Magic Circle'', the player takes on the role of a QA tester who was recently hired to help prepare the live demo for a game that has been in

development hell Development hell, development purgatory, and development limbo are media and software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in development for an especially long time, often moving between different crews, scripts, game en ...

for nearly twenty years; said game is the sequel to a cult classic

interactive fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

title with a dedicated fan following. The player is introduced to the developers of the game, who make their appearances in the world as floating eyes capable of changing the environment on a whim, only to discover that the two project leads, Ishmael Gilder and Maze Evelyn, have entered into a bitter rivalry over their respective creative philosophies, and due to their inability to cooperate have rendered the game largely

vaporware In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late or never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled. Use of the word has broade ...

. Once the playtest session is officially "complete", a rogue AI from a previous version of the game makes contact with the player and teaches them how to manipulate the creatures of the world in order to either complete or at least escape the game world.

Development

The development team consisted of Stephen Alexander, Kain Shin and Jordan Thomas, who had previously worked on ''

BioShock ''BioShock'' is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games. The first game in the ''BioShock'' series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 pla ...

'' and ''

Dishonored ''Dishonored'' is a 2012 action-adventure game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Set in the fictional, plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, ''Dishonored'' follows the story of Corvo Attano, bodyguard to t ...

''. According to the game's credits sequence, the team was supported further by Steve Pardo (Harmonix) who composed the original score, and Patrick Balthrop, who was the sound engineer. The voice cast included James Urbaniak, Ashly Burch, Karen Dyer, and

Stephen Russell Stephen L. Russell is an American actor, playwright, and theater director. He is best known for his video game voice roles as Garrett in the ''Thief'' series, Corvo Attano in ''Dishonored 2'', and various characters in ''Skyrim'' and the ''Fal ...

. An

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alph ...

version of the game was released on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...

in May 2015. A month later, the game was fully released.

Reception

The game has a score of 80 out of 100 on aggregate review website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

. It was nominated for the Excellence in Narrative award at the 2016

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

. As of March 2016, the game only sold about 16,500 units, according to Jordan Thomas of Question, which he called "unsustainable" and attributes to not having attempted to market the game. IGN awarded it a score of 7.8 out of 10, saying "The Magic Circle is a marvelously creative, puzzling adventure that’s very mad at you."

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

awarded it a score of 7.0 out of 10, saying "As a piece of work meant to comment on modern game design, it’s wholly successful at creating a scenario perfectly illustrating just how Herculean a task it is for developers trying to create a game with a perfect balance." ''The Magic Circle'' was nominated for "Most Innovative" game of 2015 by ''IGN''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Magic Circle, The (video game) 2015 video games Action-adventure games Fantasy video games Linux games Open-world video games Metafictional video games MacOS games Monochrome video games PlayStation 4 games Video games about video games Video games developed in the United States Windows games Xbox One games Single-player video games