Title: Video Game Preview: Magical Brickout
Author: Needs Review
Recovered Author: Guest Contributor
Published Date: 2016-09-28
Original URL: https://geeknode.co.za/2016/09/video-game-preview-magical-brickout
Wayback URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20170713095646id_/http://www.geeknode.co.za/2016/09/video-game-preview-magical-brickout/
Recovery Confidence: high
Categories: Video Game Review
Tags: featured, Magical Brickout, video game preview
Notes: Author normalized from archived handle: Guest Contributor

- Developer Cunning Force Games
- Publisher Black Shell Media
- Distributor Black Shell Media
- Where we got our copy Black Shell Media
- Genre Puzzle
- Game modes Single Player
- Players 1
- Reviewed on PC

- Available on MacOS, Linux

- Guest Contributor

- 10 months ago

- 0 0

Guest preview by Zubayr Bhyat

Before we continue, let’s make something clear. Magical Brickout is an early access game in an alpha state. This means that it isn’t a representation of the final product. Let’s get on with the first impressions, then.

Everyone’s played a brick breaker game in some form. A ball strikes out from the middle of your level and bounces around. Your job is to keep it within certain boundaries, hit marked targets and win as a result. Magical Brickout’s roots go as far back as the days of 8-bit computing. There is a risk that the game’s innovation could be wanting in some form.

Think of Magical Brickout’s levels as rotating circles with outlying gaps to allow fail states. There’s a dynamic scoring system affected by bricks within each level. Some will double your score gain, others half. There’s a story element. The game mutates based on how you play. Score and ball speed modifiers change the pace of Magical Brickout in a dynamic way. Each level progression adds layers of complexity, which in turn demand faster thinking.

The major issues happen in two places, visuals, and controls. The former is easier to forgive since textures and animations change as a game develops. Overuse of sparkle effects can make tracking your ball much harder than it should be. This is especially true when ball speed doubles, or you have to keep track of 2 or 3 balls at a time. With different kinds of pacing, comes a new challenge: how to keep everything in control.

On your gamepad, the left analogue stick shifts the level left and right. The X button (or square, if you’re using a PS4 controller) will launch your ball. For the keyboard left and right arrows will twist levels around. The space bar will launch the ball. In theory, this is an ideal control scheme, yet there are issues. Inputs feel lagged. For a game that demands fast reflexes, frustration levels will rise. The developer’s design choices make for engaging if frustrating game mechanics.

Perhaps level rotation was better set to the DPAD as opposed to analogue joysticks. There also isn’t a sensitivity setting for rotation speed. Instead, you’ll get an analogue deadzone slider, which doesn’t mitigate control latency. It’s easy to hold this issue against the game, yet, let’s remember that Magical Brickout is an alpha. That’s pretty early into the development cycle.

Last, the story element needed some streamlining. There were too many prompts before moving onto the next level. While the art was quirky and fun to look at, it felt unnecessary. The gameplay was the real appeal, and having a choice to delve into the story or focus on gameplay could be a benefit here.

To conclude, Magical Brickout has strong potential. There’s fun to be had here. With polishing, this game could be a far more compelling option than any breakout titles out there. Would I recommend trying out, though? Yes, for $5 it’s good value. Just remember that you’re paying for the promise of improvements and not the improvements itself. If you’re happy with this, then by all means give Magical Brickout a shot.

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Article Tags:
featured · Magical Brickout · video game preview

Article Categories:
Video Game Review
