Magic Wand likes to bill itself as a "capsule toy RPG", which is strange, since it doesn't contain any RPG elements. Instead it decidedly falls into the camp of "Exploration games", "Walking Sims" or whatever else you want to call it. While there is combat and even a boss fight or two, for the most part, interactivity is limited to walking around strange, surreal environments talking to the equally strange citizens. The game was made by thecatamites, better known for "Space Funeral" and "Goblet Grotto", and it certainly shows in both visuals and writing, the former consisting of enclosed isometric landscapes with a freely rotateable camera, alongside a look and feel similar to Minecraft, playing on an NES which had previously been thrown out of a window. Everything is heavily pixelated, with at times downright ugly color palettes and the level geometry often feels somewhat random, though never to the point of completely losing cohesion. The writing definitely recalls the style found in Space Funeral, mainly taking the form of short bits and pieces of dialogue, generally very bizarre and disjointed, with occasionally archaic terminology and weird spelling. Largely nonsensical at a glance, but still seemingly operating on some kind of bizarro-world logic, with recurring themes and characters. Unique stuff overall, but definitely an aquired taste.
You can see pretty much everything the game has to offer in less than an hour, which may be for the best, since that falls inside Steam's refund window. Certainly a unique experience, but difficult to recommend without some major caveats. If you haven't played Space Funeral, maybe try that one out first, but if you already did and are hungry for more, then maybe give Magic Wand a whirl.
Final rating: 6.8/10
originally written on 03/02/2023
