This technically isn’t a demo as we know it. It’s actually a prototype(but the website calls it a demo so I’ll just follow that). Developed for the GameInc event by a group of game dev students in Malaysia, Magnight is a puzzle platformer that took roughly 14 weeks to complete(as part of the GameInc Programme). If the work here is any testament, it shows promise that these young designers could develop great games if given more time, resources and experience.
Magnight sets things off with the protagonist crash landing on an island and needs to find his way out of this mess. It’s essentially a puzzle game where you match your ability to manipulate these colored blocks or columns to move them around to get to places. Like magnets…hence ‘mag’ ‘night’.
You sort of make these blocks magnetised using this magnetic glove you find(according to the games website not in the game). The game represents this positive and negative charge as red and blue. The game doesn’t really explain it that well exactly how you got these powers in game.
Pointing at these certain objects and left or right clicking on them charges them up and this moves these blocks a certain way(depending on whether it’s opposite charge etc). Left or right clicking on your character will make your character charge up and releasing it will propel you or a block towards one direction.
The problem with all these abilities is that one, they aren’t consistent. Using one type of power will move blocks a certain way and the blocks move in a different way in another puzzle. They don’t always work out as you’d expect or need them to. Two, you have no idea what they even are. Will right clicking on myself solve this puzzle?
A lot of the puzzles break down into randomly clicking my character or the blocks and simply guessing my way through it. Poor explanation of how things work. It’s not exactly intuitive either for players to learn on their own. I’ve often got stuck at certain points in a level with no freaking clue on what to do. Clearly the product of a non existent focus testing.
There’s also the fact that the way the magnetised pieces of blocks and other objects behave very erratically an unpredictably probably due to some funkiness in the physics engine. Getting a piece of this round wheel object down to the lower platform that you require to get to the next area is an exercise in frustration. The wonky physics engine also makes things like jumping on ledges a bit hit or miss. The hit detection is a bit imperfect.
Much of the trouble with Magnight is that it’s too vague and doesn’t do a good job of explaining what exactly you’re supposed to do. The hints(there are some hints in the beginning) throughout the level aren’t designed to be obvious and their choice of colour makes them blend in the background(making you miss the hint altogether). Some hints are just animated flashing colours that to a new comer, you’d have no idea what it’s supposed to be hinting at.
While the art direction is good, I found the main character to lack any distinction. No distinct features to make him standout or make him memorable. For the audio, they went for a moody ambient tone which is alright. I have no issues with the music.
Even though I may have sounded overly negative, there’s certainly a lot of promise here. To see these young Malaysian designers make something like this fills me with hope. Hope that one day we have designers here that make critically acclaimed games. Different and unique although hugely flawed. The idea of using magnets as a form of puzzle element is ingenious, if only it had polish. I hope these designers go on to make better more polished games and learn from the mistakes and flaws in this prototype they’ve made.
You can download Magnight here
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