Magnetic is the second in independent developer, Peter Hewitt’s, projects since discovering adventure games a relatively short time ago. Of most significance is that he lives in far north Queensland, Australia, miles away from the majority of adventure game developers. He naturally brings an Australian bent to both his projects, Magnetic and the earlier Xiama. There are many comparisons to be found between the two games, such as the use of photographs of the natural environment around where he lives which brings an amazingly different slant to adventure game worlds. His photographs are perhaps the most beautiful of any in a computer game. Many of the images in Magnetic far supersede those in Xiama and are a spectacular illustration of the beauty of the Australian landscape.

Peter Hewitt has created another game that will be welcome in families around the world concerned about the increasing amount of violence and “adult” themes. There are no themes in this game that a child under the age of eight could not handle. However, it is unlikely that many children would be able to manage the difficult puzzles.

The game has a story of sorts though much like other puzzle games, it has no bearing on the puzzles and the link about games is tenuous at best. The people on an unnamed island (perhaps Magnetic?) talk of legends of magic puzzles and games, though no one can remember what the games were all about. As the story progresses, it is revealed that a wizard called Wazzidor created a magic chess set which learned how to play the more he played against it. It came to a point when the wizard could no longer beat the chess set. IN frustration, in his final game, he threw away the game and its pieces to the four winds. What he did not realize was that he could have won the game in three moves! There is a magic force driving you, the stranger, to discover the lost chess set and complete the win for Wazzidor.

The interface is a delight. The keyboard is not required in this game (thereby eliminating any frustration of the “star puzzle” from Xiama! Each player (up to six) chooses a character that is their marker (much as in Monopoly). This character is a sidekick of sorts, providing assistance in the form of hints and slowly revealing the story of this island. The sidekick has a very interesting significance, one which I was not expecting (nice morphing!). The game automatically saves your progress using this character. However, this means there is no save feature except for the automatic save. For the most part, I thought the autosave was an excellent idea. It was only when I realized that failure at any given game or puzzle results in reduction of the score by one that I wished I could save before trying the puzzle and then again after I was successful. The game dutifully saves both success and mistakes made. Most actions are performed with the left mouse button, with the right mouse button reserved for backing away from any given puzzle or close up. The game begins at the same place each time it is started but this is not a problem, because each puzzle attempted can be “jumped” to through shortcut page.

The game is almost completely nonlinear, though some of the puzzles are two step ones, with the second puzzle only becoming available after the first has been completed. The game is slow paced and there is considerable distance to cover and many enjoyable images to behold. The ambient noises are particularly clear and natural. Many of the birdcalls I recognized as belonging to native Australian birds. Water and wind was subtle yet believable. The background music, most notable on completion of a puzzle is typical “best of classical” stuff, from Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” to Chopin’s “nocturnes” to Debussy’s “Arabesque”. This music was all composed by Bunji Hisamori and is suitably animated and fitting to the accompanying animation but has a “muzak” quality to my ears. The Aboriginal wind instrument the didgeridoo is also listed in the credits. I noted some jazz tinged pieces also but these were not credited as far as I could tell.

Puzzles are primarily “compete against the computer” type. The goal of each one is to beat the computer eight times in progressively more complex configurations of each puzzle. A nice feature is that the computer waits for you to “catch up” until you have four wins. Most puzzles led to a second different puzzle on completion of the first. Most puzzles are mostly of the manageable variety. What makes them manageable is that the game has built in hints that are designed to reveal clues to successfully complete the puzzle/game. If a person is not struggling with the game, it offers no hints. Continued struggling, however, elicits increasingly detailed hints. However, my experience was that some of these hints were erratic both in their depth and timing. In some puzzles, I either received no hints or detail was scant. I also noted a couple of times where the hint seemed to suddenly pop up after I had left the puzzle behind!

Some of the puzzles were actually games and do not actually have a solution. Those familiar with The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour will recall the frustration with the games in those adventures. (Interestingly, one of the characters mentioned in Magnetic is called Stoph. I could not help thinking of Stauf from the aforementioned games…) I also noted some “touchiness” with those puzzles where the goal was to click on a certain line. If you were not quite at the right place, often the game would select a line adjacent to that intended. I am afraid the game lost its “G” rating in my house (for a “PG” or “M”) when I did this several times! Later in the game, I discovered most of the puzzles feature a “bail out” feature. If you are certain you are going to lose at any point, quitting does not harm the number of points you have accrued.

On the down side, the game froze three times randomly while I played. I can not determine why the game would freeze given that it has low system requirements and my system far exceeds these. I would not have mentioned it had it not occurred more than once. One instance may have related to taking a screenshot so perhaps there were only two genuine freezes. I experienced no system crashes and the game ran smoothly for the most part. I would be surprised to find that freezing occurs consistently in others’ experiences because the game had a very stable feel to it.

This second project is wider in scope and I note more names listed in the credits. Essentially, he has created a worthy successor to Xiama. Anyone who enjoyed the first game will certainly want to return to the similar environs rendered in Magnetic. I enjoyed the puzzles in this game but wanted for a more developed story that could justify the reason for the puzzles. The photographs are excellent and make for some beautiful eye candy without 2D or 3D animation effects. Most of the puzzles were enough to challenge without frustrating me but several fell into this category. This game deserves a B on average. Make it a B+ if the story is not important or B- if it is.

Final Grade: B

System Requirements:

Pentium running any Windows except NT - and you'll need Direct X 7 or later - which comes with the latest Windows - and it's on the CD too. I test on an old Pentium 166 with only 32M RAM and a 2M video card