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