Magicka is an action-adventure SHMUP that made headlines last week for unexpectedly taking Steam’s sales charts by storm, shifting over 30,000 digital copies within its first 24 hours of going on sale.

Yesterday we published our review of the game, and were impressed with its innovative gameplay and unique charm.

From our Magicka review << read more

Magicka is difficult to pigeon-hole – the developers describe it as “a satirical action-adventure game.” It has also been classed as an action RPG, albeit with stripped down RPG elements. It also bears a resemblance to a SHMUP (shoot ‘em up) although a rather complicated one.

Magicka is all about living out the role of a mage of the Sacred Order, tasked with saving the world from the machinations of an evil sorcerer. The game world is loosely based on Norse mythology, but it also features references to many pop culture, internet culture, and gaming culture tropes. As such, the game never really takes itself seriously, which is quite refreshing. There are a number of ‘nudge-nudge-wink-wink’ moments which will likely have one grinning broadly as they electrocute goblins. The story is a mash-up of every classic fantasy game you’ve ever played, yet thanks to the tongue in cheek nature of the game, Arrowhead pulls it off without feeling derivative.

To help survive the dangers of the game world, players will have at their disposal eight spell elements – this is the core gameplay mechanic. These spell elements are assigned to keys thusly: Q = Water; W = Life; E = Shield; R = Cold; A = Lightning; S = Arcane; D = Earth; F = Fire. Each of these spell elements has an individual effect, but it is the combination of the elements where the real magic lies. The elements also counter one another, or combine to do increased damage effects.

The game is already selling at an attractive price point of $10 (R70), but in case you were not fully convinced, the game’s publisher, Paradox Interactive, has given us five Steam download keys for the PC exclusive game.

All you have to do to stand a chance to win one, is give a brief motivation for why you want to play the game. The competition will run until next week Wednesday (16 Feb), and once we have received all entries, they will be forwarded to one of the fine folks over at Paradox and they will choose their five favourite entries.

Enter here.