Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff was released onto Steam Early Access on September 8th, 2020 and was developed and published by Kindred Games. On the official website, the game is described as “a cute, casual open-world RPG set in a world of classic fantasy monsters and mythos”. It is a choose your-own-adventure game, where the race you choose will affect the kind of story you will experience with your character. Features of the game include a customizable main character, battles with other fantasy creatures, magic use, exploration and discovery opportunities, and simple life tasks like farming, harvesting, and crafting.
The game setting is the beautiful land of Tirawyn, partially pictures above, where you can encounter both regular creatures (like the crabs on the beach when you first arrive) and fantasy creatures (like goblins and, later, dragons). The animation gives us cute cubic characters of various colors and styles based on species classification. The catalyst that leads to all of the storylines that you can choose from starts with the king, King Owynn, getting cursed with some kind of dark magic, causing him to abandon his position. In response, all of the strong forces of Tirawyn have left the land with no protection on their quest to retrieve and save the king. You choose a race/species of character to experience what happens to characters like them specifically, as everyone is now vulnerable to the dark forces within Tirawyn. Your choices are Human, Orc, Moon Elf, Dryad, Faun, and Drakkin.
No matter who you choose to be, you still have a great deal of freedom when it comes to picking other aspects of your character’s life. There may be magic in this game, but I would argue that the most magical thing about it is that there are no levels to be beat and there is no hierarchy of experienced versus rookie players that will restrict your ability to get certain items or go on certain quests. You choose your occupation and, based on that, you may be someone who loots and explores for items or someone who simply works for a living and buys things with your hard earned money.
For game play, depending on the life you choose you may or may not engage in a few battles. As explained before, the developers try not to have any special benefits come to those who spend more time playing so there are no special helping features for quests such as maps and guides. Your health is finite for the most part, but can be raised temporarily with items you find in the game. That being said, you can die and will need to travel to certain special shrines to be resurrected. There are different kinds of weapons in the game, your choice so long as you get what you need to retrieve them, and combat is mostly about clicking and dodging/rolling.
As the developers notify players at the beginning of the game, it is currently still in its beta form. Players can easily report any detectable bugs and can look forward to monthly updates about the game’s progress on both Steam and the official Sword ‘n Magic and Stuff website. The game even has a “stuck” button in its pause screen to help you anytime you get stuck in somewhere in the game (boy would that have been helpful in some other games I’ve played). For those who are very interested in the development process of the game, there is a Developer’s Vlog series available on the website as well.
Check Out the Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff Steam Early Access Trailer:
Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff is available for PC for $19.99 via Steam Early Access. For more information, please visit: https://www.playswordsandmagic.com/
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I am an aspiring writer particularly interested in helping write video game storylines and scripts. I prefer games that aim to strike a balance between compelling stories with character development and fun and immersive gameplay. Some of my favorite games include Until Dawn, Detroit Become Human, and both the Call of Duty and Resident Evil game series.
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