Miramagia Launches - Review & Screenshots

Yesterday I was on Twitter and received a link to Travian newest game, Miramagia, where you take on the role of either a Mage, a Shaman, a sorceror or a Druid. The game's German version already achieved over 23,000 players which is very good for a brand new game in a beta version. Now that a brand new version has been launched in English I'm sure that once the advertising kicks in the game will be getting a lot of new players.

Miramagia Frontpage (Click for fullsize)

You must first register for the game, which follows the same process as most other browser games, you enter you desired username and password and then activate your account via email. You are then automatically put in a brand new village and given a small area of land to grow crops on and a house and building space for other buildings. Within your village there are up to 7 other players who you can meet and interact with when they are online, you also have the ability to visit other villages and the city where you could meet even more players. A well thought out (and fairly long) tutorial made up of a large number of quests with rewards guides you through the early part of the game (I've been playing nearly two days now and the quests are still not finished), teaching you how to do the very basics and then as you progress showing you more advanced techniques and ideas. To me this is one of the best tutorial systems I've seen because the quests are challenging but not impossible and allow you to get a very good knowledge of the game. 

It seems to me that the game is aimed at younger players (although not limited to them), the graphics are cartoon style and very colorful and cute. When playing the game most of the space is actually given to the game itself and the buttons are right up at the top and side so there's a fair bit of screen space in the middle which is significantly better than some of the other games in this genre. The design is fairly innovative (it won the Browser Game of the Year award for most innovative game of 2011), however it seems to take some inspiration from the casual Facebook style games that are becoming increasingly popular. 

Game Layout (Click for Full Size)

The games simplest principles boil down to the point where the aim is to become the highest level in the game while amassing the most gold and mana, expanding your own land and helping to improve your village. I think that this simplicity is perfect the target audience and combined with the way they have integrated achievements into the game I think it's a good recipe for repeated visits to the game. Within the game you can plant seeds and the sell, use and resow the things that are produced, their seems to be a very active and self regulating marketplace within the game to go along with this. You can also purchase items to decorate your garden and improve other aspects of your gameplay. You use Gold to purchase most items although there are some premium items which require Rubies (the ingame currency, like Gold is in Travian) to purchase. Rubies are also used to purchase Plus accounts which give you extra features within the game. As far as I can work out the cost of Rubies is roughly the same as Gold within Travian although I think it might work out slightly cheaper. There's a lot of different features that come into play within the game and I think they all complement each other pretty well. 

For me I see the levelling system as a mixed bag, it's both good and also poor at the same time. I feel that new players to a game like to get a sense of some sort of achievement quite quickly when they start a game, even if it's just a small thing and that's why I believe that the amount of experience required to reach level 2 in the game is too much and takes too long. Levelling up is a key motivational factor to keep players playing the game and I felt it should have taken around half the time (or half the experience) that it did take, or the early tutorials in the game should have given the player more experience points for completing them. However once you start getting more experienced in the game you can appreciate that a little bit of a challenge is needed for levelling up and this is when it is good to have a bigger gap, so my suggestion is that the amount of experienced needed for the first 3 levels or so is reduced by between 1/3 and 1/2 to make it easier for new players to progress. Again the levelling system follows the usual path and gives players more options (in this case more plants, spells and items) the further they level up. I would also suggest that when you complete achievements extra experience going towards your level should be given. 

Achievements Page 

The game has just come out of beta so there are still a couple of issues with it, including a couple of links lead to external pages which are in German however this does not affect the actual gameplay so it's not an issue. However on their (very detailed) question and answer page (similar to the Travian one) while all the answers have been translated very well into English the screenshots used to provide demonstrations are still only available in German which can be frustrating for someone trying to use the images to work out how to do something. I'm sure it'll be fixed but for such a key thing that helps new players it needs to be done as soon as possible. 

Overall I think the game is fresh and very cute and addictive to play, if you haven't already tried it then I would suggest you atleast give the game a go as it might surprise you. I'm not sure I'll continue to play the game for much longer but it has it's attractions and I'm sure that very soon it will grow massively. Travian are excellent are translating their games and expanding domains so I'm sure that if it isn't available in your native language now then it will probably be available soon. If you're interested in playing the game then follow this link to register now.

I hope this review was useful, if it was either subscribe to our site or follow us on Twitter for the latest news and a link when we release a new article. 

Steve10