Magica - Juan J. Martinez fabulous platformer for the Amstrad CPC

The week that keeps on giving as today Juan J. Martinez released his latest piece of work for the Amstrad CPC ' Magica ', which is a fun filled Arcade platformer requiring only 64K of RAM. Featuring a massive 50 levels of enjoyment, with multiple level designs and different enemy types, you play as a powerful sorceress who has had her potions stolen from her laboratory. It's down to you to recover them all by blasting and bashing all the enemies that have stolen them!

Throughout each level, you control your little blue haired sorceress who has the power to shoot balls of magic at any enemies on the screen. Once this is done they end up stunned and you can touch them resulting in crazy antics of enemies bouncing back and forth like an arcade pinball machine, until their eventual death. This is also handy if other enemies are in the way as they too will be stunned and can also be touched for more bouncy bouncy. But what is the result of all this bouncing you might ask? The first of many potions are dropped and you can do the same to the others and the exit will finally open.

But be careful though as not all enemies are as easy to dispatch as some require both timing and skill, this is especially true of the knight who can only be hit by shooting at his back, if however you shoot his shield it will just make your life that much harder. So make sure to read the enemy listing on the main page as the knights are not the only foe who will cause you grief.

So what about the gameplay, graphics and sound? Well Magica is a very good game indeed with levels that becoming an increasing challenge as you progress as well as smooth character controls that makes it easy to master for gamers both young and old. Furthermore the graphics are perfect for this type of game with charming details in the characters and lovely level texture art that really stand out on a real Amstrad CPC. Oh and the level loading screen by Vanja(?) is particularly nice as well.

So when you put this all together including a great soundtrack and in game sounds, you've got a real winner, and that is no surprising when it comes to games made  by Juan J. Martinez aka reidrac

Links : 1) Discussion 2) Source