Life is Magic is the kind of phone-based computer game that many of us have been dreaming of for a while, the type that overlays the game onto reality and brings your everyday haunts into play. The app is a free download, massive multiplayer RPG in which you can play as either a Mage, Machinist or Monk. Your goal in the game is to explore and compete for the ownership of locations whilst collecting items, weapons, magic powers and just about everything you can imagine collecting in an RPG. As you might expect, there are also quests you can complete either alone or in parties of people met through the game.
The exceptional graphics of this game are a representation of the place around you and the whole game is based on your location within the world. There’s more to this game than just exploring, or even just collecting items, however and the game has a strong element enabling you to find and chat with other players who are in your location. Alternatively, you can also invite people you already know through either Twitter or Facebook enabling you to form a questing party with your friends.
One feature of this game which is getting a mixed reception is the difficulty. The game gets pretty difficult early on and it can be quite difficult to progress through the first few levels as your character is only given a limited amount of energy. Some gamers have enjoyed this aspect of the game as it prevents it from becoming boring too easily whereas others have criticised it for being alienating to those who are less used to more challenging games.
Another drawback is that the game demands GPS be turned on the entire time it is in use which for many if not all smartphone owners will mean a heavy drain on their battery life. Longer life models may not suffer so much from this problem and, to be sure, phones are likely to improve battery capacity over the next few years. For now, however, if you are a user who does not have the opportunity to charge their phone every day then this game is probably not for you.
What users have universally praised, however, is the quality of the game. Unlike so many other apps available for Android this game has been developed at great expense and the designers have taken pains to make sure the game design and graphics are at a high standard. It was produced by a Silicon Valley startup known as Red Robot who had to raise $15.5 million in investment capital just to get going. They hope to recoup that buy getting users to purchase in-game items such as crystals and magic spells which cost real-world money. As it stands they currently have between 50,000 and 100,000 users worldwide and this is within just a few weeks of the app being released. In other words, you can expect this to be one of the most talked about games for Android in 2013.
