Magnus Failure

Magnus Failure is the first game in a loose series of odd little ‘escape-style’ point-and-click adventures from Polish developers Sons of Welder. Previously, I had been intrigued enough by the screenshots to want to play and review their 2022 follow-up, Magnus Imago. What the later game lacked in depth and story coherence, it almost made up for with sheer atmosphere and graphical weirdness. I enjoyed playing it, but was interested to learn if the earlier game could shed a little light on just what was going on. The first piece of news is that, no, there is not really much to be learned from this first game to add to the second. Also, it seems that they did manage to improve on the puzzles and gameplay in the time between the two games, as Magnus Failure is not quite as good as its sequel.

You play as a be-helmeted and somewhat mysterious character who inhabits a rather depressing and seemingly post-apocalyptic piece of land, somewhere unidentifiable. Your task, although not made abundantly clear, appears to be simply to get out of the place — and well it would be as you seem rather isolated, with only an old computer and some bees for company. To accomplish this, you must wander around the wasteland finding items to help solve various puzzles.

Once you begin to make some connections between the different game locations, the solutions fall into place quite quickly and easily, as it is really just a case of finding objects and putting them in the correct hole or container. What is not so easy is ascertaining just what your protagonist is doing in this unholy situation. At the beginning there is some information given about a coded message and your desire to locate the sender. What the message might be, though, is not really clarified further in the confines of this game. I guessed that your character wearing what appears to be a welding mask could be a reference to the name of the developer, but — other than adding another tick in the box of weirdness — I couldn’t see any other obvious reason for it.

Neither can the puzzles themselves shed any light on possible preceding events as there is sometimes a distinct lack of logic to them too. There are a few obvious keys and lockpicks, but why, for example, does a human heart need to go into a hole in a wall, and what do the bees really have to do with it all? You can even find yourself being verbally chastised by the game for repeatedly attempting to put any old object into any hole, but there did not seem to be much of an alternative a lot of the time. That said, there is still some satisfaction to be gained from successfully unlocking the various doors and boxes, and the puzzle interfaces themselves do look quite distinctive.

In terms of wider visual presentation, in some ways this earlier game is actually more striking than its follow-up. A stylish if largely monochrome scrolling-isometric playing world has been created, with detailed interiors and an outdoor free roaming area in which to run to other locations. The animation and scrolling are impressively smooth, with subtle and effective touches of parallax as buildings, plants and other objects move past one another. It’s a bit of a shame then that the playing area turns out to be quite empty, containing only a handful of destinations of note.

Musically, it seems that they used at least some of the same tunes heard in Magnus Imago. The music is compelling and fits the game nicely, but it’s not so strong that it should have been used throughout both games, even if it does add a tenuous thematic link.

This is not a long or difficult game by any means. I had it wrapped up in less than an hour, when the rather unexpected ending hit. The protagonist and music aside — and something about bees — I was not able to carry much over to add to my experience of having already played the sequel (if you see what I mean!). Then again, I can’t recall anything in the adventure game rulebook that tells us that a series of games should a) be logically connected, or b) make any sense whatsoever. If you’re happy with those provisions, you’ll find an hours’ simple — if confounding — fun here.

The Good

• Quite well polished visuals
• Interesting while it lasts

The Bad

• Would have been nice to detect more of a link to Magnus Imago
• Very short with a rather sudden ending
• Some of the puzzle solutions make little sense
• No discernible structure to the overall story

Our Verdict

Underwhelming

There are some good elements that shine through occasionally, but generally the game is not a positive experience.

Magnus Failure has an interesting setting with a fairly decent little set of partly illogical puzzles to solve, but really not much more than that.