Tonight, September 17th of 2022, was the second play test for Magika Calamitia, my dark magical girl RPG inspired by Madoka Magica, Magical Girl Raising Project and others like those shows.
Thanks to two wonderful groups, the game has made some great progress both in lore and mechanically, but still needs work to become everything that it could be capable of. This blog is being made via recommendation of my most recent group to help those interested track the progress of the game!
Let’s start with the first thing to discuss: What changes were made between the first and second play tests?
Firstly, the combat was revamped severely. Clarifications, sign posting on powerful enemies and their unique abilities and combat more focused on the player actions than the enemies were all added or adjusted to help combat feel more fluid and balanced. For the most part, this felt like a success in the second play test.
Secondly, Feats used in the game were buffed to have more power for less cost while also focusing on making some of the more specific feats far less redundant. This was somewhat successful in the second test, but was not thoroughly flushed out.
Finally, changes were made to the Magika system by adding in the “Overdrive” Mechanic, which allows players to spend Overdrive to add an extra die to their roll. While the base of this was effective, the use of this ability was drastically underestimated.
So what happens next?
Firstly, Overdrive and Magika in general needs nerfed. Then a way to make more use of Feats would also be handy to add. Finally, simplifying some of the wording for quality-of-life to help clarify the more complicated mechanics I’ve implemented into how combat works would be handy as well.
As these and other changes are made and more is added, I’ll post updates detailing each choice and the thought process behind it as well as how each play test goes.
-Austin “Vox” Moore, Corgimancy Games
Corgimancy Games Development Blog 