Magpie
You are a curious magpie who loves to collect shiny trinkets.
WASD, arrow keys or swipe to move.
A game in the Broughlike-style (please take a look at the wonderful games of Michael Brough).
Previous versions:
- 12-Mar-2023: Bugfixed jam version
- 10-Mar-2023: Original jam version
Comments
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top robin. my life has lead to this.
Congrats, very impressive score!
Thanks!
👑
*Shakes fist*
congrats!!
This is the first Broughlike that feels like a Brough game to me. Well done. Very compelling!
Some tips if you are curious how I got these scores. Definitely some spoilers in here.
1. The game revolves around Inkwell. Your endgame should always have one, and you should protect it as best you can. If there are coins that I can only pick up in the inkwell slot, I skip them so that I don't later lose inkwell to a spot where I'm forced to pick up a coin.
2. Inkwell can be really dangerous when it's in "front". You have some advance warning based on where the exit is. The most dangerous is a door on an edge that points in the same direction as Inkwell. There are a few ways to cover this weakness:
- Paperclip across from the Inkwell. It's not pretty, but the 2 damage might save you.
- Glasses to the left/right of Inkwell. Same basic idea. This one "shifts" the weak spot from inkwell to glasses.
- Keys can shift the exit of the level from the inkwell side to the key side. Just "attack" a locked door with them and the door will open.
3. Otherwise, you have to pick up coins to score, so you're going to churn through a lot of trinkets. My next favorite "semi-stable" trinket that I try to keep alive for as long as possible, but eventually give up is Candelabra. Insane damage especially when paired with Inkwell. Generally speaking all of the trinkets that attack a lot of tiles are weaker without inkwell and much better with it. Now that I think about it, maybe one leak I have is getting rid of Candelabra before I have to. It might be worth skipping coins there too, hard to say.
4. Early game you want to get 3 gold coins as much as possible to try to find a few +HP eggs. A couple extra HP can definitely save your life later. The +4 point eggs are also good early game, when you don't have much threat on you. Eventually I stop getting eggs and only grab 2 gold/1 silver trinkets, which have very powerful stuff. Maybe in theory I could see going for eggs again when you have high max HP and low actual HP, to try to find a valentines egg to heal back up to full. But in practice I have not done this in my runs (yet?).
5. I find the 1 gold/2 silver trinkets pretty weak for their cost and weakly try to avoid them. Sometimes you have to pick them up.
6. Wasp's two big things are that sometimes you get +1 damage, and levels are small so enemies bunch up a lot. This makes what I said about ranged trinkets that hit a lot of squares even more true. Take Candelabra, Stapler etc. super highly, although it's hard to take them higher than I already do.
Here's a tier list:
This isban amazing guide, thanks! Inkwell is definitively overpowered. ¿What do you think about the double inkwell combo?
I like it. It's not an optimal setup but it gives you flexibility since you can let one of the inkwells collect coins/get damaged in the next few levels. I'd still take candelabra, stapler, cross over a 2nd inkwell.
yo I just found out you can you use the key to open the closed gate similor to how the clippers work cutting the green stuff
amazing, this just happened to me and I thought it was a bug
I opened the gate by accident when the update just went up but I couldn't remember how I did it. Thanks!
I can’t stop playing this xD
Now you have new motivation. I just got to 227 with the wasp.
nice score! I'll give wasp a shot
268, your move :)
Lol, good one
This is a delightful to play (and deceptively strategic) game, thank you! Even when I was plateauing at about 30 points I found it fun to pick up during breaks waiting for the bus... then 50 seemed doable consistently, and then today I had a run where I kept stopping to think before giving up on an impossible (or is it?) situation, and made it to 154.
I like the strategy in choosing when and what to upgrade (running around with a risky exposed beak, waiting for gold opposite a mirror, or skipping a deadend silver coin...), and the sneakily powerful for breaking parity hedge scissors.
Didn't think I'd make it out of this level but this was part of that 154 run...
I got 114 with robin- I like how different robin’s passive make the game. (Inkwell is very powerful!)
Who is Ezra?? this is not fair, I can’t beat you :D
Solved (oh crap I just realized you're Slice&Dice tann, that's the only Game that has taken more hours from me than Sunil's ones. I love love love it)
I got 124, regaining my rightful #1 spot, briefly. I imagine in a week someone will have >500.
👹
I saw you on top of every leaderboard damorend nice. I have wasp #1 now though
Good one! I have to say I miss the old gold coin egg combo, it was so fun! But I get why it got nerfed.
I feel a bit bad about nerfing it. I didn’t like the reliance on one specific egg…maybe I needed to buff the other eggs instead?
Oh my god. I've been playing this game all year and I'm thrilled that you're still working on it, let alone made this massive update! Thanks a lot!
This makes me happy, thank you for playing!
mucho weno, mucho weno
What a nice little game! Love the main mechanic. Sometimes it feels like RNG just screws you over bad, but I guess that’s part of the experience.
This was a good game. original concept as well
I am so confused ahaha, I tried playing a couple of Michael Brough's games too to see if those had some explanation but I am still so confused hahaha
My favorite broughlike (cinco paus) is intentionally in a non english language, so the confusion and discovery is part of the experience! You start with no knowledge, move in random directions, see what changes and when, and slowly put together the ruleset.
A few hints: the four branches are your starting weapons and shields. Basic broughlike combat is that you attack the box next to you in the direction you move. (the starting branches work like that...) But in this game, it matters what side the enemies attack you from. If your bird takes any unshielded damage it's game over.
Be patient! Broughlikes are tough, but pretty fair. If you look closely at the shapes, and what changes after each move, you can piece it together. All that said, I probably don't know all of the rules! I definitely don't know what strategies the high scorers know! (my top is like 40)
An incredibly unique concept. So many interesting things happen as extensions of the main, simple mechanics.
So hard though, lol! Only managed to get 34, and some people are out there getting 300.
brilliant
Is there another way to restart other than reloading the tab?
This is a really addicting game, it’s brilliant.
Gameplay video of your game.
Really cool strategy game, although I'm not sure what a "magpie" is.
It's a type of bird typically known for stealing shiny trinkets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie
Broughlikes aren't usually my thing, but this one really drew me in with the combination of theme (nice job!!!) and using your attack abilities as protection as well, while also being forced to upgrade to new abilities over time (to be honest this really reminded me of a core gameplay loop in my own game, even though it's a more traditional roguelike :P). I got an 86 on my first run, which I streamed and talked through here for about an hour and a half, showing my first experience with your game. Nice 7DRL, 10/10 would play a knife-wielding mapgpie of death again.
I love me a good new broughlike! Really well done. I got 60 on my first real try and really enjoyed the different combos as well as their fragility. Brilliant move to make the weapons the hitpoints.
It's difficult but very replayable and addictive.
Still, 29 points is still my limit. I wonder if the people at the top of the ranking are completely united with Magpie, body and soul, and surviving the harsh environment.
I want to continue playing and become like that.
I love this! Really elegant and simple mechanics, but I'm still finding nuances and ways to get better!
nice mechanic, well did
this is better than zelda
WHY CANT I RATE THIS, I NEED TO RATE IT 6 STARS, SOMEONE MADE A ROGUELIKE ABOUT MAGPIES OMG
This game is so good I almost texted my ex about it.
This is really good.
Fun game. Please add key board controls for starting game & restarting so it can be played mouse free.
ok, I added them!
Thanks sunil!
One more accessibility request: show the weapon selections rotated according to which side you're upgrading. Great game!
Fantastic! I love the cute magpie. I like how after a few games everything falls into place and you start "seeing the matrix" and getting an intuition on how to play.
I love this game, thanks for creating it!
Very fun. The directional pickup and attack mechanics reward a high lookahead play style.
I love it, the charming bird-in-a-garden theme, picking up little trinkets, and the puzzle of picking up items from specific sides is very intriguing. Impressive work for a single week!