Magic Shop

Biannca walks in with this whole look, right? Dark hair, sharp eyes, like she just stepped out of a comic panel where she's definitely the trouble. And Joe, this dude who's supposed to just sell bat wings and powdered newt, folds immediately. The game's whole setup is this magic shop where you're strictly not allowed to cook up your own potions, but she wants to go blonde. Blonde! The most basic request ever and it somehow snowballs into, well, everything. The art style has this deliberate roughness, like a sketchbook that's seen some things, and the redhead transformation later on... wait, I'm getting ahead. The ingredient mixing is weirdly specific. You click around this dusty shop, grabbing stuff like "essence of" something something, and the humor is just baked into the item descriptions. There's a parody energy that doesn't try too hard, which I appreciate. Like, the whole thing knows it's ridiculous. Mr. Cummagen, the owner, has a name that makes me snort every time I remember it. The dialogue options are limited but the hentai scenes, man, they just kind of happen. One minute you're measuring pixie dust, the next... well. The transformations aren't just visual, they change how characters act, which is a nice touch for a game that could've just been a slideshow. Oh and there's this one potion that goes wrong, I think I used too much of the glowing purple thing, and suddenly Biannca's hair isn't blonde but this fiery red and she's, uh, very appreciative. The sex scenes are explicit, no fade to black nonsense, and the whole magic-as-metaphor thing is about as subtle as a brick. Which is perfect. I do wish the customization went deeper though, you can tweak some stuff but then it snaps back to default in certain scenes and that bugged me more than it should. Anyway, the humor lands more often than not, especially if you've ever played those old flash games where everything is slightly off and proudly unpolished. The parody bits of other magic franchises made me chuckle. Forgot what I was saying about the ingredients.

• ingredients
• humor
• magic
• customization
• redhead