Two rows of monsters. One rock in the middle. Twenty-six magical orbs of varying spells. You know what to do. You flick your wrist, pull your arm back and aim. If you can bounce the spells off that rock just right, they will hit one row and bounce to the other, back and forth, masterfully eliminating all enemies. It is the perfect plan, befitting a true spell master.
Finally, you fling and throw! But instead of the satisfying back-and-forth bounces, the initial monster you aimed at is defeated too fast, throwing off everything. The spells bounce harmlessly off the wall, returning to you without hitting anything else.
You prepare some more spells with a sweat drop on your brow as you watch the monsters shuffle ever closer…
Hex Experts
Developed by Wild Spark, Spell Masters is a puzzle game with card-collecting RPG elements. Acquire and upgrade spell and monster cards to defend against other players and attack others in kind. Fight your way to the top of the arena to acquire the best spells, defenders and equipment. Vanquish all monsters that stand in your way with the power… of really bouncy fireballs!
A Little More Lute
In Spell Masters, no matter what game mode you’re playing, your primary goal is to bounce your spells off enemies and hit as many of them as possible, as many times as possible. For this purpose, the graphics have to accomplish one main thing: clarity. In order to take educated shots, you have to be able to predict how your spells will bounce at least the first few times before the board inevitably devolves into bullet hell chaos. For this purpose, the board is made up of tiles that make it slightly easier to aim, even if the monsters themselves can sometimes be rather weird shapes.
The audio design definitely exists, but there isn’t much to say about it. The sound effects fill the silence well enough. The musical accompaniment consists of fantasy orchestra tracks, and while they sound great, I’ve only heard two distinct songs during my time playing. A little variety in both cases would definitely be welcome.
Monster Meets Fireball
Spell Masters could best be described as part puzzle game, part RPG and part dopamine dispenser. When you get your shot just right, sneaking your spells between those rocks and enemy lines and let them bounce all over the place, popping monster after monster—that is what’s going to keep you coming back.
To start with, you equip up to four spells. You can acquire spells as rewards for playing, though certain spells are not available at first. They all have slightly different effects: some have a chance to deal critical damage, some split, some pierce, some explode…
Once you set your spells up, it’s time to play! There are numerous game modes to choose from, and since Spell Masters is in active development, there might be even more of them coming later. Regardless of what you decide to play though, the end goal is the same: defeat all the enemies on the stage by bouncing spells off of them and the walls. After each shot you take, enemies move closer to you. Your hero has a limited amount of health—anytime a monster reaches you, you lose health. Lose all of it and you fail the stage.
To Storm a Castle
Despite all the game modes available, Spell Masters seems to center around one particular game mode: The Arena. It’s the Player Versus Player game mode, and this is where monster cards come into play. Just like spell cards, you can be awarded monster cards for your efforts, and you can slot in four of them to defend yourself against other players with. Similarly, when you enter the Arena, you are pitted against a player and have to fight through waves of the four monsters they chose.
Winning PvP battles awards trophies. Certain milestones put you in higher-level arenas, which allow reward chests to contain higher-tier cards. However, these rewards can come from all game modes, not just PvP, so even if you prefer playing solo and without a time limit, you still need to fight other players every now and then to maximize your reward potential.
Spells to the Grindstone
Spell Masters requires a lot of time investment in order to progress. At first, you might breeze through the solo modes and beat player after player in the Arena, but you will hit a wall very quickly. Monsters scale too fast, card upgrades become very expensive, and you might spend hours grinding without any tangible progress.
On one hand, the rewards you earn are proportional to how much time you’re willing to spend on playing. On the other hand, though, the in-game store allows you to buy almost anything you need to speed up progression, with long pages of special deals and daily offers. I don’t mind having to work for a victory, but at times it can feel like there is nothing you can do except grind away at the one endless solo mode and wait for your loot chests to open, which, depending on the quality of the chest, can take as little as three, or as long as twelve hours.
Spell Masters is best played as either a very short or a very long-term experience. It’s perfect for when you just have a few minutes to kill, and it’s good if you want something you can sink hours into. But anything in-between and you might find yourself struggling for progress. Unless you’re willing to open the wallet, of course—turns out, money is the easiest way to becoming a spell master.
