“I had a cat that was more literate than Oracle.”

At almost every gaming related party in Brisbane, including the ones we throw, you can pretty much guarantee there will be at least one, maybe two, quite possibly three guys there wearing a shirt with an embroidered '3 Blokes' logo on it. Turns out they are an independent game developer made up of - you guessed it - three blokes, namely Duncan Curtis, Marko Grgic and Nicholas Frawley. I really like these guys, they're friendly, outgoing, and especially passionate about games. The other day they sent me a copy of their very first published game: Magical Forest.

Now, this puts me in an awkward position. I like these guys personally, I want to support the Australian independent game developers, and help promote them as much as possible. On the flip side, I run a website that is based around the concept that we can and will say exactly what we think of games and the industry, no matter what.

The conflict comes because I can't recommend Magical Forest. It's not my kind of game. Not only is it my kind of game, but it LOOKS and PLAYS like a game created by ... well, only 3 guys. Everything about it, from the static backgrounds to the underlines on the text you have to click shows that while there is alot of work that went into the game, there wasn't enough polish.



There are positives though. The game is similar in concept to Viva Pinata, where you have to purchase and maintain creatures. These creatures drop jewels (drop? poop them out? I don't know) that you collect in order to sell them for money in order to buy more creatures. Reach the target amount and a new creature (and possibly new forest) will be unlocked.

This is a nice little 'gotta collect em all' game, and I did get a bit sucked into it once I forgave all the other shortcomings. You have to look after your creatures too - at first it's easy collecting jewels, feeding your creatures, and beating off enemies with sticks, but at you progress higher and get more creatures, you just find yourself with a serious case of RSI as you try to click fast enough to keep up.



Even with collecting and defending machines thrown into the mix, it becomes quite chaotic, to the point where I stopped caring about whether my creatures got eaten by giant spiders or not because I was so cashed up I could afford new ones.

I'm not the target demographic for this game, surely. This is no Puzzle Quest. It's a start, but it's also a very obvious start.

If you're keen to give the game a spin yourself, click here to download it.

Regardless of my impressions, creating a game is something I could never do, but if it's something you're interested in I highly suggest going along to see Duncan and Marko from 3 Blokes speak about Casual Game-Making tonight for the IGDA in Brisbane