Life is Magic is a new game for mobile devices that abstractly incorporates real world locations in the game itself. Based on screen shots it looks like it takes a lot of game mechanics from social games and tosses them into a geo-tagged interface. To me, this comes across as a tepid but very necessary experiment into mixing existing game business models with massive real world gaming.
Unfortunately it’s only available in the USA (the trailer depicts Canada as a land of only snow) so I can’t play it to test it out, fortunately somebody else has tested it out.
I was impressed to launch the game today, after playing in Seattle during the beta, and find myself in Anchorage, my actual home town. I drove around the city on errands, logging in to see how that affected my game play. I was able to influence a bunch of local businesses on my journey around town in real life as well as the one across the magical land in game, as well.
You are given various questing objectives (there are over 100 in the game so far) that include gaining certain amount of influence in your town, and conquering towers, which are like regional hubs for battling activity. There are three character classes to choose from: the Mage, who wields magic stones and elemental spells, the Machinist, who fights with heavy armor and weaponry that harnesses the power of lighting, or the Monk, a turtle-like figure who has mastered the martial arts. All three classes use a different type of magic and weaponry, allowing for combinations to fight enemy after enemy in dungeons. Many local buildings also double as the store to purchase potions, coins, and ever better weapons and armor.