Milo and the Magpies

Lame game

Milo and the Magpies Review I downloaded Milo and the Magpies through a recommendation from Rusty Lake, whose games I absolutely love. Because of that, I went in with high expectations—but ultimately, I felt somewhat disappointed. Positives - I was immediately impressed by the sound design and atmosphere. The music complements the scenery perfectly, and I genuinely loved how immersive it felt. I also enjoyed the level design and discovering secrets after finishing the game, which was a nice extra touch. Negatives - The biggest issue for me was the lack of puzzles. There’s roughly one puzzle per chapter across 12 chapters. While Rusty Lake makes puzzle games, this felt more like a game with puzzles rather than a true puzzle game. The puzzles themselves were mostly uneventful and forgettable. Many of them boiled down to tapping the screen in different places. Whenever I picked up an item, the game immediately told me what to do with it, which removed any sense of problem-solving. If I wasn’t tapping randomly, I was either searching for numbers in the background or watching a cutscene. Constantly having to tap Milo was especially frustrating—it felt like I was tapping my screen for hours. I was rarely engaged unless the story was involved, which I did enjoy, though even that concluded with a very long cutscene. Overall - Milo and the Magpies isn’t a bad game, but it’s very brief, somewhat frustrating, and lacks engaging gameplay. I’ve played this developer’s other games—my favorite being Mitoza—and this one just didn’t leave much of an impression. When I finished, I didn’t feel proud, happy, or sad; it simply ended too quickly, with too little content, and what content there was felt underwhelming. I may still play more of this developer’s games in the future—I’m currently playing Milo Christmas, though it seems to have similar issues. I also didn’t love The White Door, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Great game, clever gameplay, moving story, love it. Just waaaay too short. Took 30 minutes to an hour to finish.