A really fun and challenging little game that utilizes a simple tower defense mechanic and integrating that into an intense drag and drop resource management game. The game base concept and idea emphasizes resource management and figuring out the optimal strategy in maximizing the resource which in this case are Magical Girls. This game is promising enough to be able to stands on its own if a considerable amount of original art and audio assets were to be developed.
Magical Girl Concept: The resource being managed in this game are cute little Magical Girls so the concept is pretty much integrated into the game itself. However it mildly stands out as one since the game uses stock Magical Girl sprites which would lacks special effects or any sort of Magical Girl like tropes, e.g. flashy magical spells, frilly cute dresses, magical girl staff/wand, etc. In other words, the resource could be repackaged into little green men or weaponized characters that can defend against a hoard of monsters/enemies.
Mechanics: The game uses an interesting combinations of two game mechanics, with one coming from the tower defense genre and a resource management genre. From playing the game several times, I felt that the game is more of a resource management, since most of the time spent is in moving/managing the Magical Girls (resource) into their designated jobs/task while the city/town defense is a good excuse/distraction to add a deeper level of challenge to the game. The simple drag and drop mechanics is an excellent choice since its easy for the player to establish its controls, and while I notice that the title screen nicely doubles as a tutorial for the drag and drop, making the game easy to start off immediately. In the main game, several mechanics are used here which consist of a simple leveling system, health/currency, and an item/inventory management system which spells a sort of semi-RPG like setup. I really like how all the elements is condense down into a resource management game since a lot of these elements are used in a direct manner in most RPG games but not one that gets "played" as a game itself. It is very exceptional such an idea like this can be made fun and even challenging in such a simple manner. Besides that, the use of enemy waves gives players good enough breathing space and expectation of the difficulty with each increase in enemy number and spawn interval for every wave. The game also employs an online leader board which add a ton of replay value and competitiveness to the game. Another thing I want to note is that the resource cycle in the game is quite limited since there are three loops which is the money generation loop (which sustains the upgrades/leveling), the defense loop (which sustains the game play time), and the invite loop (sustains the number of available resources). I think the game is quite sustaining but what made it difficult was the population vs earning rate punishment mechanic since it requires a good balance of a money generators while maintaining enough resources for the defense part of the game play. In terms of balance, its a little skewed that the invite rate is quite slow at early game and it becomes apparent by wave 10 that more magical girls are needed to sustain the defense loop.
Visual: The premade/purchased art assets used in the game were combined quite well with only one of the assets feeling out of place and that is the isometric town/city. Besides that, the title screen could at least use its own title art since only a simple plain font was used. The simple stock logo used to indicate the task/job helps in visually reinforce the identity of what each box does but I think simple original art like this can be easily created without the need to download them for the game. On the other hand, instead of using a plain UI box to represent the task, a simple background image of a shop, a bunk bedroom, an outdoor recruitment activity, and a tower would increase its visual appeal. The helpful little effects appearing in the Rest and Earn boxes adds a good deal in indication to the players that something is happening in those task/job and its interval rate. The stock animation on the magical girl is decent enough for the purpose of this game but more could have been done in improving its visual appeal. Right now, the combinations of assets and placement of these assets made the game feel like a well made prototype. I hope the visual aspect of the game can be improved with original art and animations.
UI: The title screen is simple and straightforward but doesn't immediately tell the player what to expect except for dragging and dropping a magical girl into a box. Some animations or small actual workings of the game in the title screen indicating the game purpose would help identify the type of game it is from the start. What I mean is that you can have a spider running past the box and when a magical girl gets in, the next spider crawling past the box would be killed. That would at least immediately tell players its a defense game. Besides that, the game doesn't feature any additional menus or in-game menu. The main game UI layout and composition is laid out really well and with good consideration for its placement. For example, the Rest box is placed at the center, indicating its central importance while the Defend box is placed between the spawn point of the enemy and town/city. The locations for details like score, level up cost, level, available money, etc are all laid at reasonable locations. The level up icon (plus symbol) doesn't stand out as a button immediately and it should have a proper UI button that separates it from the other icons as a clickable button. One thing I like in a resource management game is that all the values have to be clear, concise, and straight to the point so this layout absolutely works really well. One thing I find frustrating is that the Magical Girls can occupy any pixel in the box and even be overlapping on top of one another so this can be a issue when the boxes gets too crowded. There was a point that I have to literally dig out a close to death Magical Girl out of a pile of healthy magical girls. The free drop in box is fine when its a short quick game but a proper grid layout would work wonders helping the players to be able to swap out magical girls easily and accurately. As I have mentioned in the Visual section, using BG images instead of UI boxes would add a ton of visual improvement to their task/job.
Audio: The game only features one loop music track which is decent enough and the choice suits the casual game play style. There are a few noticeable sound effects used in the game but nothing feels odd or special about them.
Theme: The game fulfill the Magical Girl theme since Magical Girls are being used as a resource in defending a city/town, to be used to earn money, and are used to invite more magical girls to be used as a resource. The developer picked wave as the theme and they definitely nailed the theme accurately since the enemies comes in as waves.
Challenge / Engagement: The game is really challenging from the start and after replaying the game several times, it gets easy at the start since the payer would know what to do and have formed an optimal strategy in maximizing the resource use. Besides that it is challenging that the drag drop mechanics limits the speed of how the resource is managed. Overall the challenge growth feels exponential with its difficulty getting really steep by wave 20 and above. As for engagement, the game definitely got me playing many times since tower defence is one of my favorite genres and the simple resource management got me excited at how I could optimize the playing field. However the game lacks variation, except for the intensity the enemy wave gets, since the game play is limited to just leveling, earning enough to level up, getting more magical girls and making sure their health don't drop too low so over time, hence the the tasks gets pretty monotonous after a while. The art and audio assets used makes it feel like a prototype game but is sufficient enough to get me engaged and it isn't a turn off at all. Nonetheless, I would like to see an immense improvement to the art and audio assets and have it bring about an air of originality to it.
Originality / Creativity: The game mechanics used is really creative and some what original since its uncommon to see a game that emphasizes the resource management aspect of a tower defense game. Since the art and audio used are stock assets, I would say the creative combination of different assets manage to make the game appealing on its own.
Story: There is no indication or a clear story of who or what the magical girls are up against. It is not told in the game but from what I can derive from playing the game, it is about a group of magical girls who are employed to defend an unnamed town/city against a never ending hoard of spiders coming from an unknown source.
Overall: The basis of this game is really good and engaging from the start. It can get really challenging for the first few times but once the mechanics gets comfortable after several play through the game is easy to pick up. I would highly praise that such a simple concept like this can be very entertaining. The game could have been a good game of its own and I hope the developer would consider putting time and effort in improving and polishing over the current visual and audio aspect so the game can stands on its own or even better have an identity of its own.