Super short but super sweet game about following the daily life of an ordinary girl who at times becomes a magical girl fighting enemies out on the street.
Magical Girl Concept: The game at first did not make the magical girl concept apparent because the main character is basically a silhouette of an ordinary girl. However after engaging in battle with an enemy, the main character displays an exciting amount of magical effects and attacks in its animation while wielding a magic wand/staff that fulfills the magical girl concept. I think the normal silhouette is fine but a separate silhouette with more magical looks/accessories would fully utilize the Magical Girl idea.
Mechanics: There isn't any keyboard controls being used in the game and input is confined to the two UI visible button and left mouse button over certain hot zones in the game screen. Basically the game contains mechanics that is based off a point and click adventure game with the cursor icon changing when its over an object that is interactable. There is a simple day/night cycle which can be controlled by pressing the fast forward icon, changing the current activity of the main character, the scene, and the background image. I notice that depending on the time based on the background, the main character could be sleeping or working when the house entrance is clicked while at certain times no other actions can be performed (besides sleeping) until the fast forward button is used. It would be nice to have a time display or text display showing at what point in time the game state is in rather than relying on the background alone, since the same night background is used several times in a row. Moving on, the game provides several hot zones a player can click on that will change the action the main character will perform, e.g. shopping, working, and relaxing at a bench, and etc. One of the things I want to highlight is that the main character does engage in battle with enemies in the scene. The enemies have health bar that doesn't get replenished over time but it helps indicate that the main character which at that point is a magical girl is slowly chipping away at the enemy's health. Frankly, the mechanics used is simple and straight forward but the combination of it makes the game really interesting to play and coupled with some imagination, the game basically tells a sort of slice-of-life story of a magical girl. Besides that, one thing I like is, even the game does not feature a tutorial, the simple yet helpful UI pointer that pops up when no clicks have been registered really guides the player in click on the hot zones. Overall, there doesn't seem to be any bugs or issues, so the mechanics are pretty solid.
Visual: The art style is quite unique and I can see that most of them has been made by the developer. The silhouette for the characters are done well and is easy to tell apart from the other characters on screen. A lot of the visual depiction of an object/scenery is spot on since it clearly shows that there is a gym in the house, that the main character is working at her computer, and the grocery store looks like what it is, a grocery store. I think the clever combination of shapes and color makes the game stand out and is easy to actually make out what is going on. The background that represents the time of the day helps enhance the experience that time in the game does move, albeit in a sort of turn based sort of way. The additional lighting in the night scene shows there is a good level of effort put into making the night scene appealing. I notice that animation is quite limited but a good amount of effort is seen in the magical girl battle with the enemies, which apparently to me is surprisingly quite nicely animated. There isn't much else to say regarding the art assets but I think the developer should consider adding more scenes and visual activities that the magical girl can do so the narrative of a slice-of-life sort of story can be expanded further.
UI: The game doesn't have a main menu or title screen and starts off in the main game immediately. Even if it doesn't have an in-game menu, at least the developer is considerate enough to put an audio button that mutes the music being played in the background. Besides that, there is a UI button with the fast forward symbol and its obvious to the player since it stands out really well from the other art assets and it doesn't get blended in with the background scene.
Audio: The game uses two music tracks, one in the normal daily life activity and another when battling with enemies. The normal track, gives the game a good dreamy and slice-of-life kind of feel, while the battle track enhances the magical girl animations and effects. Since it is stated that the audio tracks were made during the game, I think the developer really did a good job composing these simple yet effective tracks. However I didn't notice any sound effects being played during the game so I would suggest putting in some stock sound effects like keyboard clacking and busy supermarket ambiance for their respective activities, just to give the game a complete feel. Besides that, the music tracks used are more than enough for a single scene in this game but could use a night music track to highlight the sleeping activity.
Theme: The magical girl theme is apparent in the battle sequence and it isn't during normal activities. As for the side theme that the developer picked which is Time, apparently the use of time is integrated into the mechanics which is in the fast forward button and changing time does affect which activity the main character will perform. In other words, the theme for time is fully utilized in the game. Though one thing I want to point out is that the two themes of magical girl and time isn't something that is being used at the same wavelength, meaning that it feels like there is a separation between the two themes used, or are not very well combined/mixed. However, its not important, but I want to mention this because there is more that the theme for time alone can offer. A good combination of time and the Magical Girl concept would go a long way in making the activities more interesting, instead of forwarding time alone.
Challenge / Engagement: The game isn't designed to be challenging at all. However its is engaging since a good level of imagination is needed to create a sort of self made story that comes out of this game. Basically, the gameplay is designed to be a sort of visually interactive picture book, which tell a nice little story of an ordinary girl who at times becomes a magical girl that fights enemies. Its engaging in a way that you can sort of create a story out of it by selecting activities depending on the day or time. An example I would put that is comparable with this game design is like the game House, where each person in a group takes up a role in the family. However, since the game is limited to one single scene then the story sort of hits a limit, which also limits the engagement of it. Hence, if the game comes with more scenes or activities, then the game can be pretty engaging and would last much longer until the player has exhausted every combinations of each activity.
Originality / Creativity: There isn't anything notable about the game mechanics per say since its basically a point and click game. In terms of visual design, and how it is executed, I would say the game layout of its art asset is pretty original and as I have mentioned early the use of shapes and color is creative enough to have them easily distinguishable. Besides that the activities that are available in the game is quite creative and are activities that don't coincide. I would like to see more activities added if the game gets develop further and this will entail an enormous amount of creative juice.
Story: The game doesn't exactly present a story but by watching how time flies and the different activities the main character does in that limited scene, it feels like there is a slice-of-life story that unfolds with each click with no words spoken.
Overall: The game presents its ideas and themes very clearly while gameplay is limited, simple, and super short game. I think right now the game can in fact expand into a lot of possible directions if the developer choose to invest time into this game. Although these types of games are depicted to be simple games, but they are one of the hardest to develop because of the level of intricacies involved in getting the player involved with the gameplay and engagement from a visual presentation alone.