Magicor manual

The objective of the game is to extinguish all bunring fires. You do this by pushing or dropping ice blocks so they collide with the fire using the player.

Table 1.1. Common objects in the game

Player
Ice block
Fire

To push an ice block you need only walk towards it, try to walk through it even, the player will kick the ice block once in contact with it and the block will slide until it hits a wall or falls down.

Like the arrows suggest, just walk towards the ice block.

Try walking past the ice block, the player will kick it and the ice block will slide towards the fire, eventually hitting it and thus extinguishing it.

That is how you push/slide an already existing block of ice, but the player can also create and destroy ice blocks. The player is limited to creating and destroying ice blocks below the player left and right sides.

A clear case of having to create ones own ice blocks. Just walk up to the ledge and press the action button. The tutorial arrows indicate that something needs to be done no less than four times.

*Swosh* and there's the newly created block of ice. The block will freeze stuck to the ledge so the player can safely stand on it.

The player has now created a walking bridge of connected ice blocks all the way to above the fire.

We step back one unit and sever the connection by the destroying a block of ice so that the rightmost ice block will be disconnected. Once disconnected the ice block will start to fall towards the fire. Again, when hitting the fire it will be extinguished; mission accomplished!

Pushing ice blocks can only be done if the ice block has no obstacles on the other side. Even another ice block will stop an ice block from being pushed.

These ice blocks are too heavy to push.

So the player simply climbs up. Note that the player can only climb on top of blocks that are reachable. (one block worth of height)

Once on top of ice blocks you can destroy one of them or jump down on the other side. This climbing behaviour is activated every time you try to push an ice block that is next to another ice block or a solid ledge.

An explanation of falling blocks: unless single ice blocks (or even a row of connected ice blocks) is supported by solids below or connected to solids, it will start to fall until it hits a solid, is destroyed or falls into obvlivion (below screen visibility).

You didn't think all levels would be as easy as the tutorial ones, did you? There are several additional elements to make solving the levels more difficult.

Table 2.1. Some additional objects

Spikes		These are nearly invisible, burried into solids. If the player or an ice block is near this trap, spikes will shoot out killing the player or destroying the ice block.
Active lava		Active lava will kill the player and destroy ice if touched.
Dormant lava		This type of dormant lava is harmless to both player and ice blocks, but beware: lava can be ignited if a burning fire should happen to touch it, making it active, lethal lava.

To make things even worse many levels will have moving enemies that will kill the player on touch. Lucky for the player, these enemies can be destroyed by squishing them between an ice block and a solid or another ice block. Depending on the level theme these enemies move and look differently, below are some examples.

Table 2.2. Enemy examples

Scarab (from Egypt theme)
Blob (from Space theme)

As you can see, with the additional, very dangerous objects this game can become quite complicated in spite of it's simple physics engine. Many levels will require logic and timing in addition to a heap of intuition. Good luck!

There are several ways to configure Magicor; edit configuration file, add command line options or use the in-game options menu.

default_tile = tiles/stone
eyecandy = 1
joystick = 1
music = 1
music_vol = 100
sound = 1
sound_vol = 100
        

usage: Magicor.py [options]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c CONFIGPATH, --config=CONFIGPATH
                        use this default config, default ###CONFIG_PATH###
  -j JOYSTICK, --joystick=JOYSTICK
                        enable/disable joystick
  -m MUSIC, --music=MUSIC
                        enable/disable music
  -s SOUND, --sound=SOUND
                        enable/disable sound
  -f FULLSCREEN, --fullscreen=FULLSCREEN
                        enable/disable fullscreen