Magic Inn managed to put me under its spell within three short hours. As a young wizard sent to work at a ramshackle tavern in the town of Crop Meadow, it’s my job to give this once-glorious public house some TLC. On top of that, I have spells to master, drinks to mix, and a salad-chopping minigame to perfect.
Scratch a little further beneath the management sim surface, though, and Magic Inn proves a much broader experience. From interior decorating to building relationships with the townsfolk, solving the mystery of a magical enclave known as Embers, and figuring out what my smarmy boss is up to, there’s a surprising amount of depth to Magic Inn as it enters Early Access – which means I’m already wondering what could possibly come next.
Toil and trouble
After playing around with the character creator – I choose to keep the default name, Summer, for my little witch – I finally get a closer look at Hope’s Inn. My manager, Samuel, seems nice enough, granting me free rein of the place as I tick off objectives on the way to leveling the premises up.
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Magic Inn is a simple enough management sim at surface level: you seat customers, take their orders, bring them their meals, and get paid for it. It’s the kind of satisfying, engaging set of mechanics I recall loving about one of the best GBA games in my book: the one and only Cake Mania. Again, though, Magic Inn has a little more to it.
For starters, I’m a witch. That means I have access to a range of helpful spells to help keep things running smoothly. Rain clouds wash dirty tables in a jiffy, the Flying Plate charm sends meals soaring over to diners to save me the legwork, and Fire Bolt burns away any pesky cobwebs that might spring up around the inn.
I’ll admit that Magic Inn’s controls did give me a bit of trouble at first. The spellcasting crosshair is fixed rather than point-and-click, meaning I have to march around and angle the camera just so in order to lock onto a target. The item wheel is also a little confusing – entering build mode is as easy as tapping B on my keyboard, but the item wheel itself doesn’t seem to be working when I try selecting the hammer tool that way instead. It’s also not yet Steam Deck verified and the controller functionality is limited at the moment, which is something to bear in mind for fellow keyboard-mouse strugglers.
These are just a few minor snags in an otherwise beautifully iterated experience, and as an Early Access title, I am more than forgiving of them.
The gift of the gab
Magic Inn had me hooked within three hours, yes, but I’ve actually played about 10 so far
With my plate, pint, and spell-slinging skills out of the way, I’m permitted to leave Hope’s Inn and make for the marketplace. Here, I’m introduced to three other key gameplay elements: shopping, crafting, and deck-building.
Everything in Magic Inn has to be either purchased, crafted, or “requested” from an NPC in town. The market has a revolving slate of pop-up shops and vendors, so checking back every morning and evening to see who’s about is crucial to success. I can purchase ingredients, furniture, recipes, and other items from stalls if I wish, though the price markups can be dire. I can also try to haggle for prices, or flirt my way to a higher relationship with various NPCs by way of Conversation.