Magic Secret Agent is an entertaining Windows game that has you playing the role of Agent Stephen Karsch. His mission is to navigate the various gaming levels and find evidence that will help him send a collection of wanted criminals to the big house.
The game includes dozens of levels filled with traps and goons to avoid, as well as switches to open secret doors that will lead you to the next level. Movement is somewhat unique in that your Secret Agent moves around by magically teleporting himself around the game.
While the game would be a nice fit on our Windows Phones, Magic Secret Agent plays out nicely from a Windows tablet, laptop or even a desktop.
Your main menu for Magic Secret Agent offers you options to mute the sound and music, view other offerings from the developer, to reset your gaming progress and jump into the action. You will begin game play with a few easy levels that serve as a tutorial on the basics of play. Should new features become available, additional tutorials will appear to cover these new features.
The goal of Magic Secret Agent is to work your way to the exit door of each level, collecting evidence and avoiding any goons that may appear. Movement is controlled by tossing a magic orb and having your Secret Agent teleport to where the orb lands. You can use your mouse or touchpad to control aiming your throw and teleporting.
Goons will patrol the game from time to time and as long as you keep Secret Agent Karsch out of the lighted areas, they will not see him. Should Karsch teleport into a lighted area, the goons will rush at him and beat him to a tar. You may have enough time to teleport back to the shadows but once a goon grabs hold of Karsch, the game is over.
Navigating across each gaming level can be as equally challenging as avoiding the goons. You have switches that need to be activated to open secret doors, deadly traps to avoid and moving platforms to contend with. Some of your movements will hinge on the timing of your teleport. Some of the items will take a little creativity to capture as well. Some are suspended in mid-air and require you to toss your orb, materialize in mid-air, capture the item and safely drop to the ground. Just be careful that you don't materialize over a trap or gap in the platform, which will send your Agent to his fate.
Game play is challenging and the only glitch I have run across is that periodically the screen border will re-position and block the gaming display. It's not a deal breaker, but you will have to re-launch the game for the bug to right itself.
Overall Impression
While my gaming is mostly relegated to my Windows Phone or Xbox One, I do dabble with Windows 8 gaming from time to time. Magic Secret Agent came across as an entertaining and challenging Windows 8 game to pass the time with. Graphics are nicely drawn up and the mechanics of moving your Secret Agent around is a refreshing change from your typical control buttons.
As far as nits are concerned you do have the graphics glitch but that isn't a major issue. The number of levels may be too few for some, but updates can easily bring more gaming to the table. The game is ad-support with an occasional pop-up ad that appears in the center of the screen. It's not the best ad placement, but the frequency of its appearance keeps it from being a pain.
Overall, none of these issues are critical and Magic Secret Agent is an enjoyable game in the Windows Store and well worth a try.
