Micro Mages Maker

I did a review of the Original Micro Mages back in 2022, and so most of my initial thoughts are maintained here; it is the very definition of a quality platformer with tight controls and catchy 8-bit music that is short, catchy and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The difficulty is akin to the NES games it is inspired by but with the modern option for four player mayhem. This release seems to be definitive version of Micro Mages that you should play, in addition to having a level-maker for you to build your own platforming towers to ascend, the game comes with both the original Micro Mages and its Second Quest expansion that was initially exclusive to the ROM file attached with the initial release and the Evercade version. On top of all that, the developers include an impressive selection of twenty new levels that you can play to demonstrate the capabilities of the level maker. Within these custom levels are a few new assets in the form of its gorgeous sprite work and new enemy variants with their own hostile behaviours. This is fantastic for someone like me who loves an engaging challenge that the new levels seem to provide. The cherry on top of this amazing collection is that the level editor allows you to export the maps you make into .NES format to be played on your emulator of choice. It seems however to only export individual maps into ROM format and you don’t have access to the Bosses within the editor or have the ability to create your own custom campaign with multiple maps stringed together. The only other drawback I can see compared to the 2019 Steam release is that the original games’ ROMs are not directly present within the local files for you to access as was with the previous release, however I believe that the options here far outweigh the minor drawbacks that there are. I am sure that someone far more technical than I may be able to locate them if you wish to play the original games ROMs on an emulator of your choice without needing to buy the previous edition. In summary I’ve got four simple words to describe this recommendation “Go Get This Game!” 9.7/10

Neat game on top of a really easy level editor to get into. Definitely reccommend games like these if you want to learn level design. It's also really hard to make a bad-looking level in this thanks to the pretty artstyle and simple tiling system.

A very competent level editor for a simple, but fun 8-bit platformer. I've built two full-size levels in about 12 hours of playtime, basically all of that dedicated to those levels. The editor is fairly intuitive, and the inputs for the editor work fine with both controller and mouse/keyboard. Some bugs have already been patched in the first 24 hours - one graphical glitch and one functional bug where Workshop levels could not be played. Sor far there are only about a dozen Workshop levels, and most are pretty basic, but there's a lot of potential. There's no scripting or switches or anything, so designing levels is fairly basic, so perhaps things will get old fast, but I think that could be addressed with future updates if the dev is interested in doing that. If you enjoy level editors, this is a great grab. Micro Mages Maker also comes with the first full Micro Mages game, as well as the expansion/sequel, plus additional levels created exclusively for Maker. If you want a good deal on a pack of solid 8-bit platformers, this is still a great grab.