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As its reveal was unfolding in real-time, I thought for a hot second that Bad Magpie might be the next project out of Acid Nerve, the creators of Death’s Door. The transition from crow to magpie, in my mind, felt like a logical step. Alas, the truth was much more straightforward in that Bad Magpie is a charming little indie title whose sweet outer shell is pecked to bits to reveal a wicked sense of slapstick humour.
I’ve heard of a one-eyed Magpie, but having just one wing is a bit of a new one—for any international readers, that’s a crap joke about a niche Aussie sport. Crippled and alone, the magpie seeks out a fallen star and discovers they’ve got a desire for shiny objects. In an effort to make a friend, you head off to cause mischief and curry favour with the star by hoarding enough trinkets to appease it.
It’s a fun premise and rides the coattails of the cheeky curiosity that was central to Untitled Goose Game; it’s a bird thing, I suppose.
The game promises to have a lot of heart, although we didn’t get much of a sense of that from the brisk demo, which was accompanied by placeholder storyboards to provide context. We did, however, get a great sense for the game’s dense little sandbox; confined to small, non-linear areas full of splendid puzzles, it doesn’t take long before the brain starts ticking over.
For as limited and simple as the magpie’s move set is, being made up of just a chirp and a peck, which doubles as a collect prompt, there’s quite a bit of lateral thinking needed to collect some of the tougher trinkets. Many are simple and simply require pecking a tree trunk until logs and a poorly hidden trinket rain upon you, but others require you to experiment with combining items you find in the place.
One such item is a megaphone, which the magpie can chirp into to shatter glass to break into buildings, like the school’s music room, which comes complete with a comical fold-out piano like the one Tom Hanks uses in Big. You’re also able to harness the elements by pecking flint rocks, which can set tall grass ablaze, or light logs on fire, which can be quickly ferried to burn barriers or set off fireworks—it’s an arsonist’s wet dream, quite frankly.
After pocketing the easiest of the thirty-odd trinkets in the area, more than enough to advance, I experimented with the tougher puzzles, some of which feel something like world events—whatever that means for a scaled-down game like Bad Magpie.
After noticing a chalk mural depicting a mouse on it, I attempted to round up the level’s mice, one of which is found resting against a wall, cool as the other side of the pillow, reading a book. As each one is placed in the ring, a small icon lights up. Due to time, I was unable to herd them all into the ring to know what the reward is, but it’s encouraging that the game has bigger, multi-step puzzles like this.
Bad Magpie is a pretty, illustrative game that, similar to something like Cult of the Lamb, weaponises its inherent sweetness to disarm the player in the face of the game’s cheekiness. It’s exuberant, rich with gorgeous autumnal colour, and exists within the borders of cartoonish buffoonery. There’s, of course, a jaunty piano score that lightly hovers over the madness, giving a false air of sophistication that might exist in the game’s design, but is upended by the silliness of its premise.
Put simply, it’s a delight to play and look at.
