Path of Exile. It has the most complex and detailed magic system from any game right now. Insane amount of unique spells that you can combine several ways with all the different weapons and armors and on top of that you have a gigantic skill tree
Just the passive tree alone makes my head hurt all the time and that's just one single aspect of adjustment of your character https://poeplanner.com/
Re:Ask HN: What game do you wish existed?
by dllthomas on Wednesday May 25, 2022 @08:49PM
(#31512887)
I wonder if it would be fun to make magic a deeply unintuitive visual programming language.
I am working on a game with exactly that mechanic: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1482640/Nurose/ I like to think that the visual programming is pretty intuitive even for non programmers.
Re:Ask HN: What game do you wish existed?
by dllthomas on Thursday May 26, 2022 @12:23PM
(#31520270)
Neat! I wonder if one could do a gesture based programming language in VR...
similar to the wand building in Noita?
Its pretty old so maybe just useful for inspiration but the old Amiga/Atari game Dragon Lord / Dragon's Breath (Europe) has a very interesting custom magic system in which you can create unique spells using combinations of various alchemical reagants.
FWIW I think it's a very difficult thing to create such a system, without making it a tedious exercise in testing ingredient combinations.
This! I talked about it in my comment but it ended up with me rambling about my idea of the game. I'd definitely be the slow ritual kind of guy haha.
What I want is something where you can literally research magic, discover new effects, combine them to create new magic in form of spells, artifacts, rituals and so on. It should be easily accessible, after all it's a game, and not work. And have a bit of liberty in world interactions and movements. So maybe a easy metrovanian like Ori or Hollow knight, where you get new movements and open new paths through magic discoveries, but can decide your own difficult-level by either using some slow and safe magic in form of a ritual, or fast and dangerous by fighting directly with battle-orientated spells.
There are a bunch of games which go a bit in the direction, but are not complex and deep enough, like "Mages of Mystralia", or the Magicka-Games. Thinking about, a sandbox-environment might be the best for this, so Minecraft with some mods, or Noita would also go in the direction from a different angle.