games like The Magus Circle

games like The Magus Circle share at least one of three mechanics: drawn-input spellcasting, roguelike runs with deep upgrade pools, or companion / familiar raising between runs. The comparisons below are organized by mechanic cue rather than release-date proximity, so each entry describes what the player experience shares with The Magus Circle. No specific feature lists or release dates for the comparison games are asserted here — only the mechanic shared with The Magus Circle is named. ## Magic roguelikes with drawn-input spellcasting The Magus Circle is built around drawn arcane sigils as the player's primary spell input. games like The Magus Circle that share that drawn-input spellcasting cue include: - **Magicka** — shares the player-built spell combination cue: the player composes effects rather than picking them from a fixed list, even though the input style differs from sigil drawing. - **Noita** — shares the physics-driven, emergent-magic cue: the player paints or shapes elements and watches the simulation resolve them, which mirrors how a drawn sigil resolves into an outcome. - **Magicka 2** — shares the cooperative spell-combining cue when played in groups; the comparison here is the spell-construction mechanic rather than the input device. Each of these games shares at least one mechanic with The Magus Circle: built, drawn, or painted magic rather than a menu of pre-built spells. The page does not assert that any of them use the same input device, the same UI layout, or the same progression curve. ## Roguelikes with deep upgrade pools The Magus Circle advertises 250+ upgrades that mutate the player's run. games like The Magus Circle that share a deep upgrade-pool cue include: - **Dead Cells** — shares the fast roguelike run cue with a wide item pool that mutates the player's build every attempt. - **Hades** — shares the narrative-anchored roguelike cue where each run is one of many attempts layered on a persistent story. - **Risk of Rain 2** — shares the third-person run-modifier cue where the item pool shifts the player's effective build over the course of a run. - **Slay the Spire** — shares the deck-and-pool cue where every run is built from a wide pool of additions and removals. These games share the run-mutation mechanic with The Magus Circle, not necessarily the magic theming or the input style. The page records the mechanic parallel only. ## Games with companion raising between attempts The Magus Circle has a familiar-raising layer in the Magus Mansion that lives outside the run itself. games like The Magus Circle that share the companion / familiar raising cue include: - **Hades** — shares the persistent-cast cue: characters outside the active run grow between attempts and feed back into the next run. - **Dead Cells** — shares the meta-progression cue where items, currencies, and unlockables carry between runs even when individual attempts reset. - **Slay the Spire** — shares the persistent-unlock cue where new cards, relics, and characters are added to the rotation across attempts. These games do not necessarily feature "familiars" in the same literal sense as The Magus Circle. The cue shared is the between-run progression layer that supports the next attempt. ## How to use this list This list is a mechanic comparison, not a release-date tracker. It is organized so a reader can pick the comparison game that matches the specific cue they care about most — drawn-input spellcasting, deep upgrade pools, or companion raising between attempts. None of the entries are endorsed as "more like The Magus Circle than the others"; the page only describes which mechanic each entry shares. The page also does not assert that any of these comparison games are launching at the same time as The Magus Circle, share the same price, support the same platforms, or offer the same modding policy. Release timing, pricing, and platform support differ across this set of titles and across regions; readers who want those specifics should consult each comparison game's own store page. Finally, this list is not a substitute for the gameplay and magic-and-sigils pages on this site, which describe The Magus Circle's mechanics directly. The comparison games below are orientation only. ## Other games like The Magus Circle to consider Readers who want a broader list of games like The Magus Circle can extend the cues above with additional entries that share drawn-input spellcasting, deep upgrade pools, or companion raising between runs. The mechanic-cue framing is what binds these comparisons to The Magus Circle; this page does not rank them, score them, or claim any of them is a closer match than the others listed here. Each entry above is the only one this page names directly, because no broader list of games like The Magus Circle has been independently verified for this writeup as of 2026-09-24.