Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Game
Game2013
Magrunner: Dark Pulse
Developer Frogwares
Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a puzzle game developed by Frogwares. It was released as a downloadable title on Microsoft Windows on 20 June 2013, PlayStation Network on 23 October 2013, and Xbox Live Arcade on 25 October 2013. Magrunner: Dark Pulse is set in a cyberpunk reimagining of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
189 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Sep 19, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
63
Fresh
115 positive · 69 negative
95% range 55–69%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 115 | 69 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
5 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
831 of 1,136 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 189 · most liked firstBefore I played this i had a small penis, no girlfriend and no will to live. None of these things have changed, but the game is pretty good.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hidden gem in a Portal, Q.U.B.E or AntiChamber style with almost unseen concept integrating magnetism logics in a Lovecraft realm! You will crack few neurons since the logic of some puzzle is sometimes not well introduced but it was really worse the time spent. I recommend to remove the fps cap (like all UE games): Inside YoshiEngine.ini Change the line bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE to bSmoothFrameRate=FALSE (work buttery smooth at 144fps on 144hz screen in 1440p)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In 2011, people were so desperate for Portal-likes that they tricked themselves into thinking QUBE was good. Two years later, this game came out and was actually good, but I hadn't heard of it until late 2020. Some of the puzzles are finnicky and some of the scripting is really bad, but I had an overall fantastic experience playing this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wouldn't have played this game if it had no reference to the Cthulhu Mythos. And I think it makes a good impression in this respect. I liked how the levels, story and atmosphere changed more and more in a dark and threatening direction. The magnetism puzzles were clever and challenging but not that great that I want more of them. But it's definitely worth playing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i particularly dont like it But its due that you can't use weapons in the game or neither there is any ''interesting'' combat, in general it's just a different puzzle game that you only manipulate gravity and only that still the game looks kinda good and for who's interested in try something different and its not much into weapons, violence or combat maybe you can like or dont, but i found out it's boring a game not have those things like for exemple weapons, action, adrenaline and for end…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What starts out like Portal gradually descends into cosmic horror. It may not be a polished masterpiece, but it's anything but ordinary.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nice mix of Portal like puzzles but with cubes and magnetism. Lots of platforming and deliberate Cthulhu vibes. Game is quite long and interesting enough to experience again in the future. Highly recommended.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Portal style puzzle game where it's first person, and you walk around with a glove that allows you to magnetize objects. Some of the puzzles are interesting, but towards the end it felt like I was just semi-sequence breaking puzzles because whatever the intended solution was was way too finnicky / weird. Many of the puzzles rooms themselves also just felt way too large to traverse given how slow your character moves. The story is is dumb, and just lifts the bare superficial details for HP…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its a portal game clone but instead of portals, you have to use mangets here. its different real-life magnets, magnets of the same colour attract each other while magnets of different colours repel each other. + The gameplay is surprisingly fun and challenging. + It has good puzzle mechanics and puzzle gravity fields , with a colourful aesthetic environment. + No Repetitive Maps or level design. + No Stupid Silent Protagonist. + Controlls is really easy, you need to use RMB , LMB , Q , WASD…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Too many frustrating puzzles where you can figure out the solution but the physics get in the way.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →great puzzle game of gravity fields with an interesting story
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Up front, this game is neither good nor bad. It's just that when it comes to a game this middle of the road, there are better games you could be playing. That said... It's a fairly competent Portal-like (first-person puzzle platformer with a mechanic that lets you switch between two or more states to progress), but simple and rough around the edges. The main mechanic is switching between one of two states, similar to giving something a positive or negative charge, if we're talking magnets.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A puzzle game about magnetism in which + attracts + and repels -. That decision alone removes any sort of intuitive understanding of the puzzles and you're constantly struggling to think "wait, is this going to repel or attract?" because you're constantly going against the understanding of magnetism taught to you your whole life. It clearly wants to be Portal but it forgets that Portal devs spent a ton of time massaging the physics to smooth out the gameplay making it so an 'almost correct'…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A lot of very neat puzzles and a story premise which is wacky in a charming way. Didn't love it as much as "Talos Principle" or "Portal", but it's still very well made.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's way better to play custom Portal maps than this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →great game lots to do loads of levels + fun
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want a 2nd game lmao
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Magrunner starts by giving portal vibes. You walk from test chamber to test chamber and solve the puzzles. You have a glove and can change the polarity of the objects. They then attract each other or push each other away. Later in the game, you leave the test chambers and get to see the world of Magrunner. My problem with the game is simply that the puzzles are not fun. I got bored quite early in the game, which was not the case with Portal or similar games. I kept playing, but didn’t really…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A badly-made Portal-style physics puzzle platformer. The gimmick is that you can magnetize objects, causing them to attract or repel one another, and it's a core mechanic that there could be a lot of interesting gameplay associated with. As for why it's bad, there are a lot of things, none of which are quite dealbreakers but all together they make for a pretty terrible experience. First of all, the physics is a little janky. Not enough to be unplayable, but enough that a lot of the puzzles have…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Passable Portal pastiche Drawing very much from the Portal tradition, this plays around with a similarly simple toolbox, applied in creative ways. Here, rather than teleportation, your tools are attraction and repulsion. The game describes these as magnetism, but then makes the odd choice of inverting the way magnetic fields work: here, green attracts green, and repels red, and vice versa, red repels green and attracts red. (Maybe this was easier to code, I don't know). You apply polarised…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Basically a "Portal" clone, but there is no match with the original one. Sorry for giving a negative rating, but didn't liked it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Magrunner is Portal but instead of portals you get magnets... and a twist transition to Lovecraftian horror. Frogwares is known for their Sherlock Holmes Point&Click Adventure games and the newer Investigative Detective games. With Magrunner they surprisingly branched out and created this agility-puzzle parkour horror game. Magrunner: Dark Pulse offers 39 levels of agility puzzles that require parkour, reflexes and outside the box thinking. : Sounds nice on paper but unlike Portal, the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If Portal, Cube and Lovecraft had a Threesome SSS: Simple, Short & Satisfying We have Portal test chambers, magnetic glove to shoot charges and outer dimensional monsters chasing you. Promising, right? It would be, if the trials were harder (60% of them completely brain dead) or longer. Moreover, you can "break" few puzzles by riding an explosive or propelling yourself straight to the exit. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2809215705 Acts I, II, III The best Act is II. Its…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Painfully slow paced. Completing puzzles is not satisfying, it's more like "thank God I'm done with that". Some puzzles are too long or in rooms that are way too big which doesn't pair well with the snails place that you strut around. I made it 3/4 of the way through the game and had to look up guides for a couple of puzzles only to find out that I was doing the right thing but certain maneuvers are finicky at best, most notable stacking cubes and launching up to a platform above you. There…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Rip off of portal :(
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It starts off pretty chill, and then the story takes a turn for the bizarre. It's not like Portal, but it reminds me of Portal, kind of like if Portal took a whole different approach to puzzles than using portals.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →after yesterday's upload magrunner has 9 rooms left to clear and then i will be done with it. end of yesterday's video has the start of the cthulhu realm so look forward to those parts if you're a fan of the game or lovecraft. #youtube #magrunner #lovecraft #letsplay #Gaming
unlabelledView post →mid, hella unoptimized and kinda boring
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a puzzle game with a unique Lovecraftian flavor. It plays like Portal, both being puzzle games with platformer elements with a sci-fi theme and test facility setting. Your main equipment here is your Magtech Glove, which can change an object's polarity to attract or repel each other. Later on, you'll be given an upgrade where you can spawn magnetic robot dog anywhere, adding a new mechanic to the challenge. The uniqueness of this game is that the story suddenly takes a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a pretty hard game to review. I don't know how things were when it came out, but back then, it may have been great, a new portal-esque game to play with some weird additions that may have been reminiscent of Doom 3 to some degree. However, when analyzing how well it managed to do that, it's clear that it wasn't great. It's very rough around the edges. It also has some very annoying things: - Loading screens in places that destroy immersion again and again (in Portal 1 and 2, loading…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Starts strong with the research / training themed tech rooms, then gets dark in act 2. The set design is fairly atmospheric, though the voice acting /writing is just lol skippable. Some janky platforming and timing puzzles spoil the enjoyment of the brain teasers. Only recommended if you've a high tolerance for pain/hardcore fan of Lovecraftian mythos (which feels fairly tacked on but ok executed well). Ok value if on sale.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This one is a hidden gem familiar to Portal.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →very hard game ...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Magrunner: Dark Pulse doesn't hide the fact that it wants to be a portal clone. But instead of portals, you have to use mangets here. The magnets in this game act different to real-life magnets though. In this game, magnets of the same colour attract each other while magnets of different colours repel each other. There is more story than in Portal, which I liked. However, the plot isn't as strong and there are some plotholes that are never explained. Near the end, the game has some difficulty…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No sense of direction, confusing to figure out what to do at points. The main mechanic is switching a positive or negative charge to progress through the game like repelling magnets. It's not that bad of a game, just playing it made me think man there is better games to play. I suggest if you going to play / buy a game similar to this just get Portal & Portal 2.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →At first glance, the game appears to be a Ukrainian Portal, but that's not entirely true. The plot is quite good and interesting in places, and the locations are also well-designed. Instead of portals, we control magnetic gravity, which is also cool. One downside is the puzzles themselves: in the first chapter, they're very easy, but in the second, even guides sometimes don't help. My rating: ✭✭✭✰✰
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Can't recommend, it could be a decent game, bur: - The game loop tries to do what portal does but not as charming and engaging - The puzzles are decent though, but it frustrates me that they mixed up how magnetism works, it is the opposite polarities that attract, not the other way - It is not updated or optimized for modern hardware, I had a terrible performance on 4060 and i5-12500H, which is a shame because screenshots hint at some interesting plot and designs down the line, but I can't get…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →8/10 been playing off and on , for 5 or 6 years. it is pretty solid. there are many portal clones. I do wonder if frogwares are actually Cthulhu worshippers, because they have so many games referencing that. over and over. anyway. " i dont know the language but it sounds like Cthu.. or something' 16 hours in made me realise . yes it s a bit mediocre and predictable, but the puzzles are fun . the anime style voice acting is a lot meh " OMG WHAT IS THAT , I CANT CONTROL IT" kind of puts me off…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lovecraftian Portal with interesting level designs, but honestly, not that amazing of a story. Still. an honorable attempt for a Portal-like game and it deserves it's praise and purchase (got it for free tho)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly, a hidden gem. A mix between Portal and Lovecraft, but the less you know the more it surprises you. Well designed puzzles, a nice story and interesting visuals.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nice concept but it just becomes tedious in the late game. A chore. You can't save when you like so you WILL have to repeat that series of annoying jumps multiple times if you land poorly a jump. One in a series of 3 or 4 in between moving platforms. I have no time or desire to repeat a puzzle 3 or 4 times just because the game forces me too to extend it's play life.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you love Portal and want a bit more of a challenge, have some horror, and a cool usage of Magnets over portals, definitely pick this up.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The mechanics are pretty interesting and open up a lot of possibilities that are well exploited as you progress through the game. But, it can get occasionally tedious in the later levels: - Precision targeting at distance - Synchronization/coordination of charges On the story and character, on the other hand, it's rather uninteresting. But overall, the game is enjoyable.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Magrunner: Dark Pulse is an exciting and engaging game that combines puzzle-solving with fast-paced action. The game offers a unique and original storyline that takes place in a futuristic world where an elite group of Magrunners are selected to compete in a tournament using their advanced magnetic technology. The puzzles themselves are challenging and require the player to think creatively about how to use their magnetic abilities to progress through each level. The game mechanics are easy to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Garbage. Story is ♥♥♥♥. Writing is ♥♥♥♥. Puzzles are more of a hindrance rather than a challenge. Would rather go watch paint dry.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you liked Portal, then you will like this game. The gameplay is similar to Portal where you go room by room solving puzzles. Instead of portals, puzzles are based on magnetism. I found no bugs and the game felt polished. I recommend it if you are in the mood of solving some very good puzzles. 8/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →tl;dr: It's a Portal-like, starts interesting, ends badly. In the beginning, it feels like a nice Portal-like, with a very interesting and promising magnetism mechanic (although it's the opposite of real life: opposites repel themselves and equals attract each other) but with bad writing and (very) forgettable (and annoying) characters. Gameplay-wise, the magnetism mechanic makes it interesting, as it opens ways for many different puzzles, but, oddly, there are some timing puzzles that really…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Mechanically, it's like Portal had a child with the Electromagnetic Field Hockey I used to play in college. It's a fun enough concept, but it quickly went from "Okay, this is kind of fun" to "That got dark fast", which I enjoyed. I'm not done yet, but I expect to come back to it regularly after sleeping on whatever puzzle got me stuck. For me, the only real downside was that the loading between rooms kind of broke the immersion. Can't go wrong with this sale price of $2, and it's probably…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →for a game called mag runner dark pulse it has a weird sense of magnetism, no running, good lighting and no pulse
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played this game on a complete whim since it had been in my library for a long time. So i went into this completely blind so at first i thought it was just gonna be a simple puzzle game when BAM Cuthulu came up and it was AWESOME. I do recommend playing it, it is a pretty good puzzle game with some unique mechanics useing magnets. But there is some nitpicks, it felt that act 1 was almost too short to estabilish who everyone is etc. while act 2 & 3 felt almost too long but that is my…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As of today, Valdis Story: Abyssal City (2013) is the 386th best game of all time according to me, directly below WipEout HD and directly above Magrunner: Dark Pulse. It is part of Tier 17. There are 25 tiers and 583 games in the list #PixelRankings
unlabelledView post →Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a solid Portal-inspired puzzle game built around magnetism mechanics that genuinely surprised me with how creative some of the puzzle designs are, especially in the first act where the clean, well-structured chambers let the core concept shine. Newton, the deployable robot dog that adds a secondary magnetic anchor, was a clever twist that kept things fresh for a while, and the Lovecraftian atmosphere in the later space-based levels is visually stunning — floating…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The core puzzle mechanic could have had potential, and a couple of the levels are interesting. Overall, the game is sorely lacking in every category. The story is uninteresting and its' characters are unbelievable, acting is nothing to speak of. The soundtrack is downright terrible, mostly screeching violins for hours straight. Graphics are perhaps 10 years behind. The horror elements are unimpressive. The puzzles themselves are more often than not actually platforming challenges and don't take…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you like platforms and puzzles : YES If you like a solid non cringe worthy story: NO
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great horror game that starts out pretending it's "Portal, but with magnets" but it diverges quickly and it's a lot of fun. Sometimes it's rough around the edges but it's not asking for an AAA price either.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a fantastic puzzle game that really stands out with its clever use of magnetism. The mix of futuristic tech and Lovecraftian horror makes for a unique and captivating experience. The game is packed with challenging puzzles that require serious brainpower. Some levels are pretty tough, but the satisfaction of solving them is worth it. Plus, there are often multiple ways to tackle a puzzle, which keeps things interesting and lets you get creative. The graphics might not be the latest and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As far as first person puzzle games go, this is one of the worst ones. It tries to copy Portal and The Talos Principle by having a narrative in between puzzles, but the story is very boring, and the dialogues are poorly written. And there is the worst kind of puzzles in the game: it's easy to understand what needs to be done, but it's tricky to do because the game physics and controls are not great, and even if you do everything perfectly, you need to wait for the platforms to move, which also…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I went into this totally blind. I got the game for free years ago and found it in my library while going through my unplayed list. I saw that it was a puzzle game, so I hopped in thinking it would be like portal and it was. To be entirely honest I enjoyed the mechanics of the first few levels. The magnetic pull and push was a cool concept. Then suddenly the game goes horror mode, but at no point is the horror aspect even remotely scary it more or less stressful. The voice acting and story also…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It seems like a fun concept on paper, but it is not. It is too long and, contrary to portal, it has no soul or charm when we talk about characters or level design decisions.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Too hard and boring
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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