Getting Started in The Magus Circle

The Magus Circle is a single-player survival roguelite by By Witchlight. Steam app 2796640 lists 24 September 2026 for Windows, macOS, and Linux, with English and Korean. A price is not listed yet. This page is the first hour: wishlist, controls you can actually confirm, a first mage, and a run checklist that does not assume you already know Ice Spear from a stream.

If you only want festival footage, skip ahead to the demo guide. If you already know you will die with a messy circle, open how to draw spells in a second tab. Everyone else should stay here until the first teleport back to the Magus Mansion.

Wishlist and accounts before you draw

Add the full game on Steam so the 24 September 2026 ping is not a rumor you saw on a screenshot. The wishlist checklist also covers Discord, Patreon, and a reminder to confirm system requirements. The studio site is By Witchlight. Official Discord is linked from Links if you want bug reports or to brag about a broken run the way KevDev invited players to do after Next Fest.

Do not wait for a promo-code page. This game does not run on Roblox tickets. The useful prep is a mouse you can draw with, a clear desk, and ten quiet minutes. A drawing tablet is optional, not required.

DRAW YOUR SPELLS IN NEW ROGUELITE — The Magus Circle demo

Controls you can trust

By Witchlight has not published a full keybind bible in the materials this wiki used. What demo HUD shots and playthroughs do show is consistent:

• You move the mage and you draw with the cursor. The spell does not fire because you pressed 1. It fires because the sigil closed.
• Potions sit on the left of the HUD. Spell slots sit on the right.
• XP bonus, a timer, kill count, and level stay visible while the Tide stacks.
• One screenshot showed version 0.4.6. Treat that as a demo build label, not the 24 September 2026 client.

If a streamer binds extra keys, that is their overlay, not a promise. Keep the spell sigils sheet nearby so you are not inventing shapes under pressure. For the wider loop (XP, loot, tarot, death), use how to play.

Pick a first mage, not a fantasy six-stack

The studio confirmed six playable mages. You will not unlock them all in the first hour, and you should not invent kits for the names we have not documented.

• Milk is the onboarding pick for most people. Nimble pays speed and mana when you evade with a near miss. Bunny Form lasts 3 seconds, grants +25% move speed, shrinks you by 50% size, and sits on a 25-second cooldown. That kit forgives bad drawings because you can slip a gap, drink the mana, and try the sigil again.
• Rum is the other honest first pick if you like melee pressure. Rum is Spellblade, crit-focused, with a parry upgrade. Prestige spells named Drenal, Ido, and Lonlight Chakras showed up in an official short. Rum wants you close enough that a failed circle hurts more than it does on Milk.
• Matcha appears in mansion conversation footage. Coffee and Chicha are confirmed names. Anchan showed locked at 25 currency in a screenshot. Read those pages on the players hub when you have currency. Do not spend the first run trying to force Anchan.

For a snapshot of who feels strong in demo footage, open the character tier list after one death, not before.

What a first Tide run is trying to teach

The Magus Circle plays like the survivor-likes people mention next to Vampire Survivors, with a drawing step closer to Lost Magic. It is not those games. Your job in run one is smaller than a full build:

1. Learn one reliable sigil so you can actually spend mana.
2. Pick upgrades that make that sigil less fragile, not a fantasy of 250 options at once. The pool is 250+ unique upgrades and about 20 unique spells; the first chest will not hand you the catalog.
3. Watch the timer. Demo runs often sat around 10–15 minutes if you extracted. One 30-minute recording met the first Leviathan near 13 minutes in the World of Mirna. You do not need to win that fight today. You need to see it.
4. Survive long enough to return to the Magus Mansion. Familiars, tea, tarot, and NPCs including Odds the bartender-bookie live there. The mansion is the real tutorial after death.

Spells you are likely to see named in playthroughs: Ice Spear (high damage), Riptide (a push, later Quazar beam and Wattatsumi sea dragon upgrades), meteor swarm, chain lightning, magic missile, and Spellblade on Rum. Rank them later on the spell tier list. Cast them now with ugly lines.

First-run checklist

Print this in your head. Do not add extra objectives.

1. Wishlist app 2796640 and confirm the machine on system requirements.
2. Choose Milk unless you already know you want Rum’s Spellblade.
3. Draw one circle that the game accepts. Then draw it again while moving.
4. Glance at potions left, slots right, timer, and kill count after the first chest. If you cannot find those numbers, you are staring at the cursor too hard.
5. Take the upgrade that makes your current sigil safer. Ignore the upgrade tier list until you have two spells you can actually finish.
6. When a Leviathan appears, kite first. Read how to beat bosses if you panic. Extracting is a valid first-hour ending.
7. In the mansion, buy tea or a cheap tarot if you have the currency. The Magus card ties to Bunny Form. The Priestess and Hierophant showed +0.5 Mana Regen. The Empress showed Upright +10% Speed and Reversed +10% Mana Efficiency. The Emperor showed +10% Duration at T1. Do not memorize the whole deck on day one.
8. Start a second run with the same mage. The lesson is repetition, not novelty.

After that second death, branch out. How to play explains challenges you pick after victories (more than ten unique options) and the choice to continue past a boss instead of teleporting. The Guides Hub links every sibling. The Updates hub and release date page catch calendar changes. Festival context sits on Next Fest.

Your first hour is done when you can finish a sigil without stopping the mage, you know where the HUD numbers live, and you can walk the mansion without treating it as a pause menu. Everything else is a later run.