# Magic Research

> Lead a magic school, research spells, and compete in a magical tournament. (iPhone/iPad app by Matias Ezequiel Colotto.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research/id1671272877 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Matias Ezequiel Colotto](https://appshunter.io/developer/1669682477)
- Category: Games, Simulation
- Price: $3.99
- Rating: 4.70/5 from 188 App Store ratings · 61 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 15.6 · 25 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2023-02-19
- Data updated: 2026-08-24
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research/id1671272877/reviews.md

## What is Magic Research?

In Magic Research, you are the headmaster of a newly-created institution of Magic with one goal: to learn as much as possible about this power and get enough fame to be able to compete, and win, the prestigious competition of schools: the Tournament of Magic. But what will you discover along the way?

* Cast over a hundred different spells with various effects
* Research magic in various magical schools to discover new, surprising ways to use this power
* Accumulate resources and build the school campus
* Manage a team of researchers and apprentices to lead your school to fame
* Discover tons of hidden new features - when will you unlock the next one?
* Find over eight dozen secret storylines with permanent, game-altering effects
* Restart the game and make faster progress each time with retirement bonuses
* Optimized both for iPhone and iPad
* No ads!

This is the full, complete game. You can transfer save data from the demo by using the Export / Import Save feature available in both the demo and in the full game.

## Key features

- Cast over 100 spells
- Research magic in various schools
- Build and manage campus
- Manage researchers and apprentices
- Discover hidden features and storylines
- Retirement bonuses for faster progress

## What do users think of Magic Research?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 👍 Great idle/incremental game
- 💡 Deep and complex systems
- 🚀 Well-paced progression
- 💰 Worth the price
- ✨ No ads or microtransactions
- 📚 Engaging story and lore
- 🎮 Active and idle play options
- 🔄 High replayability
- 🧑‍🏫 Automation systems (apprentices, researchers)
- 🗺️ In-game meta-information
- 🎯 Challenging boss fights
- 💯 Rewarding gameplay experience
- 🧑‍💻 Attentive developer
- 📱 Works well with VoiceOver

**Cons**

- 🐛 UI layout issues
- 🐌 Can be grindy
- 🔋 High battery consumption
- 🐛 Text running off page/scrolling issues
- 🐛 Wood resource bug
- 🐛 Stunned mechanic
- 🐛 Bosses running away
- 🐛 Spell balancing issues
- 🐛 Auto-battling can be mundane
- 📱 Phone gets very hot

**Commonly reported bugs**

- On new iPhones, switching away and back causes UI unresponsiveness
- Text running off the page, preventing interaction with buttons
- Wood resource counting backwards
- Becoming stunned for a full minute, unable to act
- Bosses running away from fights
- Exploration difficulty jump
- UI layout issues on iPad Pro (long scrolling panels, cut-off inventory views, difficult spell favorite scrolling, useless event panel)
- Text pages not scrolling, making discoveries unreadable

**Most requested features**

- Add background music
- Add Chinese language support
- Make monsters pixelated
- Adjustable times for apprentice auto-casting
- Display monstium collection counter during exploration
- Allow apprentices to auto-craft potions
- Make the game accessible to the blind
- Add a way to start further into dungeons
- Automate crafting
- Improve quality of crafted items (armor, weapons)
- Add a 'Magic Smithing' school
- Allow players to avoid or cure silence effects

## Recent user reviews (10 of 61)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research/id1671272877/reviews.md

### 4/5 — Great game, has bug

*2025-12-03*

On the new iPhone, when I switch away from the game and back, I can swipe menus but can't interact with any buttons. Makes playing a bit of a pain right now.

Love the game, one of the best idle game experiences on the market for any platform. The systems are complex but not overly so, the pacing is really well-done, and it's designed in such a way that you don't need to consult a guide which I love.

The apprentices system is a great way to give the player a way to automate the game, and the way it's designed means you're always building toward something (adding a new buff/boost, improving your resource collection, etc).

Researchers are a great way to passively improve less important or hard-to-train schools. Not having to actively train evocation on weak enemies each run, or constantly enable buffs to slowly train enchantment, makes it far easier to focus on the interesting parts of the game loop. 

I'm a sucker for games that provide an in-game mechanic for gaining meta-information. Spells to reveal quest requirements or game tips are very cool and provide an important avenue later game to progress without being tied to a wiki page.

### 5/5 — Perfect

*2025-09-13*

Excellent jeu, le 2 est encore mieux, vivement le 3.

### 5/5 — The Best Active Play Idle Game

*2025-07-11*

I just completed the main game (have not 100% it yet) and have spent over 56 hours actively playing. This game is an amazing incremental which holds your attention through. It requires active play, but gives you “time pieces” as you are idle, which allows you to speed up gameplay, or do time warps. This allows you to constantly feel like you are actively playing, while allowing you to speed through some grinding parts. Highly recommend the game, easily one of my top 3 mobile games ever. Now onto the second game!

### 5/5 — Finally a fun idle

*2025-03-30*

This is a really fun idle game. You can do both idle and active play, [active being faster than just idling] the actual boss fights are a challenge when you encounter them for the first time and you really have to take stock of your resources and see what items you can craft and spells/buffs to try and beat them. Give this game about an hour, if you like it after that. Buy the 2nd one because it’s more along the lines of a remaster rather than a 2nd game. Very fun stuff. NEED NUMBER 3 😄

### 5/5 — Great timesink

*2024-11-01*

Well priced, feels like something I’ll reset and come back to in a few years.

### 5/5 — First time 🥴

*2024-08-30, version 1.15.0*

Lowkey, my first time playing this kinda game. I’m addicted, I haven’t stopped playing it. At some points, I’m not even having fun but I’m still playing. This game changed me

### 5/5 — Fun, great replay value

*2024-08-18*

Smooth and streamlined from beginning to end. Couldn’t take it out my hands for weeks

### 5/5 — Me and my best friend beat the game!

*2024-03-27*

This game is insanely fun. Me and my friend played at home, work, in the bathroom… everywhere. Whenever you think you’re halting and there’s not much to do it opens up again and you get tons of stuff. So much fun how they have combat in addition to building your schools. 10/10 would recommend

### 5/5 — Great game

*2024-03-07, version 1.15.0*

Great game but I have come to a point where I need more stone to build another warehouse but until I build another warehouse I can’t hold more stone.

### 5/5 — 텍스트 게임이라니????

*2024-02-04*

어릴 때나 해봤던 텍스트 게임이길래 
후기가 없는데도 다운받아봤는데 재밌네요. 
파밍과 rpg 를 적당히 섞어놔서
어릴 때 했던 텍스트게임들에서 많이 발전된 느낌이에요. 어느정도 방치도 가능함
참고로 영어지문 꽤 많이 나오니까 영어 읽는거 힘드신 분들은 패스하세요.

## Frequently asked questions about Magic Research

### What is Magic Research?

Magic Research is a game where you become the headmaster of a new magic institution. Your goal is to research magic, discover spells, build your campus, and manage your staff to gain fame and compete in the Tournament of Magic.

### What are the key features of Magic Research?

Key features include casting over a hundred different spells, researching magic in various schools, accumulating resources to build your campus, managing a team of researchers and apprentices, discovering hidden features and secret storylines, and benefiting from retirement bonuses for faster progress.

### How much does Magic Research cost?

Magic Research is a paid application. The description indicates it is the 'full, complete game' and explicitly states 'No ads!', suggesting a one-time purchase for the full experience without any in-app purchases or advertisements.

### Is Magic Research compatible with my device?

Yes, the game is optimized for both iPhone and iPad, indicating broad compatibility with Apple mobile devices. You can also transfer save data from the demo version using the Export/Import Save feature.

### What are common use cases for Magic Research?

Common use cases include engaging in strategic gameplay by researching and casting spells, managing a virtual magic school and its resources, uncovering a variety of secret storylines with lasting effects, and enjoying a complete, ad-free gaming experience.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.15.9 — 2025-08-17

Fix save compatibility. Will now accept saves from older versions of the game.

### 1.15.0 — 2024-02-06

New features and changes:
- Research menu now shows exp and time needed for next level for each school, as well as their next unlock
- Hide events menu by default on all surfaces less than 1300px wide
- Enchant Lumber Yards will no longer get cast from apprentices if Smarter Apprentices are enabled and the Wood storage is full
- Accessibility: Category headers now instead read as "(category name), Collapsed - Press to Expand" instead of "Expand (category name)"

Bug fixes:
- Pressing and holding "Use Time Pieces (Warp)" will no longer consume all Time Pieces
- Mitigate crashes when running game at very high speeds
- Fix bug where enemies who are stunned for a very long time may cause future encountered enemies not to do anything
- Fix bug where some combat items were usable outside of combat
- Other smaller bug and typo fixes

### 1.14.1 — 2023-06-05

New features and changes:
- Show turned on buildings directly on the button, rather than needing to expand to see this information
- Add the ability to collapse multiple containers across the app
- Add the ability to craft 10 or 100 of an item at once
- Add warning message clarifying the reason why time is stopped and how to solve it if the game has been run on a future time

Bug fixes:
- Fix event overlay window not being scrollable
- Fix fight against several secret boss
- Fix rare bug that could cause crashes on startup
- Partially fix performance on very high Boon levels on NG+
- Fix certain damage-over-time status effects potentially leading to Exploration recovery never finishing until the damage-over-time effect expires
- Fix formatting for very large numbers
- No longer drop Key to the Dais if there is already one in inventory
- Many text fixes
- Other minor bug fixes

Balance changes:
- Some balance changes, mainly to the post-game / NG+

### 1.13.3 — 2023-05-07

* Fix late-game Storyline event triggering again after retirement when it shouldn't
* Fix crash when changing equipment sets under certain conditions

### 1.13.1 — 2023-05-05

New features and changes:
- 2 new late-game Storylines
- Add "Chest" random events to most dungeons
- Add new "It's raining!" random event
- When losing in combat, the message in the Exploration Log now shows the cause of death
- Add "Pause Exploration" feature while exploring, to give opportunity to prepare before a fight
- Various performance improvements through the app
- Add hint on Retirement screen when it is best to keep making progress in Exploration first (i.e. multiplier is high for current progress) or when it is best to retire (i.e. multiplier is too low for current progress)
- And more...

Bug fixes:
- Fix late-game Storyline not completable in a New Game +
- Remove bottom resource viewer from Exploration screen on very small screens that have no room for it
- Fix large amounts of creatures in low level areas not obtaining enemy rewards as fast as expected

Balance changes:
- A few balance changes

## Apps similar to Magic Research

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Magic Research 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research-2/id6478566840) | 4.8 (115) | $4.69 | Games |
| [Idle Acorns](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/idle-acorns/id1552999208) | 4.8 (1,210) | $1.99 | Games |
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| [Grimoire Incremental](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/grimoire-incremental/id1618966147) | 4.8 (544) | Free | Games |

## More apps by Matias Ezequiel Colotto

- [Magic Research 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research-2/id6478566840)

All apps by Matias Ezequiel Colotto: https://appshunter.io/developer/1669682477

## Related topics

[magic research](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/magic-research) · [magic research 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/magic-research-2) · [research game](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/research-game) · [idle magic academy](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/idle-magic-academy) · [magic academy](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/magic-academy)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-24.*