5 Magical Online Games

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you 

because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. 

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

~Roald Dahl (British novelist & writer)

Here are five casual online games that can bring a touch of magic into your life.

The Modern Sorcerer's MahJong
MahJong is, in almost any variant, a cool game to play.The Modern's Sorcerer's version is a feast of magical symbols and tidbits. The game splash starts off with quotes on magic and even a scrollable excerpt from a book! The game offers 5 different layouts, or difficulty levels and separate highscores for each. This may well be the most magical game out there!

Play MahJong

Free to play and completely ad-free as well!

Elementals: The Magic Key

The online version of this game is limited, but if you are into hidden object games you are bound to enjoy it. The graphics are lovely!

Play Elementals

Some ads, but none to delay the game-play.

The Mastery of Symbols Mah Jong
Here is another variant of this tile game, this time featuring a variety of symbols: Zodiac Astrology (Chinese and Western), Alchemy symbols, such as the 4 elements (Earth, Wind, Water and Fire), the Philosopher's Stone alchemical glyph and the planetary symbols.

Play Mah Jong

Free to play and completely ad-free as well!

Quintessence
Quintessence is a puzzle game, created in a Steampunk design, with alchemical symbols that need to be removed in order to keep the game table clean. The design is beautiful, the music extremely atmospheric, allowing you to merge yourself with the game and properly dive in. Highly addictive!

Play with Alchemy

Free to play and completely ad-free as well!

The Journey to Elysium
If you are a regular reader of Casual Online Games then you have already heard about this particular game. It's a puzzle, it's an adventure and it is also very magical. The story itself, the quest of the game hero Zen and the illustrations are all a delight for any fan of magic.

Play the Magical Quest

Free to play but completely ad-free as well!

Game Design goes Bye-bye

When you have played games online, like I have, you'll eventually come to realize that game design is a rather neglected aspect of game creation, at least when it comes to free online games. The majority of online games look like they have been through the meat-grinder prior to being published.
Here are a few examples of popular games, from prominent games sites, and the design is nothing short of abominable.

Finding such games on major games sites baffles me each and every time. Does anyone actually play these things...?
A game on AddictingGames called "Youre Toast" (no, there is no apostrophe in the title) has had 7 thousand likes on Facebook and almost 3 million game plays on the site itself. The game is not only ugly, but also beyond dumb and yet thousands, nay..millions of players just don't care.
So game design doesn't matter, game play doesn't matter, what the heck matters?
The gore factor?

Because there are plenty of such games.... here is one:

In case you are wondering, that "thing" in the middle, towards the bottom of the screenshot is the game hero, impaled on a pointy thing, with blood spraying in all directions. 

I just had to get this off my chest, so thanks for listening/reading. It's frustrating for me, because I love a good game, but having to sift through as much trash as there is out there ends up being more work than play, or rather a complete waste of time.