Hmmm, so here's what I got for Magicka.
How to playUp to four wizards are going to set out to save the world.
On their way, they will have to overcome several hazards and enemies.
As you can see, ASCIIDraw is useful for making maps for that. As a general rule, you can walk over beige (mud and sand), light green (grass), grey (stone), and white (snow).
The players don't have to be on the same map all the time. They can for instance split up and explore faster that way. It is of course advised to be careful, since more maps means more enemies.
If a character dies, somebody else can resurrect them with the Revive spell. It is a low-difficulty spell that can be reliably cast even in the early levels.
The player whose character has died will be moved to the bottom of the waitlist, and the first person thereof will gain control over the wizard instead.
If the body's gone the group has to find a savepoint to get their colleague back.
TPK's set the entire group back to the last savepoint, and should give the GM and the players a good idea whether they have done something wrong.
How to fightThere are three kinds of weapons: light but fast ones, slow but hard hitting ones, and those in between.
Obviously light weapons can be used more often than heavy ones, but I have no idea how to balance speed and damage without making one kind obviously superior to the other or even spellcasting. Case in point.
Weapons can also have secondary effects, such as "deals extra fire damage" or "shoots lasers when at full health".
How to cast spellsThe main focus of the game.
There are 8 "elements": Water(Q), Life(W), Shield(E), Cold(R), Lightning(A), Arcane(S), Earth(D), and Fire(F).
There's also the combined elements Ice (R+Q) and Steam(F+Q).
They can interact in several complex ways, which I won't bother to explain. So have a few links instead. (or maybe not. The wiki appears to have been eaten by the evil monstrosity that is wikia).
The wizard has to charge up their spells first, which a) can take a while and b) slows then down if they don't cast away immediately.
Depending on the complexity of the spell, they then have to succeed a roll to cast the spell without negative side effects (such as casting the wrong element, at the wrong person or plain failing). Complex spells (such as the Super Wet Lightning Beam) are a lot more difficult to cast than say, spamming single life elements..
Every level they complete, the wizards get a bonus to casting. So at the beginning they might have trouble throwing around fireballs, at the end they can summon Lightning Bolts with ease.
This is about the gist of the game.