When comparing Mountain vs The Magic Circle, the Slant community recommends The Magic Circle for most people. In the question“What are the best Exploration games on Steam?” The Magic Circle is ranked 8th while Mountain is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose The Magic Circle is:
There are many ways to play the game, whether that's finding the location of secrets while you're a ghost, or using your resources to scam your way into them while you're alive. Good example? There's a cave across a lava river. You could either make a flat rock fireproof, give it the ability to walk and take orders, jump on it and command it to take you to the other side. OR You can just kill yourself, walk over the river while you're dead, and find a hidden spawn point while in the cave. You find these keys that look important but there's nothing to do with them, along with an old recording log from a former beta tester. You can either be perceptive and find where you need to put the blocks after looking everywhere worth looking, OR You can just read the logs, listening to this tester complain that players don't look up and the puzzle is freakin' stupid and it needs to be erased. After taking the hint, you'll find where you put the keys: Directly above your head.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Art in the shape of a game
Once the player answers random questions and the mountain is formed all that is left to do is observe the mountain and what happens on it. More an art piece than a game this makes for an ambient experience that can be relaxing.
Pro Solid gameplay and puzzles with multiple solutions, and not just an interactive piece of art
There are many ways to play the game, whether that's finding the location of secrets while you're a ghost, or using your resources to scam your way into them while you're alive.
Good example? There's a cave across a lava river. You could either make a flat rock fireproof, give it the ability to walk and take orders, jump on it and command it to take you to the other side.
OR
You can just kill yourself, walk over the river while you're dead, and find a hidden spawn point while in the cave.
You find these keys that look important but there's nothing to do with them, along with an old recording log from a former beta tester.
You can either be perceptive and find where you need to put the blocks after looking everywhere worth looking,
OR
You can just read the logs, listening to this tester complain that players don't look up and the puzzle is freakin' stupid and it needs to be erased. After taking the hint, you'll find where you put the keys: Directly above your head.
Cons
Con No controls
Which basically means this is more a screen saver than a game. There is nothing to control, no interaction at all other than tones one keyboard will play when keys are pressed.