The Sims: Makin' Magic is the best expansion pack in the franchise, hands down, no competition.

I don't just say this out of nostalgia; frankly, I hate saying anything out of nostalgia. I went back and played it last year (yes, before EA did their Complete Collection re-release in February 2025), and it is damn good game design. I'm going to tell you why.

But let's start at the beginning. The Sims: Makin' Magic is the seventh and final expansion pack for the original Sims video game. The sequel was already in the works, and Maxis wanted to go out with a real bang. Makin' Magic was a huge switch-up; while previous installments had included various "supernatural" elements - ghosts, zombies, and Santa, for example - the primary draw of the Sims was its close adherence to realistic mundanity as filtered through the computational capabilities of 2000s hardware. The point was that the game emulated, in a sitcom-y sort of way, the everyday normalcy of American Suburban life at the time. Genies and cursed clowns were silly jokes, practically easter eggs - there for a laugh, easy to ignore. Before Makin' Magic, the previous expansions were, in order: 1) the base game, but more, 2) house parties (also Drew Carey's there), 3) going on dates, 4) going on vacation, 5) owning pets, and 6) becoming a celebrity. That last one probably supercedes the mundane a tad, but it remains grounded in the unreality of real Hollywood, at least.

So to make the final expansion entirely focused on a secret magical world was a touch controversial. I remember some of my friends in school were FUMING about it even years later. In contemporary Sims fandom, the whole first game tends to get overlooked entirely except for the occasional shortform video about how wacky it was (yes, there we stripper cakes. Yes, a gorilla in a bikini could pop out of one. We know), but Makin' Magic especially gets overlooked even by those who still hold the original title in high regard.

For me, Makin' Magic WAS the Sims. That expansion had me in a chokehold, as it were, and it retains its white-gloved grip on me even into adulthood.

Here's why.

Thine Curiosity Overfloweth

I want to start with the gameplay. Makin' Magic layers some rather complex systems atop of a set of already seriously complex systems, and to aid the player in understanding this, it does provide text tutorials. But you don't need them. Makin' Magic should be held alongside Super Mario Bros Level 1-1 and the opening level of MegaMan X in how well it teaches you to play the game without ever needing to give you a guidebook.

When you load up a household for the first time after installing Makin' Magic, an older, bespectacled gentleman in a bright pink suit jacket strides onto your lot. I won't say you're "greeted" by him, because he doesn't speak to you - he refuses to interact. This is the Spellchecker, but you don't know that yet - he is simply labeled "Mystery Man" if you hover the mouse over him. The Spellchecker is on a simple mission: he drops a large package at your doorstep, rings the doorbell, and walks off. Mission accomplished.

This is kind of brilliant in its own right. If you know what this is, and you don't want to play with magic, you can just sell the box and continue on your way like nothing happened. Easy-peasy. If you don't know what the box is, imagine the curiosity this must pique. Who was that guy? What's in the box? What's in the box?

As a side note, this also marks the start of a tradition in Sims expansion packs of introducing you to the new pack by dropping it off at your door. Later on, university mascots will drop off goodies, vampires will ask to be let in, and an extremely unsubtle time portal will rip through the fabric of reality to be deposited straight onto your front lawn.

But anyway, obviously your interest is piqued, no? There's only one interaction with the box: to open it. And so, you do.

From within the strange package burst forth a number of even stranger objects, spreading out onto your pristine lawn and perfectly weedless walkway. A miniature cauldron bubbles from atop what appears to be a cross between a slot machine and a pencil sharpener; a tablet running something adjacent to a 1990s Windows OS buzzes at the peak of a chest-high stand; a cartoonish, arrow-shaped neon sign points toward a hole in the ground that moves with it. You should probably keep that one out of sight of the neighbors. What are these devices? It's difficult to know immediately. But you'll figure it out very soon.

The package still lingers, sitting open and surrounded by packing peanuts until it catches your attention again. If you investigate the box, it contains the follow: one magic wand, 35 MagiCoins - a currency here-to-fore unseen - a package of toadstools, a bottle of toad sweat, and a stick of butter. Yum. With nothing left contained within, the box closes itself up, does a little spin, and rockets into the stratosphere. You will never see it again.

There is no immediate use for these items either, but you may notice that the toadstools, toad sweat, and butter now rest in your inventory. You may also notice that interacting with the little cauldron-slot-machine-thing produces a prompt to insert three ingredients. If you don't, no worries, all you need do is check out the tablet. This tablet is your spellbook - one of two you can get in the game, the second being a much more traditional musty old tome - and when you first boot it up you are greeted with several pages of nothing. Well, not nothing nothing; you see "unknown spell" after "unknown spell," occasionally interspersed with "unknown charm" (ooh, different types of magic, perhaps?). Next to each blank entry is a list of three items, nearly all of which you have never seen before - nearly. If you have Pets or Superstar installed, you're like to recognize the pet treats and black rose that appear in a couple of later pages. And, more immediately, you'll recognize the items that appear in the very first entry: toadstools, toad sweat, and butter. Hmm.

If you put two-and-two together, the next thing you'll try is to put the ingredients in the cauldron - an object you may now realize is called a "wand charger." In go the mushrooms, in goes the bile, in goes a full stick of butter. With that, the interaction changes: "Charge wand." Hey, you've got one of those! (and if you don't, it's simple enough to check the box, isn't it?) So of course you're going to charge the wand.

The little animation plays of your Sim cranking the handle. When they're done, the wave their wand a couple times to get a feel for it, complete with magical little "fwooosh" sounds. (90s-2000s Maxis are icons of sound design) Now, if you haven't taken to reading the text tutorial (conveniently located diagetically in your spellbook), you'll see your first pop-up: "Toadification." Congratulations! A new spell! The pop-up will suggest you peek at your spellbook, where you'll find the first entry has filled itself in with a... rather ambiguous description of what the spell does. Don't misunderstand me, if tells you point-blank that the spell turns people into toads. But oh, there's more. We'll get to it.

This probably took you, hm, five minutes. And what we have learned? There are magic spells. There's a whole, big book of magic spells! These magic spells require ingredients. Those ingredients must be found... somewhere, obtained... somehow. We have no idea what any of them will do until we make them.

You see the genius in this design, yeah? There's no tricks here, none of the extrinsic motivators and casino tactics that pervade contemporary video games to entice you into spells. All it does is play on your natural curiosity, and reward you for indulging it. That's it. That's all there is to it.

But Makin' Magic has plenty more tricks up its sleeves. Appropriate, given the theme.

A World of Pure Imagination

You've got your wand, you've got your first spell (which you may have even tried out on an unsuspecting neighbor). There's one thing remaining from that box: the hole in the ground.

There is only one interaction available with the hole: "Jump In." So, presumably, you do.

A loading screen appears. A loading screen disappears. Welcome to Magic Town.

In concept, Magic Town is not so different from other sub-neighborhoods introduced in the Sims. Here is a map full of lots, similar to Downtown, Uptown, Studio Town, Vacation Island... actually, I guess most of the expansions have a place like this. And yet, none quite like this one.

Magic Town is not a full town, despite the name. It rests in an old wood that groans in the wind, split in two by a rocky river. On one side, the residential neighborhood of Creepy Hollow - three abandoned lots, ready for you to move in if you've got the coin (you don't). Although later installments will have entirely new towns to live in with practically every expansion pack, this is the first time in Sims history that you'll be offered the opportunity to live somewhere other than the main neighborhood. The only problem is... these houses require MagiCoins in the hundreds, and you've got 35. Another motivator. How do we get more MagiCoins?

On the other side of the river are six lots, divided into three themes. The left-most two are "spooky" - old graveyards stretch toward the horizon, melting into the ancient woods. Crypts and vaults and bones are visible on the lots next to gnarled, old trees. Dilapidated buildings peel and crumble, inviting only the brave inside. A man sells goulash in a large smoothie cup at an outdoor food stall. A skeleton in a maid outfit takes out the trash. If you pick one of these as your destination, you'll find grassy meadows thrumming with activity: Sims leap from other holes in the ground to haggle with the vendor at the apothecary wagon, seat themselves on bone chairs to play with dusty chess sets, peruse the dragon-care wares of the local vampire, or sit themselves down to watch a magic show... with real ghosts. There's a Halloween-i-ness in the air at these two spots, if it wasn't obvious - everything is colored a muted grey, with occasional pops of orange and purple for fun. Signs of death and decay are everywhere, from the coffin-interior wallpaper to the ramshackle outhouses that serve as public toilets to the animated skeleton maid patrolling for litterbugs. Yet, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.

The middle two are a fair bit brighter. Here you'll find colorful glens of bright green grass and overgrown gardens, in which you can see multi-color, Suess-ian flowers growing around sky-high beanstalks. Wooden buildings populate these glens - a bakery supply and garden shop, a cafe and seating area. Around the sides you'll find the apothecary wagon (hey, isn't that the same guy as the spooky place?) and a fairy with her own vendor stall, buckets full of golden thread and diamond dust.

The final two lots represent a carnival. Brightly-striped tents dominate the landscape among carnival games and acts. Sims play a few rounds of minigolf before hopping on the clown-themed rollercoaster. A vendor advertises cotton candy next to the shooting gallery. A great stage sits at the northern end, where anyone - even you! - can try their hand at a few classic stage-magic tricks. Inside the tents, a fortune-telling machine gives cryptic advice while the more humble magicians among Sim-kind practice pulling rabbits from hats. And there are clowns. There are clowns everywhere.

Makin' Magic was the first pack to include magic, but it would not be the last. In later installments, you can see quite clearly where the dev teams got their inspiration from, and it was mainly pop-culture; the Sims 2 drew primarily on The Wizard of Oz with its Good & Bad Witches, the Sims 3 took cues from Twilight and Underworld, including werewolves and vampires and other magical creatures all in a feud with each other in a Pacific North-West town, and the Sims 4... well, gacha games, mainly, World of Warcraft, and a smattering of references to pop culture media containing magical characters.

Harry Potter was rising to the heights of pop-culture mania when Makin' Magic debuted, but beyond the use of a hidden, magical town... there aren't really any parallels. In fact, Makin' Magic does not seem interested in drawing from contemporary pop culture at all. Instead, it's a grab-bag of historical and culture touchstones, shorthand for the macabre, the mysterious, and the magical. Halloween, fairy tales, the circus - and between them is a thread of early 20th-century stage magic. This last one is especially apparent the home decor you can buy, though it may not appear in magic town proper - a basket full of swallowing swords, for instance, and plenty of old magician posters.

There's something so charming and imaginative about this. Though few of today's myopic nerds would consider it unique to rehash what has been done for literally centuries, they don't see how timeless Maxis made the game through this simple choice. Making a Sim-version of Edward Cullen in the third game is cute, but it's only a reference. Making a cosmopolitan kitchen-sink of occult culture is practically timeless. It's child-like, in a way, like mashing action figures togther. But isn't childhood the time when many of us feel the world seems most magical? It's the same sort of whimsy that makes me love Spyro: The Dragon (who will be getting his own blog post at some point).

There is one thing I gotta say before we continue, though. While Will Wright was well-known as so much of an egghead that he even included a suggested reading list in the manual of the original Sims (including A Pattern Language, a book I have on my shelf right now from my master's program that clocks in at over 1000 pages), it seems that cultural sensitivity classes were not in his extensive personal education. There's a lot to say on how the Sims both makes and breaks assumptions about gender, race, sexuality, and culture (and plenty of people have), even how in many ways it upends previous insular and conservative norms of video games, but it's not super when it comes to depicitions of non-White non-American cultures.

Basically, what I'm saying is, Makin' Magic includes Romani, by their very presence, as a signifier of magic and mystery. "Romani are magical" is a bad stereotype. Full stop. There are Romani fortune tellers, Romani salespeople, a fair few decorative objects inspired by Romani peoples, and I'm pretty sure the apothecary wagon is meant to be a vardo (the wagons stereotypically associated with Romani people, though actually only used by a subgroup that live on the British Isles. Neat!). These are not meant to be inclusive choices of an often-maligned ethnic group; they are included because "Romani are magic." The game also uses a term for Romani that many now understand to be a slur. It uses it frequently, in titles of characters and descriptions of home goods. Oh, and lest we forget, there is one (1) Indian-coded man who is a snake charmer. Y'know, because of orientalism.

It's clear that none of this is intended to be malicious - but it is woefully ignorant, and leaves a bad taste in ones mouth to see it. It is well to be put off by such flagrant racism. I wish they hadn't done it, but they did, and frankly Maxis wouldn't learn their lesson until three games later. Shame on them.

I wouldn't have felt right ignoring that sort of elephant in the room. But with it said, I think we can continue onto the rest of the review.

How To Be A Magician

So, we're in Magic Town. Regardless of where we make our first stop, we'll learn a little bit more about magic.