Games for Stage-Magic Fans Who Enjoy a Well-Prepared Surprise

Mr. Rabbit is waiting behind the curtain, and the only way through his show is to solve it, one act at a time. Rusty Lake gets through twenty little setups, giving you a chance to work out what the props are for before the next act asks for a different kind of attention. Start here for a short show with an unsettling edge.

The DS can give you a demonstration or help you perform for someone sitting opposite. Some routines use the cards that came in the box, and others use the handheld itself as a prop. Choose this if you want to rehearse a trick and then see how differently it feels with an audience.

At the gaming tables of eighteenth-century France, a convincing card routine is worth more than a good hand. You rehearse a deception and then have to carry it through with other people watching. It's a good game for the part of a magic act where remembering the sequence is only half the work.

Getting a trick onto the stage takes several decisions in this tabletop strategy game. You claim a trick, get its components, and make room to rehearse and perform with your crew. Try the Tabletopia version if the part of a magic show you want to play is all the work that happens before the curtain goes up.

Pick the magician career and what goes onstage matters. You arrange props and choose what to perform, and going back to the same trick too often can hurt the show. It’s a satisfying way to build from a small booking to a bigger act. The expansion requires The Sims 3.

The magic trunk gives this pinball table a place to hide its surprises. Balls can seem to levitate or change course, and the playfield treats that apparent impossibility as part of the show. Choose the Theatre of Magic table in Williams Pinball: Volume 3 if you want a stage prop that also changes where you aim.

A circus’s star magician disappears, and you investigate as both a fellow magician and a private eye. Each sees a different part of the same show, and you get only so many actions before time moves on. It’s a good mystery for anyone drawn to the moment when a performer and a spectator realize they’ve been watching different things.

Go to Spirit of Justice in this collection and choose its second case, “The Magical Turnabout.” A stage performance lands Trucy Wright in court, where her assistant Bonny has to testify. Bonny also performs a teleportation act of her own. The case is a good choice if you enjoy sorting what a witness saw from what a performance led them to expect.

Detective Kate Gray and Murphy are out at a magic show when the evening turns into a case. The investigation takes you backstage and into a separate audition in which magicians watch one another work. Choose this story in Adventure Escape Mysteries if you want the people and places behind a show to be part of the puzzle.

Bess Houdini asks you to investigate her husband’s death in this supernatural hidden-object mystery. Your work includes a card routine and an illusion involving a trunk and a curtain. Those sections are the reason to choose it if you like putting stage props together and seeing what a performance can hide.

Click around the stage and a prop may start a chain of movements. Getting the sequence right completes a routine and opens another. It’s a small point-and-click game for the rehearsal side of magic, when it’s still possible to stop, try something different, and see which part you missed.

A retired magician gathers fellow practitioners at his castle for one more performance. Searching for objects and untangling the illusionists' motives gives you a chance to look at the preparations before seeing what they were meant to accomplish. It’s a hidden-object game with a good reason to notice every prop.