in a theoretical game idea of mine:

The basis of the game is the spell system. At the beginning of the game, you'll take spells from the two divisions of magic, white and black. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses and ways they interact with the world around them. For example, black magic is more offensive and physical oriented making it ideal for those who want dish out a lot of damage and firepower. White magic, on the other hand, is more defensive and mental using defense and telekinetic spells to give you a high defense boost with a few offensive attacks. Later on, you'll unlock the gray magic skill tree after you find a gray mage mentor on the resistance route. Gray magic is more of a Jack of all trades sort of it. It mixes both defensive and offensive skills with an added bonus of certain spells that aren't found between the two skill tree branches.

• Each spell can be upgraded in a skill tree of their own with their own branches to choose from. Say you want your fireball spell to shoot 3 fireballs in an arch formation, there's an upgrade for that or you want your magic shield to manifest as a wall, there's an upgrade for that.

• The spells can be used for puzzle solving as well. Take for instance a light and dark puzzle that asks you to guide a beam of light through each platform in order to activate a switch.

• Combat is the usual fare save for the use of staff fighting. The fighting in the game relies on combos you’ve purchased from the skill tree which then can be utilized as a special staff combo. However, the same can’t be said for using a spell. You can just simply press one of the 1-5 number keys to use the one you’ve assigned the key to.

• Each combo is different depending on the stance Ezaniel is in. white staff combos are all about counter attacking and defense as well as grace and swiftness. Black staff combos are more offensive and rely heavily on quick, damaging strikes with little to no defense.

?take note, this idea might not get done since family life and school has been screwing with me as of late. so i might not plan on making this a reality.

Sounds solid and straightforward. I like the idea of staff fighting being a big part of the magical world, since everyone needs a staff. That's pretty cool. It's all about the execution going forward then.

What kind of spells might one use for puzzles? For instance, in your example, how would a White Mage guide a beam of light? A Black Mage?

Sounds solid and straightforward. I like the idea of staff fighting being a big part of the magical world, since everyone needs a staff. That's pretty cool. It's all about the execution going forward then.

What kind of spells might one use for puzzles? For instance, in your example, how would a White Mage guide a beam of light? A Black Mage?

i was thinking of using light for mirror based puzzles or moving objects with telekinesis. for black, i don't even know.

I love the idea of two branches of magic, but I do have some questions about your game.

Is this a PvE or PvP game?
Will the player only have a single character to control or will they command a team with a mix of white a black magic characters?
Will you be fighting large groups of enemies, will there be boss fights?
Is the combat turn based or real time?

But going on what you have, a few ideas for spells.

Black Magic
I think it would be interesting if many of the really powerful black magic spells cost more than just mana. Maybe you need to spend some of your own life to cast them.
A lifesteal spell.
Cursing. A cursed target will take slow damage over time.
Necromancy. Raise the dead to fight for you.

White Magic
A stasis spell. You freeze your enemies so they cannot move or attack.
An illusion you create a copy of yourself that distracts enemies.
Return damage armor. A portion of damage taken is returned to the attacker.
Convert. Changes an enemy to be on your team.

Also, what are you making this game in? If you are using unity I could help you get started with a node based spell editor I made for my current project. Am image of the node based system is on the bottom of this page.
https://platformrpg.wordpress.com/2015/12/02/use-smaller-components-in-unity/
Keep in mind the user experience isn't great. There are some major usability issues that need to be resolved like there is no undo and saving deletes free floating nodes. So be sure to have your project under version control if you use it so you can revert a spell back if parts of it get deleted. I have found it extremely useful for quick prototyping of spells and being able to treat spells as a resource.

this game is a open world action platform. think jak and daxter meets dragon age.

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