Cristian Mihailescu, also known as black_whirlwind45, Authorman, or Mr.Author was a beloved man from Romania, known to the community for being the Author of the Magium books. Not much was known about his personal life, as he led a private life outside of his work on this game.
Personal Life[]
Early Life[]
Not much is known about his early life, as he kept those things private, and will likely be kept that way. We know he lived in Romania and had at least one older brother.
Working on Magium[]
Cristian started working on Magium in 2015, while his game started out with a loyal but small community, it would go on to grow quite a bit. Magium was something he was passionate about and at least early on he interacted a lot with his community. Often he gave updates to how things were going and he did his best to answer as many questions as possible.
By March 2019, the subreddit had grown to have almost 5K members, by May 2021 it doubled to 10K, and now in September 2024 we stand at 15K reddit members. The Discord server currently has over 1,200 members. The Magium app has 4.8 stars from 60K reviews and has over one million downloads.
Unfortunately, as working on Magium went on, his communication eventually ceased. The community grew in size, and questions became plenty but unanswered. It was unknown what was going on in his personal life, which made it difficult to understand this absence which distressed many in the community greatly.
Death[]
On August 6th 2024, Cristian Mihailescu passed away to suicide. He had been incredibly depressed and had not told anybody. He had a note on him apologising for having cancer. On August 10th his funeral was held at the cemetery "Iancul Nou" from Bucharest, and a day later his brother posted the news to the Magium Subreddit.[1] His death was incredibly sad to the fans who had been enjoying Magium for years. On August 31st, Dreycan also posted an artwork[2] as tribute to Cristian.
Legacy[]
Cristian Mihailescu's legacy lives on in the hearts of many. His mother will forever know the loss of a son, his brother the loss of a brother. But despite this, his family is putting forth effort in making sure his legacy lives on through the game. His brother is likely going to put forth the game's code as open source, so that the community can continue it for him.[3]
Outside of just continuing the game, Cristian influenced at least thousands of people with his game, who greatly cherished it and read it. His work has inspired others to write, and will also inspire more to write new things in the future. His game has gotten much artwork, and that will not stop now that he has passed. He had a community that loved him dearly, despite their actions that showed otherwise, and that same community will do what is in their power to help ensure his work is not defaced. Despite the hardships endured by the community, it is within our power to not let it be in vain.
Outside of this, it cannot be stressed enough how much support must be lended to Cristian's family. They have known him the longest, held him dearest, and it should not be ignored how devastating someone's death can be to their family structure. So if there is anything that can be done for them, the community should try to help his family out in any way possible.