Magic Carpet (video game)
Encyclopedia
Magic Carpet is a video game released by Bullfrog Productions
in 1994. A revised edition, Magic Carpet Plus, included the Hidden Worlds expansion pack
which added 25 levels
and a winter-themed tileset. There was also a sequel
released in 1995, Magic Carpet 2
.
plays a wizard (on a magic carpet
) flying over water, mountains, and other terrain
while destroying monster
s and rival wizards (which are controlled by the computer) and collecting "mana
" which is gathered by hot air balloons
and stored in the player's own castle
.
The story is told in a cutscene that depicts the pages of a book being flipped. According to this back story, mana was discovered and though it initially had beneficial uses, the quest for it made the lands barren. Worse, many corrupt wizards began turning to mana for their own nefarious purposes, eventually leading to war between them. The battling wizards began using more destructive spells and summoning deadly monsters, the latter of which often turned against them. One wizard hoped to end everything with an all-powerful spell but instead only left the worlds shattered. Only his apprentice survived and his goal is to restore the worlds to equilibrium.
Greater amounts of mana stored in the castle allow the player to cast more powerful spells. As the player expands the castle, it spawns additional mana-collecting balloons and armed guards that defend the castle against attacks by enemy wizards. Besides storing mana, the player's castle also serves as a home base for the player where he cannot be killed and where he can regain health and mana.
Victory is attained by storing in one's castle the necessary percentage of the total mana in the current level (or "world"), restoring it to "equilibrium". The total mana level is fixed in a given world (unless expanded by cheat codes), though it is not in free form and thus must be acquired by killing enemy wizards and monsters. Often, a necessary proportion of mana can only be released by the defeat of a high level wizard or powerful monster.
The magic carpet can be piloted in 3 dimensions, similar to a helicopter
, although the player cannot roll and it is impossible to crash
.
At the end of the game, after level 50 "Volcania" has been beaten, a cutscene shows the apprentice flying away on his carpet and the book cover closing.
For offense, there are scorching fireballs, very accurate lightning bolts
and devastating meteor
s. For defence
, players can heal
themselves, bring up a shield
to reduce damage from enemy fire, and even use rebound
to deflect certain fire-based spells back at the enemy.
In multiplayer, there is no completely dominant spell, which results in several tactical dilemmas
. For instance, meteor can often kill weakened wizards with a single hit, but it becomes a double-edged sword if the target wizard has rebound cast. However, rebound is not a perfect defense. It costs a good deal of mana and, as with all other spells, does not allow one's mana reserve to recharge while it is in use. Moreover, it does not defend against lightning and many other powerful attacks. Lightning bolts are more accurate and more powerful than fireballs but lack the latter's longer range.
Exotic spells include teleport
to escape back to one's castle and recharge health and mana and then quickly return, and skeleton
army which creates undead archer minions for either attacking enemy castles or wreaking havoc in civilian
towns.
Terrain-altering spells such as crater
, volcano
, and earthquake
allow the player to carve through a continent (rather than splitting apart a land mass, earthquake digs a twisting gorge in the ground), build up a volcano, or dig a lake
(with crater). Casting the build castle spell in a suitable location causes the ground to morph
into the shape of a fortress. Volcano creates damage both from the initial strike and from the lava rocks that fly out in the subsequent eruption and bounce along the ground. The castle itself can destroy legions of weaker enemies (indeed, it will kill nearly any kind of monster that happens to be over it at the time).
Magic Carpet Plus replaced the rarely used flamewall with the guided meteor (specifically for anti-player duels, as opposed to the regular general-purpose meteor).
, wyvern
s, genies, and crabs.
Krakens pose a deadly threat in bodies of water where they dwell; they use the Duel spell to prevent wizards from escaping and holding them within range of the Kraken's lightning bolts.
Wyverns are considered the most dangerous enemies (apart from other wizards), especially for weak players, due to their flight, rapid fireball breath weapon, and their large amount of hitpoints. Also unique is their aggression, being one of the few monsters to actively attack both castles and towns.
Genies cannot directly harm the player's health; however, their Steal Mana spell will drain the player's mana power, limiting his capabilities in encounters with other wizards or monsters. Genies are not only unrelenting in their pursuit, but if sufficiently wounded, they will teleport away to heal themselves.
Griffins are usually unaggressive monsters, but when attacked, the entire pack will retaliate and will carry a grudge against the player for the rest of the level (unless another wizard attacks them, causing the griffins to switch their attention to the latter). This has often resulted in the death of players who underestimated the numbers of these enemies or forgot that all griffin are protected by the Rebound spell.
The crabs are unique in that they can "consume" loose mana and by doing so gradually grow in size from tiny to large, gaining the use of increasingly powerful spells (first Fireball, then Lightning, and finally Meteor) accordingly. Sufficiently large crabs can even lay eggs to hatch new crabs to start this process all over again. As mana in each level is fixed, the consumed mana can only be released by killing the crab.
The player character is called Zanzamar by default, and his flags are a white color.
Magic Carpet features an optional stereogram
mode. A set of 3-D red/blue glasses came in the box. The game also supported many virtual reality
headsets that were available at the time. It was also the first game to be advertised as being optimized for the new Intel Pentium processor; the "Intel Inside" Pentium logo was shown if the game detected such a processor.
Multi-player mode supported up to eight human players, but required a network card instead of the commonly used modem
or null modem cable of the time.
was the minimum requirement and the Pentium was heavily recommended for smooth gameplay and full graphics detail; many gamers still had 386
processors at the time and as a result the game did not sell well. .
The PlayStation version is a port of the original game that retains many of the PC version's spells. The map has changed slightly, and some of the monster graphics and enemy wizard graphics are slightly different. As in the PC game, one can only save at the end of the level, although levels don't often take a long time to finish. Enemy wizards now have a health-bar over their heads, so one can see when they are close to death. This version does not feature multiplayer but does contain the Hidden Worlds expansion as a reward for finishing the game in "Normal" mode.
Bullfrog Productions
Bullfrog Productions was a UK computer game developer that was founded in 1987 by Les Edgar and Peter Molyneux. The company achieved recognition in 1989 for their third release, Populous....
in 1994. A revised edition, Magic Carpet Plus, included the Hidden Worlds expansion pack
Expansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
which added 25 levels
Level (computer and video games)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
and a winter-themed tileset. There was also a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
released in 1995, Magic Carpet 2
Magic Carpet 2
Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds is a 1995 computer game, the sequel to the Magic Carpet. It was developed by Bullfrog and published by Electronic Arts .-Story:...
.
Gameplay
The playerPlayer (game)
A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
plays a wizard (on a magic carpet
Magic carpet
A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet that can be used to transport persons who are on it instantaneously or quickly to their destination.-In literature:...
) flying over water, mountains, and other terrain
Terrain
Terrain, or land relief, is the vertical and horizontal dimension of land surface. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used...
while destroying monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
s and rival wizards (which are controlled by the computer) and collecting "mana
Mana
Mana is an indigenous Pacific islander concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects. The word is a cognate in many Oceanic languages, including Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian....
" which is gathered by hot air balloons
Balloon (aircraft)
A balloon is a type of aircraft that remains aloft due to its buoyancy. A balloon travels by moving with the wind. It is distinct from an airship, which is a buoyant aircraft that can be propelled through the air in a controlled manner....
and stored in the player's own castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
.
The story is told in a cutscene that depicts the pages of a book being flipped. According to this back story, mana was discovered and though it initially had beneficial uses, the quest for it made the lands barren. Worse, many corrupt wizards began turning to mana for their own nefarious purposes, eventually leading to war between them. The battling wizards began using more destructive spells and summoning deadly monsters, the latter of which often turned against them. One wizard hoped to end everything with an all-powerful spell but instead only left the worlds shattered. Only his apprentice survived and his goal is to restore the worlds to equilibrium.
Greater amounts of mana stored in the castle allow the player to cast more powerful spells. As the player expands the castle, it spawns additional mana-collecting balloons and armed guards that defend the castle against attacks by enemy wizards. Besides storing mana, the player's castle also serves as a home base for the player where he cannot be killed and where he can regain health and mana.
Victory is attained by storing in one's castle the necessary percentage of the total mana in the current level (or "world"), restoring it to "equilibrium". The total mana level is fixed in a given world (unless expanded by cheat codes), though it is not in free form and thus must be acquired by killing enemy wizards and monsters. Often, a necessary proportion of mana can only be released by the defeat of a high level wizard or powerful monster.
The magic carpet can be piloted in 3 dimensions, similar to a helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
, although the player cannot roll and it is impossible to crash
Collision
A collision is an isolated event which two or more moving bodies exert forces on each other for a relatively short time.Although the most common colloquial use of the word "collision" refers to accidents in which two or more objects collide, the scientific use of the word "collision" implies...
.
At the end of the game, after level 50 "Volcania" has been beaten, a cutscene shows the apprentice flying away on his carpet and the book cover closing.
Spells
Magic Carpet has 24 spells covering many categories.For offense, there are scorching fireballs, very accurate lightning bolts
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
and devastating meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
s. For defence
Defense (military)
Defense has several uses in the sphere of military application.Personal defense implies measures taken by individual soldiers in protecting themselves whether by use of protective materials such as armor, or field construction of trenches or a bunker, or by using weapons that prevent the enemy...
, players can heal
Healing
Physiological healing is the restoration of damaged living tissue, organs and biological system to normal function. It is the process by which the cells in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrotic area....
themselves, bring up a shield
Shield
A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace or battle axe to the side of the shield-bearer....
to reduce damage from enemy fire, and even use rebound
Deflection (physics)
In physics deflection is the event where an object collides and bounces against a plane surface.In such collisions involving a sphere and a plane, the collision angle formed with the surface normal must equal the bounce angle , \alpha = \beta.Magnetic deflection refers to Lorentz forces acting...
to deflect certain fire-based spells back at the enemy.
In multiplayer, there is no completely dominant spell, which results in several tactical dilemmas
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people. The game is also known as roshambo, or another ordering of the three items ....
. For instance, meteor can often kill weakened wizards with a single hit, but it becomes a double-edged sword if the target wizard has rebound cast. However, rebound is not a perfect defense. It costs a good deal of mana and, as with all other spells, does not allow one's mana reserve to recharge while it is in use. Moreover, it does not defend against lightning and many other powerful attacks. Lightning bolts are more accurate and more powerful than fireballs but lack the latter's longer range.
Exotic spells include teleport
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
to escape back to one's castle and recharge health and mana and then quickly return, and skeleton
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
army which creates undead archer minions for either attacking enemy castles or wreaking havoc in civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
towns.
Terrain-altering spells such as crater
Impact crater
In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
, volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
, and earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
allow the player to carve through a continent (rather than splitting apart a land mass, earthquake digs a twisting gorge in the ground), build up a volcano, or dig a lake
Lake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
(with crater). Casting the build castle spell in a suitable location causes the ground to morph
Morphing
Morphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes one image into another through a seamless transition. Most often it is used to depict one person turning into another through technological means or as part of a fantasy or surreal sequence. Traditionally such a depiction...
into the shape of a fortress. Volcano creates damage both from the initial strike and from the lava rocks that fly out in the subsequent eruption and bounce along the ground. The castle itself can destroy legions of weaker enemies (indeed, it will kill nearly any kind of monster that happens to be over it at the time).
Magic Carpet Plus replaced the rarely used flamewall with the guided meteor (specifically for anti-player duels, as opposed to the regular general-purpose meteor).
Monsters
The game also has a wide variety of monsters, including giant worms, apes, griffinGriffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...
, wyvern
Wyvern
A wyvern or wivern is a legendary winged reptilian creature with a dragon's head, two legs , and a barbed tail. The wyvern is found in heraldry. There exists a purely sea-dwelling variant, termed the Sea-Wyvern which has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail...
s, genies, and crabs.
Krakens pose a deadly threat in bodies of water where they dwell; they use the Duel spell to prevent wizards from escaping and holding them within range of the Kraken's lightning bolts.
Wyverns are considered the most dangerous enemies (apart from other wizards), especially for weak players, due to their flight, rapid fireball breath weapon, and their large amount of hitpoints. Also unique is their aggression, being one of the few monsters to actively attack both castles and towns.
Genies cannot directly harm the player's health; however, their Steal Mana spell will drain the player's mana power, limiting his capabilities in encounters with other wizards or monsters. Genies are not only unrelenting in their pursuit, but if sufficiently wounded, they will teleport away to heal themselves.
Griffins are usually unaggressive monsters, but when attacked, the entire pack will retaliate and will carry a grudge against the player for the rest of the level (unless another wizard attacks them, causing the griffins to switch their attention to the latter). This has often resulted in the death of players who underestimated the numbers of these enemies or forgot that all griffin are protected by the Rebound spell.
The crabs are unique in that they can "consume" loose mana and by doing so gradually grow in size from tiny to large, gaining the use of increasingly powerful spells (first Fireball, then Lightning, and finally Meteor) accordingly. Sufficiently large crabs can even lay eggs to hatch new crabs to start this process all over again. As mana in each level is fixed, the consumed mana can only be released by killing the crab.
Enemy Wizards
There are 7 computer-controlled wizards to be found along the journey:- Vodor - Red
- Gryshnak - Purple
- Mahmoud - Blue
- Syed - Green
- Raschid - Pink
- Alhabbal - Orange
- Scheherazade - Black
The player character is called Zanzamar by default, and his flags are a white color.
Graphical features
Magic Carpet uses a realtime 3D-graphics engine. It includes features such as:- dynamically lighted, gouraud shadedGouraud shadingGouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
, changeable ("morphable") landscape - Dynamic music that changes whenever the player enters a fight
- Scene reflections in the water
- Distance fogDistance fogDistance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance by simulating fog.Because many of the shapes in graphical environments are relatively simple, and complex shadows are difficult to render, many graphics engines employ a "fog" gradient so objects further...
- Transparency effects, such as the transparent HUDHUD (computer gaming)In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface...
, the water, and the Possess Mana spell when cast. - A particle systemParticle systemThe term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques...
, like the mana balls and flocksHerdHerd refers to a social grouping of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic, and also to the form of collective animal behavior associated with this or as a verb, to herd, to its control by another species such as humans or dogs.The term herd is generally applied to mammals,...
of vultures and other creatures. Often attacking one member of such a group is enough to attract the attention of the rest of the group. - Player viewpoint control using the mouse
Magic Carpet features an optional stereogram
Stereogram
A stereogram is pair of two-dimensional panels depicting the view of a scene or an object from the vantage points of the right and left eyes. Observing the panels superimposed in a stereoscope results in the experience of three-dimensionality by virtue of the fact that object depth is encoded as...
mode. A set of 3-D red/blue glasses came in the box. The game also supported many virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
headsets that were available at the time. It was also the first game to be advertised as being optimized for the new Intel Pentium processor; the "Intel Inside" Pentium logo was shown if the game detected such a processor.
Multi-player mode supported up to eight human players, but required a network card instead of the commonly used modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
or null modem cable of the time.
Reception
The system requirements were rather high for the time; a 486Intel 80486
The Intel 80486 microprocessor was a higher performance follow up on the Intel 80386. Introduced in 1989, it was the first tightly pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating point unit...
was the minimum requirement and the Pentium was heavily recommended for smooth gameplay and full graphics detail; many gamers still had 386
Intel 80386
The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...
processors at the time and as a result the game did not sell well. .
PlayStation
Although there is a PlayStation port, it was not particularly successful.The PlayStation version is a port of the original game that retains many of the PC version's spells. The map has changed slightly, and some of the monster graphics and enemy wizard graphics are slightly different. As in the PC game, one can only save at the end of the level, although levels don't often take a long time to finish. Enemy wizards now have a health-bar over their heads, so one can see when they are close to death. This version does not feature multiplayer but does contain the Hidden Worlds expansion as a reward for finishing the game in "Normal" mode.
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation version of Magic Carpet was released as a PlayStation Network download on March 26, 2009.External links
- Ogrian Carpet a game inspired by Magic Carpet