.gif)
Magic: The Gathering (MicroProse)
Encyclopedia
Magic: The Gathering is a computer game published by MicroProse
in April 1997 based on the collectible card game
Magic: The Gathering
.
The game takes place in the plane
of Shandalar, where the player must travel the land and fight random enemies to gain cards, and defeat five wizards representing the five colors. The player must prevent one color from gaining too much power, and defeat the planeswalker
Arzakon, who has a deck of all five colors. Adventure game
and role-playing game
elements are present, including inventory, gold, towns, dungeons, random battles, and character progression in the form of new abilities and a higher life point total. An oversized version of Aswan Jaguar was included in the game box.
Two related products were released, the expansion pack Spells of the Ancients and Duels of the Planeswalkers. Duels of the Planeswalkers was an improved version of the main game that didn't require the original to be installed.
The match progresses in phases and turns, corresponding with the M:TG rule-set, with the program automatically skipping over certain phases when no action is possible and/or required. The player can set break-points to allow him or her to execute "fast-acting" spells or card abilities in case the program is not smart enough to automatically spot such possibilities. Each player's life-counter is displayed on their side of the playing field, and will either rise or drop according to the progression of the game. The player can also rearrange his or her played cards to allow better visibility when the playing field becomes crowded, often during prolonged matches.
When the card duel is initiated as part of the Single-Player Campaign, special rules may apply. Often this includes higher (or lower) life counter for one or both players, a card that appears at the start of the match for one or both players, or a global effect that influences both players (either beneficial or detrimental, often depending on the composition of either player's deck).
Travel across the world map is in real-time. The player moves the character across the landscape using simple mouse clicks, evading or intercepting enemies who themselves are predominantly interested in intercepting the player-character. Upon a successful interception, the game transfers into "duel" mode, where the player competes against the encountered enemy using the Magic: The Gathering card game system. A card or set of cards is often wagered, and particularly powerful enemies might offer additional rewards beyond the waged cards. Some enemies have unique abilities that allowed them to gain a specific advantage for the duration of the battle, while some enemies can summon up a surprise substitution to play in their stead (e.g. a more powerful enemy).
The landscape is composed of patches of different types of terrain, corresponding with the five colors of the game world. Different terrain might offer benefits or hindrances to movement, although roads could also be used for travel in which case the player-character moved faster than enemies. Terrain also dictates the boundaries across which enemies could travel, as they have to adhere to terrain matching their own color(s). More importantly, each type of terrain offers a chance for special encounters to appear, often unique to one terrain type or another. Such encounters yield anything from combat to instant rewards, and often included riddles that required some knowledge of the various game cards.
The world map contains a large number of cities which could be visited, and these form the backbone for the underlying roleplaying mechanics in this game. Each city offers some cards for sale (of a color matching the terrain around the city), the purchase of food (required to prevent slow-downs on the world map due to hunger), and often quests that usually involve reaching another city, acquiring a specific card, or engaging an enemy in the nearby area. Cities also buy cards from the player, allowing him or her to tidy the playing deck and make money for the purchase of food and better cards. Some cities also offer special items that enhanced player performance, or allow the player to create special effects such as instant teleportation. These items are unlimited in number of uses, although some depended on the consumption of colored gems that can be collected in various encounters and upon completion of quests.
The landscape also contains a handful of dungeons, whose location can be discerned through various means, particularly the completion of quests and defeat of powerful enemies. Within a dungeon, special rules apply regarding combat, which could hinder or enhance a player's abilities. The dungeon interface is made up of a randomly-generates series of perpendicular tunnels, with enemies placed in various locations and intersections. The player has freedom of movement within the tunnels (although enemies could not move here, unlike on the world map), but cannot pass through a spot taken by an enemy without initiating combat with that enemy (again, combat using the Magic the Gathering card game system). The tunnels also contain bonuses that can be picked up, which give a random effect on the player, often bestowing a free creature at the beginning of the next match played, or extra life to use in the next match. Dungeons are important because of the special cards contained within, that could not be found anywhere else in the game world. These are often high-value cards that would give the player a strong advantage, if used.
The player's primary goal is to destroy the five mages who are vying for domination of the realm. To do this, the player has to seek out and destroy the castle of each and every mage. Castles are played similarly to dungeons, except they contain no special cards, but instead contain the mage himself/herself which would have to be defeated. If the mage is defeated in card combat, the castle is destroyed. Also, mages occasionally send a minion to attack a city on the map, which requires the player to react promptly, travelling to this city within the alloted time and defeating the minion in card combat. The player can also attempt to conquer cities, by completing the city's related quest. Upon "conquering" or "Liberating" a city, the player might be bestowed with an extra life point which was added to the player's total life-points for each and every match afterwards. Therefore, the game often revolves around the player attempting to gain control of more cities, while preventing the enemy mages from gaining control themselves.
After defeating all five mages, the player then has to confront a final enemy who plays with cards of all different colors. This enemy has many more life points than any other enemy in the game. The amount of damage the player managed to do to this final boss, before the fight ends, constitutes the player's final score for the campaign.
business). A corresponding flight of personnel was happening as well. Sensing trouble with the Magic project, the famous and marquee Sid Meier
was assigned to it. This game would be the last that Meier would ever work on with MicroProse, as he went on to found his own studio, Firaxis Games
, shortly afterward.
and Antiquities
.
and The Dark
.
Windows 95
. While most games released for Windows required at least Windows 95, a bug
in the installer for this game required the user be running precisely Windows 95; users of later versions of Windows had to use a compatibility mode. In subsequent versions, the problem with the installer is fixed. The game runs on Windows 95 and may run on 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, depending on the hardware configuration.
MicroProse
MicroProse was a video game publisher and developer, founded by Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as Microprose Software. In 1993, the company became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte and has remained a subsidiary or brand name under several other corporations since...
in April 1997 based on the collectible card game
Collectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
.
The game takes place in the plane
Plane (Magic: The Gathering)
In Magic: The Gathering, planes are parallel universes in the Multiverse Planes are often confused with planets by Magic players, because most planes are named after their primary planets...
of Shandalar, where the player must travel the land and fight random enemies to gain cards, and defeat five wizards representing the five colors. The player must prevent one color from gaining too much power, and defeat the planeswalker
Planeswalker
In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, a planeswalker is a mage with the ability to travel to different planes of existence.-Magic: The Gathering:...
Arzakon, who has a deck of all five colors. Adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
and role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
elements are present, including inventory, gold, towns, dungeons, random battles, and character progression in the form of new abilities and a higher life point total. An oversized version of Aswan Jaguar was included in the game box.
Two related products were released, the expansion pack Spells of the Ancients and Duels of the Planeswalkers. Duels of the Planeswalkers was an improved version of the main game that didn't require the original to be installed.
Game Mechanics
The game is playable in several modes: a single-player campaign, a duel or tournament against computer-controlled opponents, and later a multiplayer experience added by the Manalink add-on. All three share the same dueling interface, which is based on the mechanics of the real-life Magic: The Gathering card game. In Duel and Multiplayer modes, the game allowed a player to construct his or her own deck (using a specialized Deck Editor), or to play with a randomly generated deck (simulating a "fresh pack of cards" as was the custom in various tournaments at the time). The single-player campaign however required the player to participate in a large-scale quest, during which he or she would endeavor to gather cards and thus be able to construct more powerful playing decks, hopefully powerful enough to defeat the campaign's chief antagonists.Card Duel
This mode of the game attempts to simulate the experience of playing with actual Magic: The Gathering cards. The player is shown a tableaux which is divided into two halves - the lower half for the player's cards, and the upper half for the opponent's cards. Both players draw randomly from their own available cards (their personal "deck"), then proceed to play a standard game of Magic: The Gathering, based as closely as possible on Magic: The Gathering official rules.The match progresses in phases and turns, corresponding with the M:TG rule-set, with the program automatically skipping over certain phases when no action is possible and/or required. The player can set break-points to allow him or her to execute "fast-acting" spells or card abilities in case the program is not smart enough to automatically spot such possibilities. Each player's life-counter is displayed on their side of the playing field, and will either rise or drop according to the progression of the game. The player can also rearrange his or her played cards to allow better visibility when the playing field becomes crowded, often during prolonged matches.
When the card duel is initiated as part of the Single-Player Campaign, special rules may apply. Often this includes higher (or lower) life counter for one or both players, a card that appears at the start of the match for one or both players, or a global effect that influences both players (either beneficial or detrimental, often depending on the composition of either player's deck).
Single-Player Campaign
The single-player campaign is played mainly on an isometric representation of the game world, consisting of a randomly generated landscape dotted with terrain features and places of interest. The player initially selects a difficulty level and a preferred magical "color", and subsequently is given a randomly-generated deck consisting (mainly) of cards from that chosen color. The character is then transported to the world map, initiating the game.Travel across the world map is in real-time. The player moves the character across the landscape using simple mouse clicks, evading or intercepting enemies who themselves are predominantly interested in intercepting the player-character. Upon a successful interception, the game transfers into "duel" mode, where the player competes against the encountered enemy using the Magic: The Gathering card game system. A card or set of cards is often wagered, and particularly powerful enemies might offer additional rewards beyond the waged cards. Some enemies have unique abilities that allowed them to gain a specific advantage for the duration of the battle, while some enemies can summon up a surprise substitution to play in their stead (e.g. a more powerful enemy).
The landscape is composed of patches of different types of terrain, corresponding with the five colors of the game world. Different terrain might offer benefits or hindrances to movement, although roads could also be used for travel in which case the player-character moved faster than enemies. Terrain also dictates the boundaries across which enemies could travel, as they have to adhere to terrain matching their own color(s). More importantly, each type of terrain offers a chance for special encounters to appear, often unique to one terrain type or another. Such encounters yield anything from combat to instant rewards, and often included riddles that required some knowledge of the various game cards.
The world map contains a large number of cities which could be visited, and these form the backbone for the underlying roleplaying mechanics in this game. Each city offers some cards for sale (of a color matching the terrain around the city), the purchase of food (required to prevent slow-downs on the world map due to hunger), and often quests that usually involve reaching another city, acquiring a specific card, or engaging an enemy in the nearby area. Cities also buy cards from the player, allowing him or her to tidy the playing deck and make money for the purchase of food and better cards. Some cities also offer special items that enhanced player performance, or allow the player to create special effects such as instant teleportation. These items are unlimited in number of uses, although some depended on the consumption of colored gems that can be collected in various encounters and upon completion of quests.
The landscape also contains a handful of dungeons, whose location can be discerned through various means, particularly the completion of quests and defeat of powerful enemies. Within a dungeon, special rules apply regarding combat, which could hinder or enhance a player's abilities. The dungeon interface is made up of a randomly-generates series of perpendicular tunnels, with enemies placed in various locations and intersections. The player has freedom of movement within the tunnels (although enemies could not move here, unlike on the world map), but cannot pass through a spot taken by an enemy without initiating combat with that enemy (again, combat using the Magic the Gathering card game system). The tunnels also contain bonuses that can be picked up, which give a random effect on the player, often bestowing a free creature at the beginning of the next match played, or extra life to use in the next match. Dungeons are important because of the special cards contained within, that could not be found anywhere else in the game world. These are often high-value cards that would give the player a strong advantage, if used.
The player's primary goal is to destroy the five mages who are vying for domination of the realm. To do this, the player has to seek out and destroy the castle of each and every mage. Castles are played similarly to dungeons, except they contain no special cards, but instead contain the mage himself/herself which would have to be defeated. If the mage is defeated in card combat, the castle is destroyed. Also, mages occasionally send a minion to attack a city on the map, which requires the player to react promptly, travelling to this city within the alloted time and defeating the minion in card combat. The player can also attempt to conquer cities, by completing the city's related quest. Upon "conquering" or "Liberating" a city, the player might be bestowed with an extra life point which was added to the player's total life-points for each and every match afterwards. Therefore, the game often revolves around the player attempting to gain control of more cities, while preventing the enemy mages from gaining control themselves.
After defeating all five mages, the player then has to confront a final enemy who plays with cards of all different colors. This enemy has many more life points than any other enemy in the game. The amount of damage the player managed to do to this final boss, before the fight ends, constitutes the player's final score for the campaign.
Development
The project to make Magic: The Gathering came during turbulent and troubled times at MicroProse, as it had recently lost a large amount of money pursuing unprofitable ventures (such as an arcade gameArcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
business). A corresponding flight of personnel was happening as well. Sensing trouble with the Magic project, the famous and marquee Sid Meier
Sid Meier
Sidney K. "Sid" Meier is a Canadian programmer and designer of several popular computer strategy games, most notably Civilization. He has won accolades for his contributions to the computer games industry...
was assigned to it. This game would be the last that Meier would ever work on with MicroProse, as he went on to found his own studio, Firaxis Games
Firaxis Games
Firaxis Games is a computer game developer. It was founded in 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds upon leaving MicroProse. The company focuses on strategy games and is based in Sparks, Maryland in the United States....
, shortly afterward.
Spells of the Ancients
This expansion pack was released on September 1, 1997. It included an upgrade of the game engine and interface, improved AI, and a sealed-deck tournament feature. It also added cards from older editions of the base set, the expansion sets Arabian NightsArabian Nights (Magic: The Gathering)
Arabian Nights was the fourth Magic: The Gathering set and the first expansion set. The set is composed entirely of new cards. The setting of Arabian Nights is inspired by the themes and characters of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights with some of the characters and places coming directly from...
and Antiquities
Antiquities (Magic: The Gathering)
Antiquities was the fifth Magic: The Gathering set and the second expansion set. It was the first set to have an original backstory that explores the mythos of the Magic universe . The story is primarily about the brothers Urza and Mishra who are inseparable at first, but become sworn enemies over...
.
Duels of the Planeswalkers
This was an upgraded version of the original game released on January 14, 1998. Owners of the original game were eligible for a mail-in rebate. It included the original game, all of the upgrades included in Spells of the Ancients, and 80 new cards from the expansion sets LegendsLegends (Magic: The Gathering)
Legends was the seventh Magic: The Gathering set and the third expansion set, released in June 1994. It was the first expansion set to be sold in packs of 15 . The set was designed by Wizards of the Coast co-founder Steve Conard and friend Robin Herbert in Canada before the game was initially...
and The Dark
The Dark (Magic: The Gathering)
The Dark was the eighth Magic: The Gathering set and the fourth expansion to the game, released in August 1994. The set continued the story begun in Antiquities and recounted the aftermath of the events of that set. The 119-card set had a dark, sacrificial theme, though unlike its predecessor...
.
Astral set
Twelve unique cards, constituting the Astral set, were exclusive to this computer game and not printed on paper (with the exception of the oversized Aswan Jaguar included in the box) They used completely randomized effects that would be difficult to play in an actual game. Each card had its own associated sound effect (The Goblin Polka Band played a spritely tune when used.):| Card name | Casting cost | Card type | Description | Illustration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aswan Jaguar | 1GG | Creature - Jaguar | When Aswan Jaguar comes into play, choose a random creature type from those in target opponent's library. GG,T: Destroy target creature of the chosen type. It can't be regenerated. (2/2) |
Pat Morrissey |
| Call from the Grave | 2B | Sorcery | Return target creature card chosen at random in the graveyard to play under your control. Call from the Grave deals to you damage equal to that creature's casting cost. | Quinton Hoover |
| Faerie Dragon | 2GG | Creature - Dragon | Flying 1GG: Play a random effect. (1/3) |
NèNè Thomas |
| Gem Bazaar | – | Land | As Gem Bazaar comes into play, choose a color at random. T: Add one mana to your mana pool of the color last chosen. Choose a color at random. |
Liz Danforth Liz Danforth Elizabeth T. Danforth is a figure of note in the game industry. Although primarily recognized as an illustrator, she is an editor, writer, game scenario designer, and game developer.-Creative works:... |
| Goblin Polka Band | RR | Creature - Goblin | X2,T: Tap X target creatures chosen at random. Spend only red mana on X. Goblins tapped this way do not untap during their controllers' next untap phases. (1/1) |
Quinton Hoover |
| Necropolis of Azar | 2BB | Enchantment | Whenever a non-black creature is put into a graveyard from play, put a husk counter on Necropolis of Azar. 5, Remove a husk counter from Necropolis of Azar: Put a black Spawn creature token with swampwalk named Spawn of Azar into play. That token has power from 1 to 3 chosen at random and toughness from 1 to 3 chosen at random. |
Rob Alexander |
| Orcish Catapult | XRR | Instant | Randomly distribute X -0/-1 counters among a random number of random target creatures. | Melissa Benson |
| Pandora's Box | 5 | Artifact | 3,T: Each player reveals his/her library. Choose a random creature card from each library revealed this way. For each player, flip a coin. If heads, put a token into play that is a copy of that player's revealed card. Then each player shuffles his/her library. | Amy Weber |
| Power Struggle | 2UUU | Enchantment | At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player exchanges control of random target artifact, creature or land he or she controls, for control of random target permanent of the same type that a random opponent controls. | Mark Tedin |
| Prismatic Dragon | 2WW | Creature - Dragon | Flying At the beginning of your upkeep, Prismatic Dragon becomes a random color. 2: Prismatic Dragon becomes a random color. (2/3) |
Amy Weber |
| Rainbow Knights | WW | Creature - Knight | When Rainbow Knights comes into play, it gains protection from a random color permanently. 1: Rainbow Knights gains first strike until end of turn. WW: Rainbow Knights gets +0/+0, +1/+0, or +2/+0 until end of turn, chosen at random. (2/1) |
Douglas Shuler |
| Whimsy | XUU | Sorcery | Play X random fast effects. | Anson Maddocks |
Requirements
Magic: The Gathering was released for MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
. While most games released for Windows required at least Windows 95, a bug
Software bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
in the installer for this game required the user be running precisely Windows 95; users of later versions of Windows had to use a compatibility mode. In subsequent versions, the problem with the installer is fixed. The game runs on Windows 95 and may run on 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, depending on the hardware configuration.