Tell me about Magic Carpet!

[Erik_Twice]

I hear about this game from time to time and it seems pretty interesting. And anything that has 3D effects and plays with a Joystick seems cool to me.

How is the gameplay? What kind of computer do I need? An early Pentium? Can I power it in Dosbox? I prefer you to tell me about the game instead of reading it from IGN and other sources.

[Hobie-wan]

I know it came out with early Pentiums. I remember 2 friends with a P90 and a P100 (they fought over this all the time) playing the game. I remember it was 3d and there was real time land deformation, but I think it ran at 320x240. That's all I have though.

[Breetai]

I have this game. I ran it on a Pentium 75 with 16 MB of RAM. It ran fine. Really fun game, too. Think Populous, but god is riding on a magic carpet; Peter Molyneux style.

Get it. Heck, get Magic Carpet 2 while you're at it!

[Hobie-wan]

The DOSBOX page says it will work with both MC1 and MC2. That reminds me I have a copy of Magic Carpet 2 that came with a video card. It appears to be a full version of the game, not a demo though it is just the CD and black & white instruction booklet. I don't plan on playing it. If you are interested in trading for it as opposed to heading to ebay, shoot me a PM.

Oh and the requirements for MC2 are only a 486-66 and 8 megs of ram, so yeah, MC1 would have probably run like a screaming banshee on pretty much any pentium.

[Erik_Twice]

I have this game. I ran it on a Pentium 75 with 16 MB of RAM. It ran fine. Really fun game, too. Think Populous, but god is riding on a magic carpet; Peter Molyneux style.

Get it. Heck, get Magic Carpet 2 while you're at it!

Tell me more about the mechanics please. Also how much are those games worth?

It's cool if this game runs on a 486, I plan on getting one of those even if I don't know where to fit it.

[Hobie-wan]

Maybe I was unclear. You can apparently use DOSBox to run Magic Carpet and Magic Carpet 2, so you don't need to get an old 486 or Pentium unless you're into collecting old PCs.

[Ivo]

Tell me more about the mechanics please. Also how much are those games worth?

It's cool if this game runs on a 486, I plan on getting one of those even if I don't know where to fit it.

It should run on a good 486. The game can use more power if you give it more power, but it will play too fast if you give it anything over a Pentium IIRC.

The games should be cheap to get, but you will have to look that up yourself.

Mechanics: you control the movement of the carpet with cursors, and look with the mouse. Aiming is sort of related to the view, but there is a bit of auto-aiming IIRC (which is good).

You have to collect mana balls in order to purify the worlds. There are several worlds (stages / levels). In order to control mana, there is a basic spell (called "Possession" IIRC - later on you get a better possession spell as well) that "colors" the mana in your color (light-blue).

Then, from your Castle (a base) balloons automatically collect the balls that you possessed and brings the mana to your castle. Free mana balls can be re-possessed by any of your rivals and vice-versa (depending on the level there may be several), which is why you want it to be safely stored in your castle. The amount of mana you control (and you don't need it to be in your castle) affects your power level, it is not consumed - your spells recharge faster and you can cast more powerful spells only when you accumulate more mana. You can upgrade your castle (to get more balloons, so that your castle has some defenders, and so that it can store more mana).

An interesting twist is that a good chunk of the mana is actually not free at the start of the level, but rather it is "trapped" inside the monsters. Powerful monsters when killed leave behind more mana, which you will want to possess. There are also often invisible "triggers" that cause monsters to appear.

When there are rivals also going around the level, you will often want to strategically protect your balloons or destroy the rivals, and eventually attack their castle so that it is degraded a level, the storage capacity goes down and the excess mana overflows (so you can then color it for yourself).

It's a game that really is worth playing IMO

Ivo.

[lisalover1]

As I understand, it was also released on consoles; the Playstation and Saturn. Just letting you know.

[Pulsar_t]

When I upgraded to a Pentium 200MHz I gave this a whirl and simply didn't like it. Felt like an outdated tech demo. Panzer Dragoon on the other hand...

[dsheinem]

When I saw the title, I thought you meant this:



http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A ... 3Fid%3D837

That game is the shiz-nit.

Also, probably my favorite magic carpet flying game is/was "Master of the Lamps"



http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A ... FID%3D1609

Fuck the Pentium, the C64 did sweet ass carpet rides well before the 90s.