Merlin (game)

Merlin (game)
For other uses, see Merlin (disambiguation).
Merlin

Merlin (sometimes known as Merlin, the Electronic Wizard) was a handheld electronic game first made by Parker Brothers in 1978. Merlin is notable as one of the earliest and most popular handheld games, selling over 5 million units during its initial run, as well as one of the most long-lived, remaining popular throughout the 1980s. A version of the game has been recently re-released by the Milton Bradley Company.

Merlin was created by Bob Doyle, a Harvard PhD and inventor who had previously worked with NASA. Merlin took the form of a rectangular device about eight inches long and three inches wide. The play area of the game consisted of a matrix of eleven buttons; each button contained a red LED. The array was encased in a red plastic housing, bearing a slight resemblance to an overgrown touch-tone telephone. Four game-selection and control buttons were also placed at the bottom of the unit; a speaker took up the top section. Supporting electronics (including a simple microprocessor) were contained within the shell of the game. Parker Brothers later released Master Merlin with more games, and the rarer Split Second, where all games involve time with a more advanced display, sporting line segments around the dots. Both of these share the same general case shape, and came out a few years after Merlin.

Merlin's simple array of buttons and lights supported play of six different games, some of which could be played against the computer or against another person. Here is the list of games that could be selected:

  1. Tic Tac Toe
  2. Music Machine
  3. Echo, a game similar to Simon
  4. Blackjack 13
  5. Magic Square, a pattern game similar to Lights Out
  6. Mindbender, a game similar to Mastermind

The Music Machine game functioned as a musical instrument; in this mode each key was assigned a musical note, and sequences of notes could be recorded and played back. This made Merlin one of the earliest sequencers as well as an early consumer-level electronic synthesizer.

In 1978 Merlin (painted blue) and Milton Bradley's Simon shared the cover of the Christmas issue of Newsweek.

The Toy Manufacturers of America named Merlin the best selling Toy and Game Item (SKU) in America in 1980 (2.2 million sold).

Gold Merlin from TMA.jpg

Contents

Pop culture

  • Featured on I Love the '70s: Volume 2
  • Featured on My Name Is Earl - Episode Number: 42 - Season Number: 2 - First Aired: Thursday February 22, 2007
  • Featured on Fantasy Island Episode Number: 14 - Season Number: 3 "The Look-Alikes/Winemaker" First Aired: December 22, 1979
  • Master Merlin was used as a prop in the Firefly television series.[1]

Merlin: The 10th Quest

In 1995, Parker Brothers redesigned Merlin for a new generation and made it a one-player game with more challenges called Merlin: the 10th Quest. The premise of Merlin is still the same, but for each game completed, an icon is displayed on the screen showing proof of victory. Instead of 6 games from the original, you now have 9 games to play:

  1. Swords & Shields, a game like Tic-Tac-Toe
  2. Seek the Grail, a game like the shell game
  3. Castle Keep, a game where you guess a number between 0 and 99
  4. Spell Bender, a Memory-like game
  5. Mindcaster, played like Mastermind
  6. Magic Square, played like Lights Out
  7. Singing Sword
  8. Ghost Walk
  9. Dragon Dance

In Singing Sword, you have to push the right buttons to make the swords on the screen disappear. Pushing the wrong button will make a sword appear. In Ghost Walk, you use directional pads to move the ghost towards the center of the screen and destroy it, but the ghost can resist. In Dragon Dance, you are surrounded in all directions by dragons. If a dragon appears, kill it by pressing the directional pad where that dragon is. Each of the three last games keep time.

After you defeated all 9 games, Merlin announces "Brave Knight, the challenge awaits!" and you're immediately thrown into the 10th Quest. You have to run through a dungeon maze to escape through the exit. The first round of the dungeon is simple, but the second round shows the walls temporarily before vanishing while the third round has invisible walls.

If you managed to conquer the maze in record time, Merlin would say "Congratulations! You are a Master!" and displays your time in the dungeon maze. Naturally, to win the game again, you have to do everything faster than before.

References

  1. ^ "Parker Bros Master Merlin used in the TV show Joss Whedon's Firefly". http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Movies/Firefly.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-21. 

External links

Stub icon This game-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.