Cap'n Magneto

Infobox VG
title = Cap'n Magneto


developer = Al Evans
designer = Al Evans
released = 1985, 2000, 2005
genre = adventure
modes = single player
platforms = Apple Macintosh
media = downloadable
requirements =
input = mouse, keyboard

Cap'n Magneto is a shareware graphical adventure game for the Apple Macintosh. The game follows Captain Lance Magneto as he attempts to capture the "Crown of Control", a mind-control device being used to commit piracy around the planet Rigel IV. As he approaches the planet the device is used on his ship, causing it to crash. The player controls Magneto and tries to collect items from the map in order to capture the Crown and leave the planet.

The game takes place on a top-down 2-D map, which is colorized in recent versions. The characters, including Magneto, appear in side view. By modern standards the map is quite small, wrapping around after about three window-sizes, the windows remaining limited to the original 512 × 384 resolution of the early Macs. Magneto could move only in the four cardinal directions, either by pressing buttons on the "control panel" on the right side of the screen, or by using the cursor keys in modern versions (early Macs did not include cursor keys). There are several other buttons used to identify objects and translate the alien speech, pick up or drop objects, and to use the various equipment found while playing.

Like most adventure games, Cap'n Magneto is based on finding and collecting important items scattered around the map, and then using them to access different areas of the map and continue in this fashion. Most of the map consists of various "buildings", including the broken remains of Magneto's ship, as well as a useful apple tree and a small island. Some of the map locations lead to "new maps" when entered, areas that are represented by smaller buildings on the original "outdoors" map.

Also scattered around the map are various alien characters who are sometimes friendly; friendly aliens will follow Magneto around the map, periodically saying various "help text"-like statements that are spoken using the Mac's speech system. These statements come out as an odd garbled sound and text until Magneto retrieves his tricorder from the ship's wreckage, although it is possible to partially decode the text labels as the symbol font used to obscure the text is similar enough to make some text legible.

Friendly aliens will help Magneto in combat, dramatically improving his odds of winning the game. Although friendlies are not particularly strong attacking, enemies attacking Magneto have an equal chance of attacking any friendlies nearby, reducing the number of hits Magneto will take. Combat is very simple; the player clicks on a target and holds the mouse (or cursor key) while a "battle counter" appears and displays random numbers, the idea being to release the mouse when the number is high in order to do more damage. Magneto's health is displayed as a small bar at the bottom of the screen, and will regain strength with time.

The game was originally written in 1985 by Al Evans for the original 128K Macintosh in Lisa Pascal, and is claimed to be the first fully interactive game for the Mac. [ [http://www.capnmagneto.com/instructions.html Cap'n Magneto game manual] ] This version continued to work on all of the early versions of the "classic" Mac OS and was a common shareware fixture. In 1990, MacUser magazine named Cap'n Magneto one of the 200 best Macintosh products. The game stopped working under System 7, and several compatibility updates followed.

In 1993, Cap'n Magneto was updated for compatibility with System 7 and Macintoshes up to the Quadra 850. This version was never widely distributed, as the original publisher went out of business before it was released. A quickly-patched version running on Mac OS X appeared as one of the "hacks" at MacHack 2000, known as "The Return of Cap'n Magneto". In 2005 a new Carbonized version was released to run natively on Mac OS X, and the original and 1993 versions were released free for download.

References

External links

* [http://www.capnmagneto.com Cap'n Magneto web site]