Can anyone tell me of some adventure games where you must figure out how the magic system works as one of the puzzles? It would also be very helpful to know what platforms these games are for. Thanks!

I don''t think that figuring out the interface would make an insightful and rewarding puzzle...


The_Minister

Have you played Final Fantasy VII? That is a good example of figuring out a magic system inside the game, though it is not a puzzle. Another place you might want to look at is Mage:The Ascension by White Wolf. There roleplaying system does not have specific spells but spheres that you use to create the effect you want. It''s a table-top RPG, but definetly worth the look.

- oni316

In some old text adventure games figurering out the interface was part of the puzzle. You had to experiement to find out what words and word formations that it allowed. In time where computers was slow this was great - because otherwise games would be over too quick, but to today we want challenges is the story and not in the interface.

To your original question about games that allowed you to experiment with the spells and to combine them the classical ones I readily can come up with is:

Dragon Breath (Amiga): Combine components to build potions with varaious effects.
Dungeon Master (Amiga & PC): Combine various runes to build spells.
Ultima Underworld (PC): Combine various runes to build spells.

Go to "Amiga Sector One" to get Amiga games legally. Many companies does not care about the old games and those games are collected here.

B.Sc. Jacob Marner
Graduate Student of Computer Science, The University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
http://fp.image.dk/fpelisjac/rolemaker/

"its not a bug, its a feature"




--
Float like a butterfly, bite like a crocodile.

Nice one there golt . I don''t mean figuring out the spells, I mean the actual interface. As in, what the hell does that button do??

If you just mean that you have to combine spells to get bigass ones, yeah that can''t hurt.

The_Minister
1C3-D3M0N Interactive

Hmmm... In Legend Of Kyrandia series, Magic (potions and scrolls) were part of the puzzle. Also I believe that Quest For Glory series used magic for puzzles a lot... If you chose to play Mage, magic was the only way to solve things like opening doors and so on, while thief picklocked everything and moved in shadows (and warrior used the key

The magic system of the old Ultima Underworld series the magic system was mysterious, fun, and very playable. The player had to actually learn the spells in order to cast them, and in the heat of battle, this led to a scrambling to remember your spells and get the combination off in time without getting hurt. Along the right side of the screen (when the user commanded it to appear, of course) was a list of Runes that the player selected. The player could select up to three of the symbols which would then appear in the casting box then hit a cast button. The player was given an elementary list of spells in the beginning to get the player started. There were then hints on scrolls throughout the game about how one could modify spells to make them more powerful with a slight variation of the symbols or about totally new spells that they could cast. The player also had magic points that the spells used up to regulate how often a spell could be cast and what level of spell could be cast. With proper spell balance of costs, strength, and player knowledge and a logical language of Runes that a player slowly has to discover, I believe that an alternate spell system such as this could really provide a fun spell system for a game.

You may want to try LOOM by Lucasarts. The magic in this game is composed of musical notes, which you must find out throughout the game.

Although it''s graphics supports just 16 color modes (I heard there''s 256 color version, though), the graphic is stunning!

It was made for MS-DOS for IBM-PC compatibles, but I''m sure you can run it under windows systems.


Cheers,

Pion the windsurfer

Hey ! Cool! I remember "Loom". I played it couple of days, but then I got into tornado, where I didn''t find way to get away (I didn''t know the right notes, and well, I was 9-years old without English-skills . Yes, Loom is a game that everyone should try that game, it''s neat!