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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS for Bullfrog/EA's "Magic Carpet" Glenn E. Brensinger <glenn.brensinger@swcbbs.com> -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.0 - First revision 1. What is Magic Carpet? 2. Where can I get it? 3. What's the idea of the game? 3.1 Getting Started 3.2 Controls 3.3 Spells 3.4 Creatures 3.5 Tips 3.6 Cheat codes 4. How well does it play on xxx system? 5. Are there any bugs? 6. How does net play work? 7. Can I make my own levels? ------------------------------------------------- About this FAQ --------------- Magic Carpet is a game that hass rapidly gained popularity. It brings a new type of 3D game, and a new idea, to a market that has been flooded with nothing but "me too" games that attempt to jump on the 3D bandwagon (and fail miserably.). However, the demo sorely lacks in documentation - I almost gave up on the game until speaking with several people who had already figured it out. Here, therefore, is my attempt to educate new players on the game. 1. What is Magic Carpet? Magic Carpet is a first-person "in your face" type of game that puts you in the role of an apprentice wizard on a flying carpet. Anyone who has ever had dreams of being able to fly and cast magical spells of incredible power will love this game. Magic Carpet uses true 3D objects, meaning that if you fly around a house or castle, it has distinctly different sides. Damaging one side does not give you a damaged view on all sides. Creatures and people running around the levels have fronts and backs to them - they will not always be facing you. The landscape uses realtime fractal graphics, and can be altered by the player. Volcano spells create mountains of death, and craters do just that - create huge pits in the ground. Magic Carpet was created by Bullfrog, the same company that did Populous 1 and 2, PowerMonger, Syndicate, and Theme Park. It is published in CD-ROM format by Electronic Arts. 2. Where is it available? You can get it at any commercial software store or mail order outfit. It is only available on CD-ROM, but there is a two-level demo available from ftp sites, online services, or bulletin boards. ftp sites: ftp.ea.com ftp.uml.edu ftp.uwp.edu Bulletin Boards: Software Creations BBS "Home of the Authors" 508-368-7036 Public access 508-368-7139 Members only Download CARPET.ZIP America Online: Keyword PC GAMES, quickfind on BULLFROG 3. What's the idea of the game? The demo doesn't come with any sort of documentation... here's what you're supposed to do. (This is all in the book if you bought the CD.) The world has been set into imbalance by (of course) human squandering and abuse of power. The wizards of the realm have done nothing but fight over power, and your master, in an attempt to correct the problems, was killed casting a spell. You, as his apprentice, are responsible for setting each world to right by collecting mana and storing it in your castle. (The demo has two levels, the CD has 50. An add-on disk is rumored, and you can create your own maps.) 3.1 Getting started After configuring for your sound card, you'll see a menu consisting of a globe, a window, a stack of books, a picture, and something that looks like a pile of Tinkertoys. The globe starts a new game. If you have a game in progress, there will be an hourglass sitting in the window, on which you would click to continue. The stack of books is for saving and loading games (unavailable in the demo.) The picture is for entering your name, and the pile of Tinkertoys is for network play (unavailable unless you have loaded NETBIOS.) You move around the level using the mouse and the keyboard to collect spells and mana. Spells are in red jars and are added to your collection by running over them with your carpet. Note that some spells cannot be cast until you have a certain amount of mana collected, so they will be greyed out for a while. "Mana" are the yellow balls laying around the land and water. You also produce mana when you kill something. When you cast a "possession" spell at them (second spell on the spell grid) they change to your color. (White, unless you're playing network play, when they will change to whatever color you are playing.) There are other wizards flying around as well, and they will also be trying to collect mana, changing it to their color. You can change it back to your color by casting a possession spell on it. All this mana needs to be stored in a castle, which you can create with a castle spell. When you create a castle, a balloon will start roving the landscape. This balloon will pick up any mana you have changed to your color, and take it back to the castle. As your castle fills up with mana, you can cast an additional castle spell to expand it (up to a level 7.) The larger your castle, the more balloons you have (up to three.) The more mana your castle is storing, the more magical power you have to cast spells. There is a small white "notch" on the bar that shows your castle's mana. This is the amount of mana you have to collect before you can move on to the the next level. 3.2 Controls Cursor keys: Movement (forward, backward, slide right/left) Enter key: Full map, show spells (can also hit both mouse buttons) Left mouse: Cast left-hand spell Right mouse: Cast right-hand spell Sliding the mouse right or left will bank and turn in that direction. Sliding the mouse forward and back will raise or lower your altitude. 1-0: Select numbered spell for left-hand CTRL 1-0: Select numbered spell for right-hand Shift-L: Destroy your own castle (Believe it or not, this sometimes is necessary. Occasionally, you'll build your castle next to something that won't let you expand any further.) R: Toggle VGA/SVGA (SVGA requires a Pentium and 16 meg RAM) F1: Sound effects on/off F2: Music on/off F3: Speed normal/fast/super fast (Useful if you have all enemies cleared and just have to collect mana. Better than waiting a week for your balloons to collect it all.) F4: Softened image on/off (adds a hazing effect to distant objects) F5: Water reflections on/off F6: Clouds on/off F7: Shadows on/off F8: Icons and map view on/off F9: Speed blur on/off F10: Toggle 3D/stereogram/normal (If you have ever seen those random dot drawings at the mall, where there is supposedly a picture in all that color, you can actually play the game like that. The game comes with red/blue glasses so you can play in 3D mode as well.) 3.3 Spells Looking at the map screen, from left to right, top to bottom: Fireball: Casts a flaming ball at your enemy. Possession: Changes mana to your color. Can also be used to put your flag on a building, adding it to your little "empire." The archers protecting that building will now attack enemy wizards. Accelerate (forwards): Adds a temporary burst of speed ahead. Castle: Create or expand your castle. Heal: Convert mana into health. Reflection: Temporarily reflects fire-based attacks back at the caster. Shield: Temporarily absorbs some damage. Invisibility: Renders you invisible until you attack. Earthquake: Rips a large crack in the ground, buildings, and/or castles. Crater: Creates a huge crater in the ground. Meteor: Hurls a giant devastating flaming rock at your enemy. Volcano: Creates a volcano, complete with explosive eruption and flaming rocks. Does wonders on enemy castles. Lightning Bolt: Hurl lightning bolts at your enemy. Lighning Storm: Creates a lightning ball that showers the land with lightning. Undead Army: Raises a small army of skeletons to battle your foes. Mana Magnet: Changes a mana ball to your color, and causes it to attract other mana balls in the immediate area. Steal Mana: Takes mana away from other wizards. Beyond Sight: The map will briefly show where other players and their balloons are located. Duel to the Death: When cast on an opponent wizard, they will not be able to leave the immediate area until one of you dies, or one of you chickens out with an accelerate spell. Teleport: Instantly takes you back to your castle. Cast again to return to your previous position. Wall of Fire: Creates an impenetrable wall of flame on the ground. Accelerate (backwards): Lets you retreat in a hurry. Global Death: Destroys anything in the immediate area. Rapid Fireball: A repeating barrage of fireballs. The demo only uses Fireball, Possession, Castle, Accelerate (forward and back), Heal, and Rapid Fireball. (All spells are possible with the cheats however.) 3.4 Creatures Apes: Twice the size of Trolls but similar in behavior and likewise armed with boulders, which they sling at you and your castle like confetti. Killer Bees: Swarm together and attack both you and your castle. Bees are armed with stingers, so must get close to inflict damage. They are more harmful than vultures and harder to kill. Crabs: When a Crab egg hatches, the small crustacean which emerges is already armed with fireball spells. But Crabs are voracious feeders, and as they consume mana they grow larger and more powerful. A medium-sized Crab will attack you with lightning bolts, and an adult hurls meteors. When full grown, Crabs can lay eggs, propagating another generation of this pincer-clawed peril. Dragons: An airborne version of the Worm, similarly armed with fireballs but far quicker and more agile, and therefore that much more difficult to kill. Emu Riders: These flightless birds carry archers at incredible speeds across the landscape, raining volley after volley of arrows down upon you before disappearing into the distance. Genie: Less of a threat, more a monumental pain in the pants, genies cast fireballs and steal your mana. While unlikely to destroy you, they have the annoying habit of teleporting out of combat situations only to turn up later with their powers restored. Griffin: The Griffin is unique in two ways: it can penetrate the cloak of your invisibility spell, and only attacks if you're rash enough to fire first. Armed with lightning bolts, the Griffin becomes a formidable foe when roused. Kraken: When the Kraken wakes, this sea-bound Behemoth emerges from the icy depths firing bolts of lightning. The Kraken is also armed with the Duel spell, and once caught in its vice-like grip you'll be lucky to escape with your turban intact. Skeltons: Unless stopped, this skeletal scourge launches volley after volley of arrows at you and your castle. They hate the human archers who guard towns and villages, killing them to swell the ranks of this undead army. Trolls: Slow and stupid but very strong, Trolls are armed with boulders. They have the enviable ability to regenerate after an injury, so a little bit of overkill might be required to make certain a troll stays dead. Vultures: These flockers will attack you and your castle. They use their claws to attack, so need to get very close to do damage. Worms: Earthbound, but armed with fireballs that are capable of downing you and your carpet in double-quick time. Wyvern: This flying nightmare makes a Dragon resemble a spring lamb. The Wyvern is armed with rapid fireballs and is immune to the Rebound spell. It attacks castles, eats mana, and even when beaten half to death can regenerate its power in a very short time. 3.5 Tips As soon as possible, create a castle. As long as you have a castle, you will always be brought back to life with the entire level as it was. Without a castle, if you die you have to start the entire level over again. Keep an eye on the castle status bar - if it starts flashing red, it's under attack and you should go defend it. Don't build your castle near any wall you can't fly over, or right next to an existing castle. Eventually you will get to a point where you cannot expand any further, which means tearing down and starting over. Building on water has the advantage of being protected from land-based attacks, but you still have airborne attacks to handle. A single bee or vulture is easy to handle, but a swarm of them is deadly. Don't get caught in the middle of one. Griffins won't attack you unless you attack them first. Don't bother them unless you have enough lightning to back up an attack - they are invulnerable to fireball and meteor attacks, and can see through your invisibility shield. Griffins can be used to your advantage. If you're being chased by an enemy wizard, fly over a flock of Griffins. If you're quick enough, one of the enemy wizard's attacks will end up hitting a Griffin, which will cause the entire flock to attack your enemy. You, meanwhile, can keep going the other direction. As powerful as Wyverns are, they CAN be killed. You'll need to either hit them with a barrage of meteors, or cast a Reflect spell to protect you from their attacks, get underneath them, then cast Global Death. Sometimes two Global Death spells are necessary, so be sure you have a full charge of mana before setting after one of these horrors. Undead armies are great to cast at an enemy so you can leave to do other things. Keep an eye on them though. If the enemy falls, the undead will wander around looking for something to attack - including your own castle. Lightning Storms use more mana, but you can cast it then get out of the way to avoid a retaliatory strike. Your mana will not recharge while the following spells are active: Accelerate, Reflect, Shield, Invisible, Teleport, Global Death. Accelerate can be cancelled by reversing direction of travel; Invisibilty is cancelled when you attack something. All other spells must run their course before your mana will replenish. Cast a Reflect spell before hitting an enemy wizard with a meteor. If they have cast a Reflect spell, your meteor will come back and hit you instead. You can number ten of your favorite spells. When looking at the map screen, hold the mouse pointer over the spell, then press a number to assign that spell. Hitting that number later will instantly select that spell. Kill crabs while they are small. The larger they grow, the harder they are to kill, and the more dangerous they are. Genies can be killed with Global Death, and when they die, they leave behind the mana they collected. Hitting them with fireballs or lightning will make them go away, but they will come back eventually. Crater and Earthquake will drop the ground out from under an enemy, damaging or killing them in the process. If you cast Crater, Earthquake, or Volcano at an enemy castle, it will damage the castle, however the castle will repair itself. Cause enough damage and the castle will drop down a level, discharging any mana it now cannot hold onto the ground around it. This is a good time to use Mana Magnet to collect it in a hury. If an enemy wizard dies, cast Possession at their bones. Not only can you scoop up the spells they dropped, but you now inherit any mana they collected. If you want to completely rid the level of an enemy wizard, you have to completely level their castle first. Like you, as long as they have a castle, they will reincarnate until the next level. 3.6 Cheat Codes There are cheat codes available if you absolutely give up on a level. They work in both the demo and CD version. Press "I" You'll get a >? prompt on the screen. Type RATTY and hit Enter (you'll hear a "bong" sound.) From here, the following are active: ALT-F1 Activates all spells (Some levels will not allow all spells to be used.) ALT-F2 Increases your mana ALT-F3 Destroy all other wizards ALT-F4 Destroy all other castles ALT-F5 Destroy all other balloons ALT-F6 Full health ALT-F7 Destroy all visible creatures SHIFT-C Complete level Even with the cheat codes, some spells will not be available until your castle is at a certain level. 4. How well will it play? Magic Carpet requires a 486 or better with 8M memory. Local bus or PCI video is strongly recommended. It also requires a mouse with driver loaded. The game will optimize itself for Pentium systems, and a Super VGA mode is available if you're playing on a high-speed Pentium with 16M memory. (I tested it on a Pentium 75 with 16M, and the framerate on SVGA was still pretty slow with all options enabled.) If you have a 386, don't bother, and if you're not sure how well your 486 will hold up, try the demo first. If you notice a slow frame rate or response time, especially if there is a lot happening at once, you can temporarily shut off options such as clouds, reflections, and other things that eat up processor time. I tested on these systems: DEC 486/33 EISA, 20M RAM, Diamond 24X video card ------------------------------------------------ Some options need to be turned off in order to get a smooth frame rate. Gateway 2000 486DX2/66 VLB, 16M RAM, ATI Graphics Ultra Pro video ----------------------------------------------------------------- VGA mode runs smoothly, however the game will slow down a bit if there are a lot of explosions and movement on the screen at once. NEC Versa Pentium 75, 16M RAM, Chips and Technologies video ----------------------------------------------------------- VGA mode is extremely quick, no slowdowns at all. SVGA mode is sluggish unless extra options like shadowing and reflections are disabled. 5. Are there any bugs? Well, unfortunately, there was one. Level 50, Volcania, had a higher mana requirement than there was mana. There is a patch available that will lower the mana requirement for that level. (The patch is available on America Online in the Games Forum, or on Software Creations BBS as LEVELS.ZIP It more than likely is available elsewhere, but I can personally vouch for the file being at the above two places.) 6. Net play With NETBIOS drivers, you can connect up to eight (two in the demo) systems together to hammer on each other. Apparently the game does require NETBIOS - the generic packet drivers that work for DOOM, ROTT, and DESCENT don't appear to work with Magic Carpet. You can select the players and level to fight on; the objective is to collect all mana on that level (and wipe out your opponent as often as possible.) For the DOOMites, this would be considered "Carpet Deathmatch." On the map screen, if you point the mouse down below the map, you'll get a Network grid listing all players, as well as the number of times they have been killed and how much mana they have. (If they have a higher mana count than you do, you may want to wait before attacking them.) 7. Can I make my own levels? You can create your own maps for the game by using LBM pictures. On the CD version, there is a demo of this called BULLFROG.LBM Without an actual map hack editor, there doesn't appear to be any way to actually create your own levels - even with a different map, placement of spells, mana, trees, etc, are all static. End of Version 1.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Corrections, additions, and/or suggestions - send E-Mail to glenn.brensinger@swcbbs.com