Merlin (also known as Merlin The Electronic Wizard, stylized as MERLIN) is a

handheld electronic game Handheld electronic games are very small, portable devices for playing interactive electronic games, often miniaturized versions of video games. The controls, display and speakers are all part of a single unit. Rather than a general-purpose ...

first made by

Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known by Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products wer ...

in 1978. The game was invented by former

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employee Bob Doyle, his wife Holly, and brother-in-law Wendl Thomis. 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 File:1980s replacement montage02.PNG, 420px, From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, ''Columbia'', lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ease tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the ...

. A version of the game was re-released in 2004 by the

Milton Bradley Company Milton Bradley Company or simply Milton Bradley (MB) was an American board game manufacturer established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the ...

Overview

Merlin has the form of a rectangular device about nine and a half inches long and three inches wide. The play area of the game consists of a

matrix Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...

of 11 buttons; each button contains a red LED. These buttons can either light up or flash. The array is encased in a red plastic housing, bearing a slight resemblance to an overgrown

touch-tone Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed ...

telephone. Four game-selection and control buttons are also placed at the bottom of the unit; a speaker takes up the top section. Supporting electronics (including a simple

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

) are 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, having line segments around the dots. Both of these shared 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. The games that can be selected are: *''

Tic tac toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses ( Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...

'' *''Music machine'' *''Echo'', a game similar to

Simon Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...

*'' Blackjack 13'' *''Magic square'', a pattern game similar to Lights Out *''Mindbender'', a game similar to

Mastermind Mastermind, Master Mind or The Mastermind may refer to: Fictional characters * Mastermind (Jason Wyngarde), a fictional supervillain in Marvel Comics, a title also held by his daughters: ** Martinique Jason, the first daughter and successor of th ...

The ''music machine'' game functions as a musical instrument; in this mode, each key is assigned a musical note, and sequences of notes can be recorded and played back. This makes Merlin one of the earliest digital sequencers as well as an early consumer-level electronic synthesizer. In 1978, Merlin appeared with Milton Bradley's Simon on the cover of the Christmas issue of ''

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'' and the October issue of ''

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

''. The Toy Manufacturers of America named Merlin the best selling toy and game item ( SKU) in America in 1980 with 2.2 million sold. In its lifetime, it sold more than 5 million units.

Merlin: The 10th Quest

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

, Parker Brothers redesigned Merlin, including making it a one-player game with more challenges called ''Merlin: the 10th Quest''. The premise of Merlin was still the same, but for each game completed, an icon was displayed on the screen showing proof of victory. Instead of the six games from the original, there were nine games: *''Swords & shields'', a game like

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...

*''Seek the

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'', a game like the shell game *''Castle keep'', a game of guessing a number between 0 and 99 *''Spell bender'', a

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

-like game *''Mindcaster'', played like Mastermind *''Magic Square'', played like Lights Out *''Singing sword'' *''Ghost walk'' *''Dragon dance'' In ''singing sword'', the object is 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'', directional pads move the ghost towards the center of the screen and destroy it, but the ghost can resist. ''Dragon dance'' involves being surrounded in all directions by dragons. If a dragon appears, it is killed by pressing the directional pad where that dragon is. Each of the three last games keep time. After defeating all nine games, Merlin announces "Brave knight, the challenge awaits" and the 10th quest begins. This involves running 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 the maze is solved in record time, Merlin would say "Congratulations, you are a master" and display the time in the dungeon maze.

References

{{Reflist

External links

*Merlin for Java: https://github.com/nietoperz809/merlin
''Merlin''
at the Handheld Museum
''Merlin the Electronic Wizard''
official website
''6502 Games by Rodnay Zaks''
book showing how to build a homebrew 6502 board that plays recreations of Merlin games Products introduced in 1978 Audio games Handheld electronic games Milton Bradley Company games Parker Brothers games 1970s toys 1980s toys